DOS program uses the wrong keyboard in Vista

[Paul48]

I use an old DOS program (dBase) in Vista 32; it runs, but uses the wrong keyboard, I use a German keyboard, but it gives the keys of the US keyboard (y instead of z, no umlauts etc.). Changes in the language bar (keyboards etc.) did not help.

I inserted in autoexec.nt the line "Keyb16 gr,850,C:\Windows\System32\keyboard.sys" in several versions (without 16 etc.). Did not work. In the DOS windows, the German keyboard is used; but when I start dBase, it uses the US keyboard.

DOSBox does not work, installing Virtual PC 2007 seems to be too much. Any suggestions?

 

[johngalt]

Hi, Paul48, and welcome to the forums.

I suspect that this is not going to be resolvable unless you can find some resources for forcing dBase to change the codepage that it uses - as that program is not Unicode compliant, that is why it is using the US layout even though you are using a German system. it is one of the pitfalls of using older programs on Vista.

 

[volker]

Opening a cmd window, moving to the DBase directory and typing:

SET COUNTRY = 049,850,%SystemRoot%\System32\COUNTRY.SYS
%SystemRoot%\System32\KB16 GR,850,%SystemRoot%\System32\KEYBOARD.SYS
DBase

allowed me to use a german keyboard layout in DBase.

Unfortunately putting the first two lines into autoexec.nt did not have the same effect.
So I created a batch file C:\db4.bat with notepad:

echo off
C:
cd db4
SET COUNTRY = 049,850,%SystemRoot%\System32\COUNTRY.SYS
%SystemRoot%\System32\KB16 GR,850,%SystemRoot%\System32\KEYBOARD.SYS
DBase

Then I created a link to this file (which is a pif), changed the icon to "dbase.ico" from my Dbase directory and copied it to my desktop. You can edit the colors and size of the cmd window as well as the character type and size.
You can also copy the link to your start menue.

Works like a charm.