I have a Win11 machine with a high resolution display (3840x2160) running WinXP in VB. I want to use a DOS design program that uses the mouse, but when I launch it the mouse cursor typically lands at the edge of the window. Only by very carefully moving the mouse can I get it within the window, and only with extremely small movements of the mouse can I get it to stay within the window. Each movement increment is a big jump.
Mouse movement in the main XP GUI window is normal. It's only within the DOS window that there is a problem.
The design program uses its own custom video driver that uses GDI calls from Windows, but AFAIK there are no mouse features in it.
Incidentally, I can use the cursor keys on the keyboard to move the mouse in normal steps, but it is extreeeeeemly slow.
So I believe the problem is one of very low mouse resolution within XP DOS. Is there any known method of adjusting this?
TIA....
Mouse resolution in XP DOS under Win11
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ghr
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Re: Mouse resolution in XP DOS under Win11
Just out of curiosity: I played a bit with this, using an old DOS based HPGL viewer in WinXP. This runs in cmd as well as COMMAND; and it takes the whole screen so I went to scaled mode and that made it a bit better usable. Nevertheless I also see a couple of issues: apart from a nervous mouse: [1] the handling of pointer when outside edges is poor and [2] there is no 1:1 relation between host mouse pointer and guest one... By the way, reducing mouse speeds (host and/or guest) did not seem to change a lot.
Re: Mouse resolution in XP DOS under Win11
ghr, thanks for your response. I got it figured out.
It has to do with the Mouse Integration. I had seen in other docs on other sites that mouse integration was a key factor, and I thought that I had followed that procedure by unchecking "Mouse integration" in the Settings / User Interface / Input (Normal window) screen, but that didn't solve it.
I finally discovered the options on the button for Mouse Integration at the bottom right of the guest window.
The key is to toggle the button until it shows the blue mouse with the yellow caret(?) for "MI is Off, pointer is captured".
When you return to the guest, the mouse will behave normally inside the DOS window for the graphic app.
(Update correction - mouse control in the DOS window requires the grey mouse with the orange caret.)
I saw a description of the bad behavior in some other messages, but saw no solution for it.
Hope this helps someone else.
It has to do with the Mouse Integration. I had seen in other docs on other sites that mouse integration was a key factor, and I thought that I had followed that procedure by unchecking "Mouse integration" in the Settings / User Interface / Input (Normal window) screen, but that didn't solve it.
I finally discovered the options on the button for Mouse Integration at the bottom right of the guest window.
The key is to toggle the button until it shows the blue mouse with the yellow caret(?) for "MI is Off, pointer is captured".
When you return to the guest, the mouse will behave normally inside the DOS window for the graphic app.
(Update correction - mouse control in the DOS window requires the grey mouse with the orange caret.)
I saw a description of the bad behavior in some other messages, but saw no solution for it.
Hope this helps someone else.
- Mouse Integration.png (43.21 KiB) Viewed 1341 times
Last edited by Techineer on 8. Jan 2024, 06:34, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Mouse resolution in XP DOS under Win11
If is is dos then a better options is one of the DosBox forks as these are better for DOS apps than Virtualbox IMHO (based on 15 years of using the two for mods, serial HW and low level timing and int calls - DJGPP int 16/32 emulation in the early 2000 dev work).
Search for dosbox-x or dosbox stanging as the dosbox releases are a bit stale at the moment.
Search for dosbox-x or dosbox stanging as the dosbox releases are a bit stale at the moment.
Re: Mouse resolution in XP DOS under Win11
I tried DOSBox, and I can see certain benefits to it. However, the keyboard keys were mapped differently than my keyboard..... the '\' and quote keys were other things, and research indicated that I would have to change keyboard drivers. I didn't want to run the risk of messing up my main OS with that. I also tried VMWare, but couldn't figure out how to resize the window. I am starting to get VirtualBox working as I want it to... now trying to get networking, printers and USB access.
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javispedro
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Re: Mouse resolution in XP DOS under Win11
Can you reproduce what you're saying with say edit.com ?
It's unclear what you're saying as programs running in "DOS windows" cannot make GDI calls. I cannot figure if it's a DOS program. If it is a DOS program, then it must have some mouse support and/or rely on the XP emulation of it. Depending on how the DOS program is written, there may be _no_ way to do mouse integration correctly.
It's unclear what you're saying as programs running in "DOS windows" cannot make GDI calls. I cannot figure if it's a DOS program. If it is a DOS program, then it must have some mouse support and/or rely on the XP emulation of it. Depending on how the DOS program is written, there may be _no_ way to do mouse integration correctly.