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FAQ: Autotrax XP video driver

What operating systems does the driver work under?

It was designed for just XP. It uses NTVDM calls, and so it definitely will not work under Windows 98 (W98 uses a different method for running DOS apps). It has been tried under W2k, and the mouse support failed. We don't have a solution that gives mouse support under W2k yet.

The driver failed to work in my machine, is there a diagnostic?

The file "autoxpdv.log" contains a terse account, in programming terms, of what the driver did during initialization. It does not include comments about what happened after initialization, and certainly includes no information that is private to the owner of the computer. You can send us this log file, and it sometimes helps us to work out what happened. However, not everything can be in the log file - it contains details of just the original windows sizing.

My mouse doesn't work in Autotrax

The mouse doesn't work in Autotrax until you right click on the title bar and select "Hide Mouse Pointer" - but read the next question!

My mouse won't go back to the desktop!

When you run autotrax and select "Hide Mouse Pointer" in the title bar to give Autotrax the mouse, you need to either quit Autotrax (Esc - F - Q -Y) or Alt-tab away from the Autotrax screen to give control of the mouse back to windows.

The maximize and Close window buttons at the top right of the window do not seem to have any effect

Yes, these buttons are pretty uneventful in our application. But when you think about it, they often fail to work for most DOS applications, - DOS apps have to be shut by shutting the app directly. In the case of Autotrax, use the key sequence "Esc F (for file) Q (for quit) Y (for yes)" We have a way to maximize the screen size, see the "Resizing" question below.

Does Alt-tab work?

Alt-tab does not work when "bigwindo.on" file is set in C:\autotrax. Well, actually, it does work, but the Autotrax screen stays on top of the display, so the window you have Alt-tabbed to canot be used. When you are running in a small window (ie "bigwindo.off" setting) the Alt-tab is far more useful, - you Alt-tab away from Autotrax, minimize Autotrax, and then you can use other apps/windows.

Does the Minimize button work?

Yes, but it is only useful when the setting is "bigwindo.off" If the setting is "bigwindo.on" then when you restore the screen, it will not redraw correctly as NTVDM resizes it away from the original dimensions. We may be able to repair this in the future.

Does window resizing work?

Unfortunately, not directly. Autotrax is a DOS application and we can only tell it once (as it starts) how big its window is. To change the window size the most effective method is to change the default window size for NTVDM. To get to this, right click the title bar of the autotrax window and adjust poperties: layout: window size. You then need to exit Autotrax and restart before the changes will take effect.

There is also another way to adjust the window size that avoids messing with the NTVDM defaults. You rename the file C:\autotrax\bigwindo.off to C:\autotrax\bigwindo.on. However, when you do this, Minimize will not work as the screen will restore with the NTVDM default size. Because minimize does not work in this mode, effectively Alt-tab is not useful either.

Can I use Printscreen?

I don't think Printscreen works too well with any graphics DOS apps under XP. Printscreen does work under Win98 with Autotrax using the VGA640.DRV driver.

NTVDM came up with a "NTVDM.EXE has encountered a problem and needs to close"

Our driver cannot run two autotrax screens at once. If you accidentally start two copies of Autotrax, this message happens every time, and both copies of the program are shut down.


This page was last updated 23 September 2008