Quick x86 Assembler question :(

[Nostalgeek]

Hi guys, nothing to do with Amiga assembly unfortunately, but my question is maybe pretty easy to some of the guru's out there....

I'm getting into x86 assembler, by pure fun and interest

Very enjoyable so far, feels good to have the hands dirty again.

Now my problem. I started learning with a few tutorials, on my XPSP3 machine at work, compiling using TASM 5.0. Works flawlessly.

Now I'm back at home on my Win7 32bits computer, configured everything the same, and every single bit of compiled code gives me a beautiful

"The NTVDM CPU has encountered an illegal instruction. Press close blablabla"

Now my wild guess would be that win7 protects the memory and doesn't let me access it?

What should I do?

1) Should I use another and more modern compiler than TASM?
2) Should my code be different somewhat?
3) Should I just forget to code assembler on Win7?

Here's my code for a wonderful piece of software that displays an "A":

MAIN SEGMENT
ASSUME DS:MAIN,ES:MAIN,CS:MAIN,SS:MAIN

START:
MOV AH,02h
MOV DL,41h

INT 21h
INT 20h
MAIN ENDS
END START

Thank you SO MUCH in advance for your help...There are probably better places to post that on the web, but as this feels like home and also gathers a whole lot of different experts on a wide spectrum of areas, I'm trying here first

And if an admin thinks this fits better in an OT section, feel free to move it, it won't hurt my feelings at all

Cheers!

[Nostalgeek]

Btw, it compiles without any error and the code is a rip-off from the tutorial, I'm using this code and not something I did myself because, it worked fine on my XP PC, so I know the code is ok, and it's ultra simple.

And coding the same using the "debug" commands works fine...does the debug open a "free" area of the memory, while the compiled program doesn't? Still a mistery to me, I need some light!!

[Nostalgeek]

ok, a quick chat with StingRay and Jope on IRC solved it

Will be doing it under DOSbox. making bios calls under windows 7 is indeed trying to kill a fly with a gun, I know understood that, and the fact that it worked under xp is not gonna help me ^^

[absence]

If you're really crazy about coding assembly for Windows you could always use MASM, NASM or something that generates Windows object files that can be linked into a Windows executable that will work in Windows 7. Of course you'll have to use the Windows API rather than DOS interrupts to do stuff like printing letters to the console.