does the status window of dosbox tell you anything ?

I hadn't thought to look Qbix, but no...no change there. I've fully reinstalled dfend and dosbox since then with no changes to my situation as well.

However, it occurred to me that there might have been a change due to me pressing the wrong buttons - I'm not sure exactly what - but when I saw those last screenshots in the weaponsmith's place I remembered that I was trying to take a .wav sample of the music that was playing, which of course had me pushing weird buttons because I didn't know exactly what to push. I'm using a USB keyboard and I did see some things about keyboard trouble in the forums. This gives me some other things to try.

A quick test showed that none of my other ctrl + Function key commands work either, except one - the keymapper. This changes things (though I'm not quite sure why I *used* to be able to use them...).

Look for a mapper.txt in the dosbox directory and rename/delete that.

I saw no such file there or in any folders wd.

My plan of action (when I wake up) is to plug in my old non-usb keyboard, which will tell me if it's an input or a software thing.

Either way, I'll try what this guy did:

how to capture sound?

I appreciate the suggestions thus far.

(fyi I'm using a Microsoft Ergo 4000 keyboard, XP Pro SP2, Intel Pentium D 2.6 dual core, Asus P5WDG2-WS, etc...but I'm thinking it's software since it worked before I did whatever I did)

Maybe it's XP not letting you have at it in the Dosbox 0.70/capture folder. Fix your access if possible.

Problem solved! For starters, this was NOT a problem with Dosbox. It was a 'feature' of my keyboard. As I hit keys in the dark I apparently hit the 'F-lock" - a button and concept I never actually acknowledged existing, much less being next to perfectly useful keys. It's a case of ignorance on my part, but it's good to finally know what the problem was (incidentally, these 'extra' functions do little that I would knowingly give up function keys for).

Thanks all, and happy gaming.