DOS W&B Version Incompatibility

There are four versions of the DOS W&B program in daily use at different airlines. They are just enough different that none can run using the files of the others. This normally causes no problem even though all of them may be on the same computer, each in it's own folder with it's unique data files, and each started with it's own shortcut or batch file.

However, there is a scenario that recently caused confusion. Let's say you just bought a 64-bit laptop running Windows 7. You find that it won't run the W&B (or any DOS program for that matter) and you install DOSBox so that you can run it. Further, let's say you have Evergreen's files in a \WB folder and Kalitta's in a \WB747 folder. From the C:\> prompt you navigate to the Kalitta folder and run the program using the following two commands:

cd \WB747
wbibm

What will happen is that the Kalitta program will run, but it will pickup the Evergreen files. What has happened is immediately obvious because you don't get the aircraft menu you expected, and if you try to run one of the aircraft, you'll get lots of error messages as the program tries to load the airplane's files. In short, you'll never get far enough to load the aircraft.

But why did it happen? Because if the program is not told where to find its files, it defaults to looking for them in a \WB folder, and the Evergreen files are in a \WB folder. To make the Kalitta program use the Kalitta files, use:

cd \wb747
wbibm \wb747

To run the Evergreen program you could use:

cd \wb
wbibm

That would work because the Evergreen files are in the default \WB folder. You could also use:

cd \wb
wbibm \wb

Note that the DOS command line as well as DOS folder and filenames are not case sensitive.

When any update is next required to any of the versions, I'll change each version to ensure it only accesses files that belong to it.