Help with MASM

[THadnot]

I need help with working MASM.  When I try to open as .asm file it says fatal error, and when I try to execute MASM it says "The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications." Am I doing something wrong? I have Windows XP. Please help

[hutch--]

You have not posted any code at all so there is no way of answering your question. Try posting at least some of your code and tell us how you have tried to build it and there may be a way to help you.

[Tedd]

Random guess.. :bdg

You need to open .asm files in a text editor (of some kind - even notepad will do.)
I assume your .asm files already have an associated program, and so simply clicking on one will try to open it with that instead.
You can edit the association from mycomputer:tools->folderoptions...,filetypes but make sure you're not messing up something else you might want/need.

[MichaelW]

I seem to recall a post/topic that dealt with the "The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications" problem, but I cannot remember what the cause or solution was, or find the post/topic, either here or on the old forum.

[zooba]

I seem to recall a post/topic that dealt with the "The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows applications" problem, but I cannot remember what the cause or solution was, or find the post/topic, either here or on the old forum.

It doesn't really sound like a Windows error message. That's the sort of message I'd expect from Linux or BSD

[MichaelW]

I still cannot recall the cause or solution, but I did find this.

[Mincho Georgiev]

CAUSE
This issue may occur if all the following conditions are true:
•   You try to run a 16-bit program.
•   You have installed the MS04-032 Security Update for Microsoft Windows.
•   You have disabled 8.3 file name creation for the NTFS file system.

and i will add:

•   Virus Thread or result of infection

because i've already seen this many times on infected PC's. Reinstalling Windows will fix the problem.

[MichaelW]

Experimenting I determined that I can trigger this error by running a DOS app after renaming or moving system32\autoexec.nt or system32\config.nt, or by screwing up or deleting the autoexec.nt or config.nt paths in the app's PIF settings. Perhaps THadnot is using an older version of MASM.