Running DOS fullscreen applications in Windows XP Mode

Here is a problem that I was asked about a while ago:

When I try to start a DOS application that switches to fullscreen in Windows XP Mode – it fails with an error that states “The video device failed to initialize for fullscreen mode.  Choose ‘Close’ to terminate the application.”  Why is this happening – and how do I fix it?

The reason why this happens is because Windows XP mode uses Remote Desktop technology for its integrated mode – and Remote Desktop does not support the video modes needed by fullscreen DOS applications.  The simplest way to make this work is to disable integrated mode.

This will get you from failure:

To success:

Cheers,
Ben

Comments

• Anonymous
  October 26, 2011
  "The simplest way"? Please also tell us any other ways! ;-)

• Anonymous
  August 05, 2012
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  September 05, 2012
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  November 25, 2012
  I have tried this running XP mode, with disabled integration mode. I am running dBas IV version 2.0. The window for dBase remains small, surrounded by a sea of black out to the screen edge. There is no error message. I have tried all the various combinations you can access by rightclicking the dbase icon. (Window, fullscreen, emulate W95, 98, etc. Has anyone had any success with this?

• Anonymous
  March 01, 2014
  There is no tools menu with settings on my win7 virtual XP machine. I cannot run full screen for my dos accounting software. How else do I disable integrated mode? I just downloaded my xp virtual machine to my Win7. Could it be that has been removed?

• Anonymous
  February 04, 2015
  I have the same problem. I spent 5 hours with Microsoft and they are unable to shed any light on the problem. I agreed to pay their $99 fee and they tried 2 levels of support personnel and got nowhere.

• Anonymous
  February 17, 2015
  Tools tab will be present only if the XP mode window is NOT maximized