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I have an MS-DOS program that was written for Win98 that I want to run on a computer with WinXP. Language is set to Croatian, but when I run this particular software it accepts the keys as if they were coming from an English keyboard. The regular command prompt accepts the croatian keyboard layout keys just fine but just this one program will not allow croatian characters.

I used to be able to run this on Win98 computer just fine.

In regional settings and keyboard settings in control panel everything is set to Croatian language and keyboard layout.

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    I'm currently going to hold off from looking at this further until we get feedback whether guest's answer worked. Know Win98 ran DOS programs better than WinXP did. It might be nice to know the name of the program (but I'm suspecting it was a custom app with little documentation for this?) Where is the language set to Croatian? (Win XP language settings? Program configuration?) What version of Win98 was this? (1st Edition? 2nd Edition? English?) Do you still have access to Win98 machine? (Can you post contents of Config.sys/Autoexec.bat, search Win.ini/System.ini, *.PIF/shortcut settings?)
    – TOOGAM
    Commented Mar 18, 2018 at 23:25
  • I am currently abroad (away from the computer with Win98), this week I hope to continue working on it so I can paste more details. I know this: It was Win98 1st edition, I do have access to this older computer (it's hardware has started to crash which is a reason to transfer the app on the new computer) . It is a custom app, so none documentation is available (and unfortunately its creator can't be reached, so we couldn't ask him/her for help).
    – Meow
    Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 18:24
  • Croatian is set on Win XP language (regional) settings and keyboard settings in WinXp control panel. Problem wit DosBox and alternative solutions is that program is used by an older person that does bookkeeping and she hopes to do it for couple more years until retirement. I tried to offer her solution to use virtual machine with Win98 on it but it was too complicated for her, and I hoped to find a way for everything to work on WinXP if possible. (I think that DosBox will be even more complicated for her to understand)
    – Meow
    Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 18:28
  • May I invite you to this chatroom for further discussion?
    – guest
    Commented Mar 20, 2018 at 0:06
  • Overkill solution. Clone and copy [1] the HDD of the old computer and try to mount it on a Virtualbox/Virtual machine... Sometimes some specific files may be needed in fixed position of the HDD (under dos/windows even the drive letter counts...) [1] Clone on a file and make a copy of that file so, if needed, you can start again without accessing again to the old hardware. Moreover is this a program that needs windows-xp or is enough the DOS? (because you can install a virtual machine with only the latter too).
    – Hastur
    Commented Mar 20, 2018 at 9:52

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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+100

This is set in the MS-DOS initialization files.
See this[1] for explanation, and this[2] for additional examples.

Croatia

Config.sys

Country=384,852,c:\dos\country.sys
Device=c:\dos\display.sys con=(ega,852,2)

Autoexec.bat

Mode con cp prep=((852 850) c:\dos\ega.cpi)
Mode con cp select=852
Keyb yu,852,c:\dos\keyboard.sys

From Windows XP onward[3][4], append to these files in C:\Windows\system32\ instead:

CONFIG.nt (date and time formats are ignored)

COUNTRY=384,852,C:\Windows\system32\COUNTRY.SYS

AUTOEXEC.nt

KB16 YU,852

Or use DOSBox, run keyb yu manually or add it to AUTOEXEC.

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