Q: How do I install the SIM Business Package on a Windows Me/NT/2000 machine?

A: Installing on Windows Me/NT/2000 is similar to Windows 95/98, with one difference relating to ANSI screen processing. You can't use ANSI.SYS in your config.sys file, so it is necessary to use ANSI.COM in the bat file you use to start the Business Package.

1) Copy all the files over to the c: drive for \bat, \dbl, and \buspkg (with sub directories). If you used a CD-R to transfer the files, remember to turn off Read-Only on all the files in jcfile and glfile on the target machine after copying.

2) Download BUSPKG-ANSI.ZIP, unzip the files and place them in your \bat directory. This puts ANSI.COM into the directory, as well as three sample bat files for starting the Business Package: menu-a.bat, menuc-a.bat, and menud-a.bat. These bat files include the lines:

 c:\bat\ansi.com

at the beginning of the file and:

 c:\bat\ansi.com /u

at the end of the file to unload it.

3) Add

 ;c:\dbl

to the end of any existing PATH statement in AUTOEXEC.BAT. If there is no path statement in AUTOEXEC.BAT, add the following line:

 path c:\windows\command;c:\windows;c:\dbl

and reboot.

4) Create a shortcut icon on the desktop to run c:\bat\menu-a.bat. Right-click the icon and click on properties. Click on Program, and check Close on exit. Change the icon to something interesting if you like. Click on Memory, and change Initial environment to 1024. Click OK.

5) You should now be able to run the software by double-clicking the desktop icon. You can toggle between full-screen and windowed mode with Alt-Enter.

6) If the printer is different or on a different port (unlikely) remember to set it up in the Output Devices section.

Q: When I click on the icon to start the Business Package, I get a long string of garbled text at the top of the screen instead of being layed out normally.

A: The ansi.com driver isn´t loaded. The bat file which you use to start the Business Package should have the line:

 c:\bat\ansi.com

near the top of the file and the line:

 c:\bat\ansi.com /u

near the bottom of the file. This assumes you have ANSI.COM in the c:\bat directory. If you have put it somewhere else, you will need to edit the bat file to with the correct path.

Q: I´ve transferred all the files in BAT, DBL and BUSPKG, including subdirectories. I also did the ansi.com command in the menu.bat file.  Running menu.bat gives me this:

 C:\BAT>menu

 C:\BAT>echo off

 Bad command or file name

I'm running the standard menu.bat which works on other machines.

A: The bat file is not finding the path to the \dbl directory. You need to add c:\dbl to the path in autoexec.bat and reboot.