I had the same problem when getting it working with HiTech C, where MPLAB
had
to spawn picc.exe.

What I did was try to change the preferences on the dos box.  When I did
this from
the _default dos pif, it didn't work.  Then I tried modifying the PIF file
in my bin
directory, this didn't work either.

What I had to do was wait for the MPLAB timout message to come up, switch to
the dos box and quickly hit pause.  This suspended the dos box.  Then I set
it's
properties so that it didn't suspend the background, and I set the idle to
high.

>From then on, it worked properly.

I've seen the same thing when trying to include DOS tools under Borland C.
Perhaps
it's a Borland library issue.......


Craig

-----Original Message-----
From: bowman <bowman@MONTANA.COM>
To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Date: Thursday, April 30, 1998 6:22 PM
Subject: MPLAB under Windows 95


>
>i finally got MPLAB 3.4 to work. it definitely is much slicker than using
>the raw DOS MPASM and MPSIM. the quirk i encountered may be something in
>the way my system is setup, or may be a general Win95 problem.
>
>after installing MPLAB, i could follow along with the single source example
>in TUTOR.PDF up to the point of building the project. at that time, all the
>window title bars would gray out. 30 seconds later, a message box appears,
>"Application timed out. Continue waiting". choose 'yes' and you'll wait
>forever, choose 'no' and the compiler results window will report "unable to
>find output file sample.hex"
>
>seems MPLAB spawns MPASM in an iconized DOS window, passes the command line
>parameters, and waits for it to return. you never will see this window
>unless you bring up the system tray. at this time, you cannot switch to
>other windows. after the message box appears, click on the MS_DOS icon, and
>the window will come up. as soon as it has focus, it closes. then choosing
>'yes' in the message box immediately displays a successful compilation in
>the build status window.
>
>if you run MPASM as a standalone in a DOS window, it does its thing,
>displays the results, and then says "hit any key to continue". i assume the
>iconized DOS window is waiting for this keystroke, while MPLAB is waiting
>for the DOS window to close, deadlocking the whole system until it times
>out.
>
>an awkward work-around, but i think the extra 30 seconds is worth it to be
>able to use the full power of the IDE.
>
>also, there are two possible issues i haven't tested thoroughly. as i was
>thrashing around trying to get it to run it seemed:
>
>a. MPLAB is only happy if installed in the default c:\Win\Program
>Files\Mplab\
>b. i think the language tool needs to be explicitly loaded, even though it
>appears MPLAB initializes pointed to MPASM.
>
>i wouldn't bet the farm on either of these statements, but if you have a
>problem they would be worth doing.
>