There is no shell command named "menu" or internal program called "menu.exe", at least not in official DOSBox. Perhaps the menu.exe program is executing "intro", because that does display a welcome message and various usage info. However, it sounds to me like you're getting a subshell instead of a subprogram, so there may be an issue with that menu program where it doesn't work correctly in DOSBox.

Just like real DOS, DOSBox first searches the current directory and then the PATH for programs, and that includes the internal programs on the Z: drive. The only exception to this is shell commands. For example, if you have a program named COPY.EXE, just entering "COPY" references the shell command, so you need to enter a path and/or extension (e.g. "C:\UTIL\COPY.EXE") to run a program with a name that is the same as a shell command.

Thank you for the reply, and pointing me away from my wrong path. I'll have to find some debugger that can show me what this program is doing. I copied the application from the 64 bit server to my 32 bit laptop running Vista, and the program works in the ntvdm style DOS, but not in DosBox.

I haven't looked at my Path for a while. I didn't realize that there are still some obnoxious developers who put their application in the path, and then don't even remove it after an uninstall. (Not yours)

You may find a debug-enabled version of DOSBox to be useful. I think there's one included in the SVN Daum build.

Thanks,

Sorry I didn't reply sooner. I just realized that I hadn't sent this note back yet.
I installed the SVN Daum build you recommended, and I was expecting to have to spend some time examining the guts of the program with the debugger. Well the program only gave a Btrieve permission error, so I just had to run it with administrator rights. It's fine now.

Thank you for your help with this.
Paul