Out of the box, the .bat files in the \loadpoint\proexxxxx\bin directory provide limited ability to diagnose problems or provide runtime information. Two minor tweaks—editing the PTC scripts and the Command Prompt shell they run in—can change all that.

Tweak #1. Edit the scripts so that they don’t go away after running.

Simply edit each and every .bat file in the bin directory that you will be running (except the one that runs proe…don’t touch this one!).

To edit these files,

1. Select the file in a browser, then right-click on it.

2. Choose Edit and scroll to the bottom of the file.

3. Add the line: %PAUSE

Note that you will need to repeat this process each time you update to a new version of Pro/ENGINEER.

Tweak #2. Add scroll bars to the Command Prompt window.

To be able to read the entire result of the PTC script, you need to add scroll bars to your Command Prompt shell for Windows NT 4.0.

1. Right-click on the MSDOS icon in the upper-left corner of the window.

2. Go to Properties, Layout. Changing the Height field to 250 or more for Screen Buffer Size will create scroll bars and let you keep that many lines of text. Changing the Height field to 50 or more for Window Size will increase the physical size of the Command Prompt window.

3. It will then ask you a question: Apply properties to current window only or Modify shortcut which started this window? Choose Modify shortcut which started this window. Click OK.

Use this procedure throughout the Windows environment, wherever you might encounter a MSDOS shell that does not have scroll bars.

Blaine Prout is a systems engineer at Phillips Plastics Corporation in Hudson, Wisconsin, USA. He can be reached by email at blaine@phillipsplastics.com.