Mouse Menus Need /K on ANSI.SYS Under MS-DOS

ID: Q61105

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

Mouse menus compiled with MAKEMENU.EXE and run with the MENU.COM that comes with Microsoft Mouse driver may not work under MS-DOS versions 4.x, 5.x, or 6.0. The menu installs into memory, but isn't visible and cannot interface correctly with the application.

This information applies to Microsoft Mouse Menu Programming for MS-DOS systems and all versions of the Microsoft Mouse driver.

MORE INFORMATION

The versions of MS-DOS mentioned above sometimes put the following line the CONFIG.SYS file: 

   device=c:\dos\ansi.sys
The ANSI.SYS driver defines functions that display graphics, controls cursor movement, and reassign keys. The presence of this driver sometimes interferes with the functioning of the Mouse menus.

To allow the menus to work with ANSI.SYS, the /K switch must be added to the line in the CONFIG.SYS file that loads the ANSI.SYS driver. For example: 

   device=c:\dos\ansi.sys /k
The /K switch forces ANSI.SYS to ignore the extended keys on 101-key keyboards. The option is available because some computers do not reliably detect all the extended-keyboard services of 101-key keyboards. This should not decrease the functionality of ANSI.SYS in any way.

Another option is to remove the ANSI.SYS driver entirely.

KBCategory: kbhw kbdisplay KBSubcategory: Additional reference words: 6.24b 6.25.21 6.26 7.00 7.03 7.04 7.05 8.00 8.10 8.20 9.00

Last Reviewed: September 16, 1996