FTN95 Black screen on compilation

Slight OT and is my first post – but it does relate to FTN usage!

I’ve installed FTN95 which works just fine. However there is a strange effect when compiling. The screen goes black – as if to a “DOS box”, (like a cmd .exe or command.com is run). When compilation ends, the screen returns to “normal”.

This effect is not unique to FTN95 on this machine. I have exactly the same effect when compiling a Visual Studio C++ program.

At first I thought it may be a driver problem on either the graphics AGP card or the monitor driver itself. Updating both didn’t fix it though.

I found a Microsoft report of this behaviour on several Windows OS’s – (but not W2k which is what I am using) . Anyway, the fix they mention was to ensure that either cmd.com opened in a “Windows” mode (rather than full screen) OR to make some registry changes affecting vcspawn,exe. The only vcspawn(s) I can find on my system (I think) relate to a much older Visual Studio install (V6.0).

Clutching at straws I checked that cmd.exe options starts all instances in Windows mode. It didn’t fix the problem. I found a registry key HKCU/console/cmd.exe which has a key “FullScreen”. But this was already set to zero – I tried setting to 1 – no difference.

I tried installing FTN95 on my laptop – and that compiles with no sign of a black screen at all.

And so, I just wonder if anyone out there has experience this behaviour and perhaps found a fix for it? Thanks

When you say 'black screen', do you mean that literally the screen turns completely black or that that there is a large black window? I have seen PCs that do turn black for a second or two and always put it down to suspect screen drivers.

Afai can tell it's a full screen window rather than a monitor switch-off. As I say though I have updated drivers for display and AGP card (no guarantee of course). I could try installing a video card and CRT monitor + drivers, but just wondered if anyone else has already found a fix for this.

At http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126031 Msoft detail the type of display activity I mention. Here's an extract:-

SYMPTOMS When you build from the development environment in Visual C++, the screen repeatedly flashes to a blank text-mode screen with no text on it. A text cursor may show up if you move the mouse while the blank screen is showing. The screen returns to Visual C++ and then blanks out again. The blanking occurs at least twice but possibly more times during the entire build process.

The above also described well what happens under FTN95 compiles too.