Some people currently use DOS or a DOS-based menu system, and think they must use the DOS-based version of DiggerTM (CDAnswer) in order to be compatible. This is not necessarily so. If you also have Windows 3.1, Windows 95,98,2000 or NT installed on your computer, you can use the Windows version of DiggerTM from your menu system.
First install the Windows version of DiggerTM, following the instructions that came with your CDROM. Then enter a new option into your menu system, as you would for any other program. However, when your menu system requests the name of a program to run, enter
win c:\digger\digger.exe
If you wish, you can immediately launch a DiggerTM title by using the name of the .INI file for that title. The names to use for the three Victorian BDM CD-ROMs are VICFED, VICEDW and VICGW. For instance, to launch the Victorian Federation Index CD-ROM, you would enter
win c:\digger\digger.exe VICFED
One of the advantages of this is that you can easily display DiggerTM on the screen side-by-side with whatever program you use to record your information. Checking items as you find them is often much easier this way. Of course, if the program you use to store your information is a DOS-based program, you will need to run that under Windows also. In most cases, this is easy to do, and you may find yourself getting rid of your DOS-based menu system and running all your DOS programs from Windows instead. See Running DOS programs from Windows for more details.