AHK for DOS? Possible or exit?

[MIRKOSOFT]

Hi!

I'm user and programmer of MS-DOS. Now version 7.10.

I'm using AHK on Windows as best custom remap/multifunction tool.
I want to ask if is any way possible to use AHK in DOS... I know that AHK is Windows only.
Also I found AHK UI Editor what can be very useful for DOS.

If not - is possible to run AHK at least on Windows 3x?
I know that Win3x is 16-bit OS, but by installation Win32s is possible to run there also 32-bit applications.

Thank you all for answering and maybe any suggestion how to find any way...
Or - is AHK open-source project? Maybe compiling for 16-bit CPU it allows with modifications run at least on Win3x, maybe even DOS (of course with very lot modifications).

Miro

[SOTE]

Hi!

I'm user and programmer of MS-DOS. Now version 7.10.

I'm using AHK on Windows as best custom remap/multifunction tool.
I want to ask if is any way possible to use AHK in DOS... I know that AHK is Windows only.
Also I found AHK UI Editor what can be very useful for DOS.

If not - is possible to run AHK at least on Windows 3x?
I know that Win3x is 16-bit OS, but by installation Win32s is possible to run there also 32-bit applications.

Thank you all for answering and maybe any suggestion how to find any way...
Or - is AHK open-source project? Maybe compiling for 16-bit CPU it allows with modifications run at least on Win3x, maybe even DOS (of course with very lot modifications).

Miro

To my knowledge, AHK will at least run on Windows XP. However, you could try to download very old versions of AutoHotkey, and see how well they work on Windows 3.x (if at all). But you are talking AutoHotkey_Basic and not the current AutoHotkey_L versions. Window 3.x is very old, so wanting to use such seems a bit odd. Maybe you are using an extremely old computer, but keep in mind that you can get a very cheap mini-pc for less than $200 dollars these days.

As for using "DOS", you might be referring to using the Command Prompt in Windows. The Command Prompt is not DOS, but emulates that environment to allow you to run console type programs. For more about this- https://www.lifewire.com/command-prompt-2625840

Every version of Windows has the Command Prompt, so if that is what you need, then you don't need Windows 3.x. You could use Windows 7, 8, or 10. If you can't get your hands on more recent versions of Windows, you might consider using React OS. It's a free Windows clone. It's not quite ready for prime time, has some issues, and has a bit of a Linux tinge to it, but they appear to be getting closer to making something very useful. You might want to try it out and see if that will work for you, if you are looking for free. AHK should mostly work on it.

React OS- https://www.reactos.org/

An example of using AutoHotkey with the command prompt

Code: Select all

SendPing = %A_ScriptDir%\PingResult.txt
FileAppend, %SendPing%
RunWait, %comspec% /c ping 127.0.0.1 >"%SendPing%"",,Hide
FileRead, PingSee, %SendPing%
FileDelete, %SendPing%
MsgBox, %PingSee%
Exit

You may want to research the forums and Google about AutoHotkey's "comspec", "Run", and "RunWait" commands and how to use them with the command prompt and command line utilities. You can even build AutoHotkey GUIs that are the front-end for various command line utilities.

[SOTE]

Hi!

I'm user and programmer of MS-DOS. Now version 7.10.
...
If not - is possible to run AHK at least on Windows 3x?
I know that Win3x is 16-bit OS, but by installation Win32s is possible to run there also 32-bit applications.

...Maybe compiling for 16-bit CPU it allows with modifications run at least on Win3x, maybe even DOS (of course with very lot modifications).

Miro

Happen to run into this. Might be of interest.

https://autohotkey.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=4955 (AHKonsole)

https://github.com/joedf/LibCon.ahk/blo ... hk2CLI.ahk (Ahk2CLI)

https://autohotkey.com/board/topic/2118 ... ntry316030 (Compile as console application)

[SL5]

...
React OS- https://www.reactos.org/
...

BTW yesterday i tried React OS- https://www.reactos.org/
inside of virtualbox.
if i tried install ahk (new version) it says something like: this exe is not compatible to this system.

[SOTE]

...
React OS- https://www.reactos.org/
...

BTW yesterday i tried React OS- https://www.reactos.org/
inside of virtualbox.
if i tried install ahk (new version) it says something like: this exe is not compatible to this system.

That's unfortunate. Members of the ReactOS team were using AutoHotkey to help do some testing, but this appears to be with AutoHotkey_Basic. Maybe they need to do something for AutoHotkey_L compatibility, or focus on making sure that it can run on their OS. Link- https://reactos.org/wiki/AHK_Test_Suite

You might want to try AutoHotkey_Basic too and see if that works.

Sometimes there can be issues with Virtualbox. ReactOS might be mature enough, that people may want to consider running it for real, though on unimportant hardware or using spare hard drive. You can also run ReactOS from a LiveCD or set it up as a dual booting system. If you choose dual booting, I would suggest doing that on a separate and extra hard drive or maybe try booting to a virtual hard disk (VHD or VHDX). I haven't tried the VHD/VHDX option yet, but ReactOS might be mature enough for that to work. The other advantage of using VHD/VHDX is that you keep ReactOS away from any important data and it can fail or do whatever in the VHD, without the person worrying about it.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/win ... 6(v=vs.60) (VHD/VHDX)
https://www.howtogeek.com/75286/how-to- ... using-vhd/ (dual boot with VHD on Windows 7/8)
https://youtu.be/o70-Mr1yheI (Installing React OS on real hardware)
https://www.reactos.org/download (LiveCD and BootCD for React OS)

Maybe people from the AutoHotkey community can ping ReactOS developers, to have them maintain compatibility. That would appear to be a win-win for them and everyone, as they are trying to increase the number of applications that run on ReactOS, and having AutoHotkey be able to run will greatly increase their open-source OS attractiveness and usability. I've seen it mentioned by a number of people that the only reason they like sticking with Microsoft Windows is because of AutoHotkey. It would be a wise move by ReactOS developers to make sure AutoHotkey runs on their OS.

[SL5]

... React OS- https://www.reactos.org/
... https://reactos.org/wiki/AHK_Test_Suite
... You might want to try AutoHotkey_Basic too and see if that works.
... Maybe people from the AutoHotkey community can ping ReactOS developers, to have them maintain compatibility. That would appear to be a win-win for them and everyone, as they are trying to increase the number of applications that run on ReactOS, and having AutoHotkey be able to run will greatly increase their open-source OS attractiveness and usability. I've seen it mentioned by a number of people that the only reason they like sticking with Microsoft Windows is because of AutoHotkey. It would be a wise move by ReactOS developers to make sure AutoHotkey runs on their OS.

thanks for all that stuff.
i will ask them by email today to make supoert for newer ahk-version (Inline job request because I'm looking for very urgent!! I'm not a C developer so I think that my chances are not very big)

i tried installing today again (I do not have the last error if I first copy the exe to the desktop first and not try install it over the network):
https://youtu.be/L0xkb9Os4-c

[SOTE]

... React OS- https://www.reactos.org/
... https://reactos.org/wiki/AHK_Test_Suite
... You might want to try AutoHotkey_Basic too and see if that works.
... Maybe people from the AutoHotkey community can ping ReactOS developers, to have them maintain compatibility. That would appear to be a win-win for them and everyone, as they are trying to increase the number of applications that run on ReactOS, and having AutoHotkey be able to run will greatly increase their open-source OS attractiveness and usability. I've seen it mentioned by a number of people that the only reason they like sticking with Microsoft Windows is because of AutoHotkey. It would be a wise move by ReactOS developers to make sure AutoHotkey runs on their OS.

thanks for all that stuff.
i will ask them by email today to make supoert for newer ahk-version (Inline job request because I'm looking for very urgent!! I'm not a C developer so I think that my chances are not very big)

i tried installing today again (I do not have the last error if I first copy the exe to the desktop first and not try install it over the network):
https://youtu.be/L0xkb9Os4-c

Looking at the picture of your error message, you might also want to do a manual install of AutoHotkey from the .zip file, as oppose to setup. Then manually associate .ahk files with the AutoHotkey.exe, with say AutoHotkeyU32.exe or various other versions. With the manual method, you can try out various versions of AutoHotkey to see if any or which are compatible with ReactOS.

Once or if you have found a compatible version of AutoHotkey that works with the ReactOS (I suspect at least AutoHotkey_Basic does since they were testing with it), then you can do such things as compile your scripts. However it would still be good to contact the ReactOS developers to maintain compatibility with AutoHotkey, because if the latest version doesn't work on their OS, they might be able to more easily figure out why or identify the code that is the issue (as they can access AutoHotkey open source code and their own) and these type of guys tend to be highly knowledgeable about programming.

[SL5]

... Once or if you have found a compatible version of AutoHotkey that works with the ReactOS ...

the newest version is working https://www.autohotkey.com/download/ahk.zip.
i needet to copy it to the root. c:\ahk\
worked not in ... deskotp\subfolder bla\subfolder bla\subfolder bla\subfolder bla\
i needet to copy the script to the root. c:\script\ (next i need to change it a bit, disable some functions like sound speak or so).
may there is a issue with spaces. i dont know.

UPDATE: may next comments to this theme i will post here (separater thread):
works autohotkey in reactos.org ?

[SOTE]

... Once or if you have found a compatible version of AutoHotkey that works with the ReactOS ...

the newest version is working https://www.autohotkey.com/download/ahk.zip.
i needet to copy it to the root. c:\ahk\
worked not in ... deskotp\subfolder bla\subfolder bla\subfolder bla\subfolder bla\
i needet to copy the script to the root. c:\script\ (next i need to change it a bit, disable some functions like sound speak or so).
may there is a issue with spaces. i dont know.

That's good for the AutoHotkey community to know. The ReactOS is getting much closer to usability. I suspect that whenever they get NTFS read and write fully sorted out, there will be even more people trying them out.

Note- ReactOS can use FAT32, in which Microsoft Windows has built-in compatibility for reading and writing files to, but has some limitations when compared to NTFS. In addition, ReactOS also has Btrfs now, which is a newer open source file system that is better than FAT32 and Microsoft Window OSes can read and write to it via WinBtrfs open source driver. Arguably you don't need NTFS, if you are using a spare hard drive formatted with Btrfs and ReactOS, but the average person is not as likely to make the jump or know what Btrfs is.