Article ID 807
Article Title INFO: What is DFRUNCON??
Article URL http://www.dataaccess.com/kbasepublic/kbprint.asp?ArticleID=807
KBase Category Legacy Char Mode
Date Created 04/28/1999
Last Edit Date 01/03/2007


Article Text
QUESTION:
What is DFRunCon?

ANSWER:
Starting with DataFlex 3.1, there are three EXE files being shipped: DFRun.EXE; DFRunDOS.EXE and DFRunCon.EXE.

DFRun.EXE and DFRunDOS.EXE are identical.  The main difference between DFRunDOS (which is referred to as the DOS runtime) and DFRunCon (which is referred to as the Console Mode runtime) is that DFRunDOS uses the DOS4G memory manager and DFRunCon uses the Windows memory manager (that is why you must be using Windows or NT to use DFRunCon).  Since DFRunDos works with both DOS or Windows/NT systems it is shipped with DFRunDOS.EXE copied into DFRun.EXE.  If you like using the DFRunCon (which solves many DOS4G memory problems) you can copy it over the DFRun file so all your batch files and icons will still work without changing them.  

The other difference is that each invocation of DFRunDOS consumes one authorized user, where only the first invocation of DFRunCon is counted on each machine (this is out of the installation guide).  What it is saying is if I have 5 DOS boxes open in my Windows 95 computer all running DFRunDOS -- I will be using 5 user count in my .DFR file.  If you have 5 DOS boxes open on your computer all running DFRunCon -- you will only be using one user count in your .DFR file.

If you wish to use DFRunCon make sure you have the DF3.1d version it solves keyboard problems that were present in the DF3.1c version.  DF3.1d is a free download to everyone with a DF3.1c license.    

Update:
Console Mode is a Microsoft character mode API for 32-bit Windows platforms.  It's not DOS at all (real mode or extended mode), which is what dfrun and flex.  Applications that use the Windows Console Mode API run like GUI Windows applications, but with a character mode interface.

What does this really mean to a developer?  The Console Mode runtime (dfruncon) is more stable on the newer Win32 platforms than the DOS runtime (dfrun) and, because dfruncon is a "real" Windows program, it can use the various database connectivity options that are available (because of DLL support that DOS programs don't have).  DFrunCon also supports real Windows printing (using WinLst).








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