What is the best operating system for running DHPOS

[Hamleysman]

HI all,

I was wondering what is the best operating system for running DHPOS.

MSDOS, WINDOWS 3.11, WINDOWS 95/98, WINDOWS 2000 OR WINDOWS XP?

David.

[daleadmin]

Hamleysman,

If you use Windows '98 then it is east to get the program to run full screen but you cannot use a secont USB monitor as a pole display.

If you use Windows XP you can use the USB monitor but you may not be able to display DHPOS full screen. However recently small reported that if you install the Windows XP generic video driver you can display DHPOS full screen.

However you cannot display DHPOS full screen and use the USB monitor at the same time under either '98, XP, or any other version of Windows.

Everything else is pretty much the same between '98 and XP. And no matter which one you choose get a parallel port printer and a cash drawer that plugs into a port on the printer.

Almost forgot, make sure you use a 32 bit version of XP and not the 64 bit version.

Dale

[small]

Windows 98SE will allow you to use dual monitors.

There is a few quirks but you can get it to work.



http://www.dhpos.com/discuss/phpbb3/vie ... tors#p9973


NOTE:
This will work with dale's Original big pole program
THIS WILL NOT WORK WITH BIGPOLEQ5.EXE

HOPEFULLY THINGS MIGHT CHANGE WHEN QB64GL IS RELEASED!!!


ANOTHER NOTE:

Older versions of QB64 worked on windows 98SE, but as time went on it lost compatibility with windows 98SE, but the older versions are still downloadable and may be able to compile BIGPOLEQ5, If that is the case then BIGPOLEQ5 will work on Windows 98SE. When I get the time I will Try it and see what happens.

[small]

If you use Windows XP you can use the USB monitor but you may not be able to display DHPOS full screen. However recently small reported that if you install the Windows XP generic video driver you can display DHPOS full screen.


Dale

Dale,

I said that I used the generic windows 7 video driver on Windows 7 and ran full screen with DHPOS with a few quirks, Not windows xp, my windows xp runs DHPOS full screen.

[small]

ANOTHER NOTE:

Older versions of QB64 worked on windows 98SE, but as time went on it lost compatibility with windows 98SE, but the older versions are still downloadable and may be able to compile BIGPOLEQ5, If that is the case then BIGPOLEQ5 will work on Windows 98SE. When I get the time I will Try it and see what happens.

unfortunately I could not get bigpoleq5 to compile on a older version of QB64

[cwathen]

I'd say Windows XP. It's stable and secure, easy to network, has complete support for the widest range of hardware, from a machine made last week to one that's 12 years old and is also new enough to still be supported with updates. The DOS support is complete enough that DHPOS can run natively and in full screen mode without issues. With Vista/7, the DOS support in theory is exactly the same as in XP as it (supposedly) uses the same NTVDM code, but in practice it's not quite the same and certain things have problems. There is also no direct support for full screen mode - you either need workarounds like using DOSbox, or hacks like installing Windows XP video drivers to be able to make full screen mode work.

If you are having a networked setup, a deployment I like to use is to have a 'server' machine holding all of the copies of DHPOS for every register, then to run a Telnet/SSH server on that machine and to set up all of the receipt printers as network shares on the server. All of the other machines than use a client like PuTTY to remotely connect to the server where they see a menu to pick their copy of DHPOS which they access over the network. If your staff aren't clever enough to trust to pick from a menu you can easily setup different logins so that the copy you see depends on what you are logged in as. It takes a bit longer to setup (and sometimes presents some issues to work around) but I think what you end up with is a more robust system which is easier to administer. This gives you the following benefits:

1) since only one machine is actually running the program with the others just being used as terminals, you only have one machine which you need to worry about keeping compatible with the program itself, the other machines only need to be compatible with the client software.
2) You only need a backup strategy for one machine since there are no DHPOS files on any other machines
3) You only need access to one machine to do any reconfiguration or upgrading of the software since all copies of the program are on the one machine - you can update your entire network sitting in your office rather than have to physically visit all of the machines around the store.
3) What the other machines are is irrelevant - they can be old, new, swapped out or swapped in at will. So if a machine goes down any old computer which will work with the network and can run a Telnet or SSH client can be slotted in to replace it, no worrying about lost data or reconfiguration.
4) You can access your system from outside of the network, so remote access to check on the store when you're not there (you don't even need a computer to do this - there are even client apps for phones) or even multi-site systems (if your needs aren't too demanding) are now a possibility.
5) Since the display is being rendered by the client software rather than the directly by NTVDM, you have much more control over it. No longer do you have a choice only of running in a small window or full screen, options like a maximised window or DHPOS on one half of the screen and Excel on the other are now available to you.