Hello,
Many, many years ago someone got MS DOS Civilization running on my PC.
I've been through many different computers and many versions of MS Windows all the way up to Windows 11.
It has all worked great--until two weeks ago (today is 7/18/2026).

The way it used to work, was they created a batch file "load.bat" that has the following commands:
c:
cls
note
cd game
civ

"note" is an executable file "NOTE.EXE". I believe this triggers a window that tells me how to start the game once it begins. That is to select options for "Graphis Mode", "Sound Mode" and "Mouse/Keyboard" and concludes with "Press escape to continue.".

Usually this is not problem, the window appears, I press the Escape key and off I go.

However, just today, when the note window appears, pressing the "Escape" key has no effect. I can't get past that screen and to the game.

I've rebooted the computer as well as turned it off and turned it back on.

I even found something on the internet about remapping keys in DosBox. Assuming I did that correctly, it had no effect.

Any chance someone here can tell me what to do?

Not sure what changed in my computer over the last two weeks to cause this. Everything else seems to be the same and working fine.

Thanks a bunch,
Jeff