I created a desktop icon to invoke MainBoss Basic with a particular set of command line options. However, when I click the icon, a window just flashes open, then closes again. What's going on?

This happens when there's an error in one of the command line options specified in your icon properties. MainBoss opens a window displaying an error message, but Windows immediately closes the window again.

To see the error message, follow these steps:

  1. Right-click on the icon, then click Properties in the resulting menu.
  2. In the Shortcut section of the resulting window, select the entire value of the Target field, then right-click the field and click Copy. This copies the command line.
  3. Open a Windows command prompt window.
  4. Paste the copied command line into this window. (If you've set appropriate options, you can do the paste by right-clicking.)
  5. Press ENTER to execute the given command line.

When you execute the command in this way, Windows does not immediately close any error message window. This should make it easier to determine what's wrong with your command line.

By the way, one of the most common command line errors occurs with the LANGID option. The value of LANGID must be four characters long; you can't shorten it by omitting leading zeroes.

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