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Doors
Q: Can I run Excel, WordPerfect, dBASE, etc. as a door?
A: No. By definition a door is a program designed to work with the com
port to talk to the caller. Ordinary programs only interact with the
caller via the display terminal and the keyboard. No support is built in
for the com port. Look for programs that support DOOR.SYS to find those
that can be used as doors.
Q: I get "This program has violated system integrity" error messages when running DOS doors. What's going on?
A: That message can only be generated by a DOS program running under
Windows. It is caused by whatever door you are running. It is NOT caused
by PowerBBS. You can sometimes eliminate these errors by not allowing
the door to use EMS or XMS memory. See the documentation for that door
for more information on how to do this.
Q: When my caller starts a door, he doesn't see anything, but I can see things fine on the local display?
A: There are several potential causes of this problem. One likely cause
is that you are using a nonstandard IRQ for your com port. Some doors
require a special parameter on the command line (such as /5 for IRQ 5)
to use a nonstandard IRQ. Other doors may have their own specific needs.
See the documentation for that door. Sometimes the problem can be
caused by your modem. If you have an internal modem, disable the
corresponding com port on your I/O card. If at all possible, try a
different modem altogether.
Some modems simply have problems running under a DOS & Windows
combination. We've had several confirmed reports of this problem with
Complete PC brand modems.
Be sure your modem is properly configured because PowerBBS has no
control over a door while it is running. PowerBBS releases the com port
to the door. It is entirely up to the door to communicate with the
caller. There's nothing you can do to PowerBBS that will affect this.
You may also want to try using a Fossil driver with your door. Sometimes
that helps some doors run better.
Q: How many DOS doors can I run at once? How do DOS doors affect memory?
What if Windows "cannot initialize external DOS session"?
A: Windows is responsible for managing memory for DOS sessions. PowerBBS
has no effect on this. The only thing you can do is adjust your
_default.pif settings to provide just the minimum memory required by
your DOS doors.
Some sysops have run four nodes & DOS doors without a problem;
others have not. Since every Windows machine is different, it is hard to
guess. If you are running multiple nodes, your best bet is to dedicate
your computer to the task using standard peripherals (video, disks,
etc.).
Avoid using doors that use EMS or XMS memory. These doors were designed
primarily for DOS BBS systems, not for Windows. Their use of memory can
conflict with how Windows manages memory and cause potential conflicts.
Q: Sometimes a caller seems to have sysop access to the board or extra time online? What happened?
A: PowerBBS expects the door to properly update the DOOR.SYS drop file.
Some doors do not do this properly. If this happens, the caller's time,
security level or other information may be incorrect. To correct the
problem, delete the DOOR.SYS file in the last line of your batch file.
PowerBBS will still run properly.
Your feedback is appreciated!