A little after 12am, 2 days after it started bugging me, I think I may have stumbled onto it. As I'm running the program several times through (in dis-belief, yes, dis-belief), I'll run over it all as quickly as possible(scratch that, this is a LONG POST) to everyone who helped.

Ok, I was saying that the program is an arcade machine emulator (this is probably irrelevant, but oh well ). This emulator will load an arcade game software rom set (in zip form) through itself (so you can play the game lol). If it encounters an error during the loading proccess, it's because of the zip file (other errors could occur, yes - if there isn't enough memory for that certain game, etc - let's assume the software loads fine). Versions of this emulator come out, oooh, 1 to 2 times a month. Man, I want that new version!, more game support! Possibly a rom set (game) were to become "broke" with the new release. This means, the zip archive for that game isn't supported by this new release. Ah ha! A situation where it would kick out an error. That's irreleven though, because that game would be commented out of the source code :P. In a new version however, there might be a patch to your software set. The new version still supports this game fine and dandy, but you need and extra, smaller zip file. In this case, if you haven't acquired these files, you are now missing files it needs. It will now display an error. There errror it will display could look like the following:
Loading 798u8.vu
ERROR: Files not found!
799u8.vu
800u8.vu
801u8.vu
etc

I don't want to see all that nonsense. If an error occurs with this emulator, I know what it's going to be . Besides, since this is going to be a front end for the program, I want to see:
"There was an error loading Pac Man: The romset is incomplete".
I would have to surpress / redirect this program's output in order to "hide" this crazy, obscure filenames. Hiding would also allow me to provide my own loading message, instead of all those crazy file names: "Loading Pac Man...", while it does it's work in the background.

Different versions of this program might have a different name. What about your program that is only calling one name? I here you saying that. Just rename "emulator's new program name.exe" to "program name.exe my program is used to calling"

If a case occurs where the zip file will not load through the emulator, I want to display my own message. If the program loads fine, I want to know if it does. Doing these will also allow me to display my own loading message.

Salem,
// this forces DJGPP to use the crippled command.com to handle
// io redirection (normally, its handled internally)
__system_flags &= ~__system_redirect;

................

NOTE - __system_flags is for DJGPP only. Whether your compiler has similar magic to modify the behaviour of redirection in system() calls would require some digging in the documentation on your part.
Regardless of that, this works just fine...

Code:
int main ( ) 
{
if(system("mamepp pacmanm >NUL") == 1)
{
printf("error");
}
else 
{
printf("no error");
}
    return 0;
}
........WITH DJGPP.

I test the emulator by loading pacman.zip through it. I pass the >NUL statment. It loads pacmanm just fine, after I exist the game, I am returned to DOS with the message "no error" on the screen. NOW, I move the "official" pacmanm.zip to a location where the emulator cannot find it. I then put my own, empty zip file, named pacmanm.zip in it's place so it will produce an error (ALOT of files will be missing lol). The emulator does NOT load pac man. It does hault and disaply "error" at the dos prompt.

I just tested this like 4 times in a row. I tested without recompiling the shown sour code with DJGPP. My program will call the same thing everytime using system. Me, I am chaning MyPgm.exe's enviroement to test that if statement (moving files on the program, sending it oddballs, etc). Over and over, it works fine.

My conclusion:
I must've used GCC (DJGPP) for this program and not Turbo C++ ( that still gets to me, but must be the case ).
To all and anyone who replied: Thanks for your help.

Salem: Thanks for your help. Thanks for COMING BACK to my posts that some would find annoying (even yourself maybe). Thanks for still taking the time to submitt your help, knowledge AND PROGRAMS to a complete stranger.

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