DOS problem (simple fix??)

[Gavin Bauer]

My DOS window (running in windows ME) closes the second it finishes
running my programs. As you can imagine, this makes it hard to see the
results. I've gotten in the habit of putting raw_input("Press enter to
exit") at the end of every program, and in addition to being pain in
the butt, it often fails to work. Being new to programming in general,
I make more mistakes than most people. My programs often have errors
before they get to my raw_input command. They then display the error
and immediately close. It is naturally a lot easier to fix an error
when you know what the error is. This makes debugging even more
annoying than it ordinarily would be, if you can imagine that. I've
heard that it should be a simple preference fix, but I've asked around
and no one seems to know how.

Thank you, and please make all answers simple enough to be understood
by a highschool student and his father :) .