DOS printing from FP menu

[Bob Rasmussen]

>
> > Quoting Jim Asman (Tue,  4 Oct 2005 15:42:10 -0700):
> >
> > >
> > > The command...
> > >
> > > print /d:\\servername\sharname filename
> > >
> > > prints fine when entered via a command prompt or as part of a batch file
> > > run from a command prompt.
> > >
> > > Put the same command into a filepro menu, scipt, or a system call from
> > > processing, and nothing prints and nothing is spooled.

The "print" command has been broken for a long time! It was an early DOS
command that started a print in the background, and then returned control
to the user. Some folks asked "How did they do that?", and reverse
engineered it. That was the start of Terminate-and-Stay-Resident (TSR)
programs in DOS. They were quite tricky. Some versions of Anzio could do
this.

I don't know what its current status is, but I have avoided it for years.
I generally do the COPY method as you were shown, although I usually add a
"/b" flag, for "binary", to make sure my 8-bit data goes through.

BTW, one way you can sometimes get troublesome commands to run is to run
command.com or cmd.exe with a "/c <command-to-run>" parameter.

Regards,
....Bob Rasmussen,   President,   Rasmussen Software, Inc.

personal e-mail: ras at anzio.com
 company e-mail: rsi at anzio.com
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