Problem with EDIT-program

OK · 07-17-2005, 08:55 PM

Hey, I recently reinstalled Win XP SP2 and have since then had problems with the DOS-program EDIT.

When typing in the Command Prompt everything is fine but when I start EDIT my keyboard starts acting all funny. When I try to type something all I get is weird characters. Some keys give no response at all. A few examples:

D becomes @
P and R becomes 6
Space becomes ~
A, C, E, F, L, T (probably more) give no response when I type them.
Other keys become even weirder characters. I'm sadly not able to cut and paste them into this message, but hopefully you get the idea.

There seems to be an issue with the keymap, but how do I solve this? I've never had this problem before, and I've used EDIT in Win 95, 98, ME and XP SP1 before without any problem. Thanks for any help.

ScaryBinary · 07-17-2005, 11:36 PM

...I'm not going to ask why you're using the old DOS Edit program, versus Notepad or something...

You could try to restore the file. Since everything else is interpreting the keyboard correctly, maybe the file somehow got corrupted. There's an article at Expert's Exchange that explains how to restore the file (the name of the file is "edit.com" and it should be in your C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder). In the article it seems to indicate that you have to sign up to view the answer, but if you scroll all the way to the bottom you can see a few replies. Note there's also instructions for determining if any other files are corrupted.

ukulele · 07-19-2005, 02:29 PM

Are you using a PS2 KB? Anything else may not be interperated correctly in DOS.

OK · 07-20-2005, 07:24 PM

I copied edit.com from another computer but the problem persists. Any file I load into the program displays correctly, as do the menus etc. Strange stuff...

I have a USB keyboard, but it is plugged into the PS/2 port via a converter that came with the keyboard. Could that be a problem? Windows works fine with it, and so did EDIT until I reinstalled Windows. I guess I could try a different keyboard anyway, will do that tomorrow.

ukulele · 07-20-2005, 10:09 PM

I doubt it's the keyboard if you are using the usb/ps2 converter. It sure wouldn't hurt to try another keyboard. They have a chip that can go bad too.