See DOSBox IS NOT SUITED TO RUN YOUR NON-GAMING DOS APPLICATION for starters.

Psojed wrote:

I tried to find what ports my computer can use using 14day trial of "Serial Port Monitor" application

Portmon from http://www.sysinternals.com is free, if I'm not mistaken.

Desired serial mode not supported (9600,5,n,1).

That is a really weird mode for a serial port.

If this is a LAN version, why should it need the serial port at all? If you're trying to use this for remote access, don't you want to use DOSBox's serial port over TCP/IP emulation?

@Jorpho:
Yeah, I read that. But since the other option is buying new notebook/pc with 32bit windows, it's definitely worth trying.

TY for the Portmon, small, free and useful.

I don't want to use serial port over TCP/IP emulation, or at least not yet. First of all I'm trying to simply launch the application.
I can't launch the LAN version because of the error, and I don't know the cause. If it states "wrong network type", it should be something with the network settings, driver or general configuration.

I've asked another guy who's using this app and I've been told that the LAN version
1) is trying to connect to the network on startup, but it doesn't use it afterwards (unless I want to send/receive ofc) and works the same as the non-LAN version
2) tries to connect to COM1 since it uses default printer settings with COM1. But then it works again without using COM1 as long as I don't want to print anything.
Printing doesn't really matter as long as I am able to run the app.

Are you sure this program is supposed to run under DOS? You say you can get it running in Windows XP, but networking programs for DOS require a fairly unusual set of drivers completely unlike what would be loaded in the XP command prompt.

You might consider using XP mode if you're running Windows 7 Ultimate, or otherwise use a virtual machine (such as VMware) running XP.

Either way, I suspect there may be some kind of separate configuration program (or at least some sort of settings file) that can be altered if it is particularly sensitive to network settings.

Also, what specific line did you use use in your DOSBox configuration for the serial port? And are you saying you don't get the network error when you run the program in DOSBox (i.e. not the Windows XP command prompt) in XP? If a program runs in DOSBox in XP, generally it should run in DOSBox in Windows 7.

Psojed wrote:

2) tries to connect to COM1 since it uses default printer settings with COM1. But then it works again without using COM1 as long as I don't want to print anything.

This doesn't make sense either, as the overwhelmingly vast majority of printers use parallel ports (e.g. LPT1) and not serial ports. Or is this application supposed to use some kind of special receipt printer?

Yes it should run from DOS, that's the primary system.
We have tested that it runs in any 32bit version of Windows up to Windows 7 without Dosbox. I launched this app under Windows XP without Dosbox.
I'm using Dosbox only because that 64bit Vista won't handle 16bit DOS application.

I checked the files, there is one .cfg file but its really small and the inside is encrypted/hashed (you see only random stuff, not a single word or config setting)

Sadly we don't have Ultimate version, so we can't use XP mode. I will try VirtualBox.

And yes, it uses receipt printer as default one 😀

So it runs in Windows command line but does it run in pure Dos? Maybe you should invest in getting the ultimate version upgrade.

Non-lan version works well in Dosbox.
LAN version doesn't.

Psojed wrote:

The problem is, when I launch the app, it says "Error: Wrong network type" and exits back to dosbox.
...
I always get an error message inside Dosbox console: Desired serial mode not supported (9600,5,n,1).

This is what confuses me: are you getting both of these error messages at the same time?

(If so, it makes me wonder of the coders decided to call a serial port error a "network error" for some odd reason.)

Yes I get both of these error messages. I'll describe when exactly it happens:

1) starting dosbox
2) mounting the folder
3) launching money.exe -> this produces Dosbox console "serial" error
4) money app starts, a registration window opens
5) you press esc or F2 to continue
6) instead of login I get the "wrong network" error message (app should load now and you should login with your password and start working within the app)

Also one more thing, the "Desired serial mode not supported" error in Dosbox console is shown multiple times.

Anyway, we installed VirtualBox in the meantime with Windows XP and got it to work that way. Dosbox would be faster, but at least it works now.

I see. Well, like I said, it seems unlikely to actually be a network problem if it runs under the XP command prompt. It is probably a more subtle configuration problem.

How are you mounting your drives in DOSBox? Are you mounting C:\ as drive C, or are you mounting the program's own directory as drive C?

I tried both ways to mount, none worked.

I tried to run it with a shortcut to dosbox, not editing the config file at all.
I tried normal dosbox version.
I tried Megabuild 5 and 6.

How could that possibly not be a network/network settings/network driver problem, when the error says it and when the problematic version is the one labelled "LAN version"?

The fact it runs under WinXP and doesnt run in Dosbox, which is emulating it's native system, tell me something is wrong with the emulated native system, especially something about network.
When I launch dosbox, is there any specific driver/software loaded within dosbox that allows peer to peer or server-client communication?

Psojed wrote:

The fact it runs under WinXP and doesnt run in Dosbox, which is emulating it's native system, tell me something is wrong with the emulated native system, especially something about network.

Except the XP command prompt doesn't provide any network facilities to DOS programs either. There's an easy way to test this: disable the network card in Device Manager in XP and see if the same error appears at the XP command prompt. (Or if you like, disable the network hardware in the computer's BIOS.)

When I launch dosbox, is there any specific driver/software loaded within dosbox that allows peer to peer or server-client communication?

There's the IPX stuff you already know about, but there definitely isn't anything loaded like that within XP.

I suppose it's possible that the program includes all its network access stuff within the program itself and doesn't require any drivers to be loaded in advance (and that this stuff works in XP but not in DOSBox for some reason). Can you tell us anything more about the program? Is it supposed to use IPX?

I might suggest trying to run the program with a debug-enabled version of DOSBox. (Just get the EXE from DOSBox debugger , put it in your DOSBox directory, and run it.) Maybe something of interest will show up in the debug window.

There was one interesting line in the debugger when launching money:
DOSMISC:DOS:Multiplex Unhandled call 100

This line appeared two times
1) After launching money.exe, but before loading money.cfg and other files used by the app.
2) After pressing esc to continue from the registration screen to the login screen, exactly where the "wrong network" error appears.

So this seems to be the culprit, but how to deal with it?

And I went through the documentation again, I'll post the whole specifications.

Note at the start says that "money v6 is designed for MS-DOS and our company provides newer versions specially designed for Windows 3.11, Windows 95 and Windows NT"

The requirements are as follows:
- personal computer with processor 286 or higher (recommended 486DX2-66)
- operating system fully compatible MS DOS 3.3 and higher, also Windows 3.1/3.11 and Windows 95 is supported
- memory at least 1MB (4MB recommended for DOS, 8MB for Windows 3.1/3.11 and 16MB for Windows 95. Using EMS memory with minimal size 2MB or higher can dramatically improve the speed of the application)
- recommended any VGA graphics
- any printer

LAN version:
- installed network software of Peer to Peer type or Client-Server type

edit: I found something when reading deeper into the manual:
"the most common problem in the installation and operation of Money over computer network environment is either incorrect hardware (using cheaper types of network cards, eg type Dimension or N2000, etc) or a collision with upper memory driver (EMM386, QEMM, DOSMAX and others) - some network cards can reserve a certain area of the upper memory and that must be reserved (excluded) when using upper memory software driver."

Unless someone else is going to jump in here, you can experiment with changing the ems/xms/umb options in the [dos] section of DOSBox.conf. Try changing them all to "false".