Microsoft KB Archive/100394

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How to Use ANSI.SYS in Windows NT

Article ID: 100394

Article Last Modified on 11/1/2006



APPLIES TO

  • Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1
  • Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 3.1
  • Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1



This article was previously published under Q100394

SUMMARY

You can make use of ANSI.SYS under Windows NT, but you must run COMMAND.COM from Microsoft MS-DOS version 5.0 to do so; the Windows NT command interpreter, CMD.EXE, does not support ANSI.SYS. To use ANSI.SYS, do the following:

NOTE: You can add ANSI.SYS to a specific program by modifying its program information file (PIF). To install ANSI.SYS in your default command prompt configuration, do the following:

  1. Add the following line to the CONFIG.NT file located in the SYSTEM32 subdirectory:

    DEVICE=%SYSTEMROOT%\SYSTEM32\ANSI.SYS

  2. Exit any command prompts you have open.
  3. Start a command prompt.
  4. Run COMMAND.COM from MS-DOS 5.0. Use the following command to make sure you are running MS-DOS 5.0 COMMAND.COM and not the Windows NT version:

    c:\dos\command.com

You should now be able to use ANSI.SYS. To test it, try entering the following escape sequence with the PROMPT command:

prompt $e[31;42m



Additional query words: prodnt

Keywords: KB100394