Changing Dual Boot

[Guest MEB]

Re: Changing Dual Boot

 

 

 

<letterman@invalid.com> wrote in message

news:naa4b4pq216mem5se5fco5so9dtj3m0524@4ax.com...

| On Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:03:44 -0400, "MEB" <meb@not here@hotmail.com>

| wrote:

|

| >

| >

| ><letterman@invalid.com> wrote in message

| >news:u3p2b49j0133up1nhj8b38hoch7b1mfdt6@4ax.com...

| >| On Sun, 24 Aug 2008 06:13:09 -0500, "philo" <philo@privacy.net> wrote:

| >|

| >| >

| >| ><letterman@invalid.com> wrote in message

| >| >news:8th1b4530tnkrmnijd1nvqkjgetee1ij16@4ax.com...

| >| >> On Sat, 23 Aug 2008 18:19:02 -0500, "philo" <philo@privacy.net>

wrote:

| >| >>

| >| >>

| >| >> >>

| >| >> >

| >| >> >Yes

| >| >> >

| >| >> >I agree. Clean install is the best option...

| >| >> >

| >| >> >But ugrading from Win2k to XP generally works .

| >| >> >

| >| >> >OTOH: I always advise not to attempt upgrading Win98 ==> XP

| >| >> >

| >| >>

| >| >> What about upgrading Win98 to WinME?

| >| >>

| >| >

| >| >

| >| >Never tried that one as I've only used WinME for evaluation

purposes...

| >| >but my guess is that though it may work, there would also be a chance

for

| >a

| >| >number of minor problems.

| >| >

| >| >(But I've never tried it, so do not know.)

| >| >

| >| >

| >| >The thing is , Win95, Win98 and WinME are all in the same "family" so

to

| >| >speak...essentially DOS based.

| >| >

| >| >While the NT "family ...NT4, Win2000 and XP are not DOS-based as they

use

| >a

| >| >hardware abstraction layer.

| >| >

| >| >Though MS has designed (for example) Win2000 to be able to upgrade a

| >Win98

| >| >system...

| >| >

| >| >It has been my experience that attempting to upgrade a "win9x" os to

an

| >"NT"

| >| >based os,

| >| >generally leads to problems.

| >| >

| >| >In most instances the best option is a clean installation.

| >| >

| >| >About the only upgrades I don't think I've ever seen fail to work is

the

| >one

| >| >from win95 to win98.

| >| >

| >| >(and of course win98 ==>win98se )

| >| >

| >|

| >| This is why I asked this question. Your last statement that Win98

| >| ==>Win98se generally works. I know this.....

| >| There was a time that I thought WinME was a whole new OS (the MS

| >| advertising suggested that). But I've grown to learn that WinME is

| >| just an upgrade to Win98se, and little more. This makes me wonder why

| >| I never upgraded to ME already. (especially since I have a licensed

| >| copy). I have no intention to upgrade to XP or Vista. I use Win2K on

| >| my laptop, but am not all that happy with it. Yet, if I'm running

| >| 98se, why not upgrade to ME. ME looks and works identically. The USB

| >| support of ME would be most welcome, since all the drivers needed for

| >| USB in 98 are a pain in the ass.

| >|

| >

| > The statement regarding ME is somewhat misleading. ME is not the same as

| >98SE. ME was the first consumer based OS to use restore points and other

| >aspects now carried through into the newer NT OSs.

| > ME also hid the DOS based aspects by using a layer of deception and

removal

| >of DOS access from the common user [there are modifications available to

| >return those aspects].

| > It would be reasonable to consider ME [consumer] and 2000 [business] as

the

| >transitional OSs created and designed to push users over into the [new

| >style] NT based environment, something that had been resisted until their

| >creation.

| >

| > You should also note that not all programs created for 9X work in ME due

to

| >certain system file changes and other modifications.

| >

| >--

| > MEB

| > http://peoplescounsel.orgfree.com

|

| Thanks for the info. I was not aware of the program problems. Maybe

| thats enough to make me avoid it. But I dont understand the lack of

| DOS. Ok, I have only played with ME for a couple hours one time.

| That was several years ago, so I cant recall what occurred as far as

| Dos.

|

| On the other hand, I have Win2000 on my laptop. I heard that both ME

| and Win2K and XP lack dos. If this is the case, how come I have a

| "command" prompt icon in Win2K (Dos icon). However, this might be the

| way I installed it. Here is what I have.

| I ran fdisk and formatted the drive to Fat32, using a dos boot disk.

| Then I made the drive bootable, using the SYS command. Then I copied

| all the Dos files to a directory called Dos. (using the dos files

| from Win98se).

|

| After doing that, I installed Win2000, and made it dual boot. So, I

| can either boot to dos, or boot to Win2000. After I got Win2K

| installed, I found that it has a Dos Window icon. That's where I get

| confused. I was told that Win2K did not have dos, and that is why I

| created the dual booting.

|

| Is this just because I already had dos installed, or because I chose

| the Fat32 formatting? Or, did a later version of Win2K put this back

| in the OS?

|

| PS. in brief, what are the modifications that allow access to dos in

| WinME?

 

Read up on the ME > DOS issue.

 

http://www.geocities.com/mfd4life_2000/

http://www.dewassoc.com/support/winme/real_dos.htm

http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/10/16/001016oplivingston.html

http://www.mvps.org/dts/WinME_DOS/Win-ME.htm

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000361.htm

http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/software/windows/winme/startup/page1.html

http://www.mdgx.com/95.htm

 

 

WIN 2000 {2K} CMD:

 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=DOS+in+Windows+2000&btnG=Search

http://www.geocities.com/thestarman3/DOS/DOSinWIN.html

http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?mode=a&query=dos+prompt&spid=1131&catalog=LCID%3D1033&1033comm=1&res=20

 

WINXP CMD:

 

Get an idea of what it is and can be used for:

http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?mode=a&query=command+prompt&spid=6794&catalog=LCID%3D1033&1033comm=1&res=20

 

VISTA:

 

http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?mode=a&query=command+prompt&spid=11732&catalog=LCID%3D1033&1033comm=1&res=20

 

*****

 

Lots of other information on the above available... that's why they created

search engines. <wink>

 

--

MEB

http://peoplescounsel.orgfree.com

--

_________

 

Read up on the ME > DOS issue.

 

http://www.geocities.com/mfd4life_2000/

http://www.dewassoc.com/support/winme/real_dos.htm

http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/00/10/16/001016oplivingston.html

http://www.mvps.org/dts/WinME_DOS/Win-ME.htm

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000361.htm

http://www.duxcw.com/digest/Howto/software/windows/winme/startup/page1.html

http://www.mdgx.com/95.htm

 

 

WIN 2000 DOS:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=DOS+in+Windows+2000&btnG=Search

http://www.geocities.com/thestarman3/DOS/DOSinWIN.html

http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?mode=a&query=dos+prompt&spid=1131&catalog=LCID%3D1033&1033comm=1&res=20

 

 

--

MEB

http://peoplescounsel.orgfree.com

--

_________

[Guest John John (MVP)]

Re: Changing Dual Boot

 

letterman@invalid.com wrote:

> [snip]

>

> On the other hand, I have Win2000 on my laptop. I heard that both ME

> and Win2K and XP lack dos. If this is the case, how come I have a

> "command" prompt icon in Win2K (Dos icon). However, this might be the

> way I installed it. Here is what I have.

> I ran fdisk and formatted the drive to Fat32, using a dos boot disk.

> Then I made the drive bootable, using the SYS command. Then I copied

> all the Dos files to a directory called Dos. (using the dos files

> from Win98se).

>

> After doing that, I installed Win2000, and made it dual boot. So, I

> can either boot to dos, or boot to Win2000. After I got Win2K

> installed, I found that it has a Dos Window icon. That's where I get

> confused. I was told that Win2K did not have dos, and that is why I

> created the dual booting.

>

> Is this just because I already had dos installed, or because I chose

> the Fat32 formatting? Or, did a later version of Win2K put this back

> in the OS?

 

It might look like DOS but it isn't DOS at all. NT operating systems

(Windows 2000 is NT 5.0) are pure 32-bit operating systems, they do not

have DOS on board. What you see when you run Cmd.exe is the native NT

32-bit command processor, you can run many of the same old DOS commands

from Cmd.exe but on NT systems those commands have been repackaged to

work in the 32-bit environment.

 

Windows 2000 can run many DOS programs, where you will run into

difficulties is if your DOS applications want or need direct access to

the hardware, some DOS applications may want to re-configure some

hardware settings to their liking. NT operating systems do absolutely

not allow this, such applications will not run properly on NT systems.

 

On NT operating systems DOS applications run inside a Virtual DOS

Machine (NTVDM) they run in a virtual environment. The Virtual DOS

Machine has a different Command Processor to accept and pass commands to

and from 16-bit DOS applications to the the underlying 32-bit operating

system, it uses Command.com for this. The version of Command.com that

ships with NT operating systems is not the same as the MS-DOS/Windows 9x

version. The NT version of Command.com only runs inside the NT Virtual

Dos Machine (NTVDM) and only has a few internal commands. The NT

version of Command.com prepares and passes all of the non internal

commands it receives to Cmd.exe for execution, that is command.com's

limited role on NT systems, other than the few internal commands it has

it can't do anything on its own and it should never be used for anything

other than running 16-bit legacy applications.

 

John

[Guest Jeff Richards]

Re: Changing Dual Boot

 

Thank you for the correction. That is one myth I would particularly not want

to be supporting.

--

Jeff Richards

MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

"glee" <glee29@spamindspring.com> wrote in message

news:uUwu$QmBJHA.3496@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

> "Jeff Richards" <JRichards@msn.com.au> wrote in message

> news:exdOdFmBJHA.4340@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

>> snip

>> W2k does NOT require a clean install. There is an upgrade patch from

>> Windows 98.

>

> ...and before everyone starts asking for a link to this 'patch', I do

> believe Jeff's typo was meant to be 'path'.

> :-)

> --

> Glen Ventura, MS MVP Windows, A+

> http://dts-l.net/

> http://dts-l.net/goodpost.htm

>

[Guest Buffalo]

Re: Changing Dual Boot

 

 

 

letterman@invalid.com wrote:

>

> Since I already am somewhat familiar with Win2K from having it on my

> laptop, I might consider upgrading to 2K, even though I like the looks

> and feel of win9x better. I suppose I could get used to 2K. My main

> reason for not wanting to go all the way with 2K is because I dont

> want to reinstall everything. I've got 8 years of programs installed.

>

> On the other hand, I suppose it might be time to get rid of unused

> stuff and get a fresh start. However, aside from having two

> computers, is it possible to install Win2K as a second boot (dual

> boot), without ruining my present Win98 installation? That way I can

> slowly build the 2K installation without losing access to my "regular"

> system. By the way. I would use a Fat32 format on the 2K partition.

> I always want full dos access to all files.

>

> By the way, if ME and 2K use the same power, how much less (percent)

> does 98Se use?

>

> Thanks

 

I went from Win98SE and installed 2K on another partition on the same HDD. I

did, however, make the 2k partition an NTSF partition. The dual boot was

almost automatic when I installed 2k and it went without a hitch. 2k sees

all of the Fat32, but Win98Se does not see the NTSF partition, which you

already knew.

Anyhow, when I did the dual boot, it went without a hitch.

AMD 2100XP Palamino CPU, 1 GB DDR ram,ATI-8500LE vid card,ECS K7S5a

motherboard, and so on.

Now I use 2k almost exclusively.

Hope this helps.

[Guest philo]

Re: Changing Dual Boot

 

 

"Jeff Richards" <JRichards@msn.com.au> wrote in message

news:exdOdFmBJHA.4340@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

> That's what I said - a clean install is recommended. But it's not

REQUIRED,

> which was your claim

>

> Quote

> "I'd use Win2k as it takes about the same resources as WinME but is

> considerably more stable.

>

> It will of course require a clean install though"

> Unquote

>

> W2k does NOT require a clean install. There is an upgrade patch from

Windows

> 98.

 

Win2k does not require a clean install.

It merely requires a clean install if you want it to work!

 

 

> Jeff Richards

> MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

> "philo" <philo@privacy.net> wrote in message

> news:e01WjCkBJHA.4368@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...

> >

> > "Jeff Richards" <JRichards@msn.com.au> wrote in message

> > news:OeZXbtjBJHA.2060@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

> >> Installing Windows 2000 would not require a clean install. Windows 98

> >> can

> >> be upgraded to W2K without any particular problems.

> >>

> >> A clean install might be recommended, but it is certainly not required.

> >> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/250297

> >

> >

> > That's what MS says but I happen to live in the real world.

> >

> > Though I have tried upgrading a number of times and the upgrades did

take

> > place,

> > the systems always had problems. Some major, others more subtle , but in

> > no

> > case

> > as good as a clean install.

> >

> > True, some say a properly prepped Win98 system can be upgraded OK...

> > and that may be true, but a clean install is usually a better bet...

> > and faster than the so-called "preps" .

> >

> >

> > As an experiment, I have done a fresh install of Win98,

> > then before I did anything else...immediately performed and upgrade...

> > and yep, it worked fine...

> > but the Win98 installation was pristine. In the real world, there is no

> > such

> > thing as a pristine Win98 installation!

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >> Jeff Richards

> >> MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

> >> "philo" <philo@privacy.net> wrote in message

> >> news:ukJb1RjBJHA.4700@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...

> >> >

> >> > snip <

> >> >

> >> > I would not bother at all with WinME really.

> >> >

> >> > I'd use Win2k as it takes about the same resources as WinME but is

> >> > considerably more stable.

> >> >

> >> > It will of course require a clean install though

> >>

> >>

> >

> >

>

>

[Guest Jeff Richards]

Re: Changing Dual Boot

 

Sigh. Even that is not true. The W2K machine I use here is an upgrade from

W98 and it runs just fine. Years ago I did dozens of upgrades from W98 to

W2k and had only a few problems. While it is true that if problems appear

the only reasonable way to fix them (in terms of time and effort) is to do a

clean install, it is not true that an upgrade from W98 to W2K will always

have problems.

 

Finding W2K drivers to suit a machine that was originally delivered with W98

is likely to be a much greater problem than any issues with upgrading the

OS.

--

Jeff Richards

MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

"philo" <philo@privacy.net> wrote in message

news:y9WdnTq12ukW4CnVnZ2dnUVZ_i2dnZ2d@ntd.net...

>

> snip <

>

> Win2k does not require a clean install.

> It merely requires a clean install if you want it to work!

>

>

[Guest philo]

Re: Changing Dual Boot

 

Jeff Richards wrote:

> Sigh. Even that is not true. The W2K machine I use here is an upgrade from

> W98 and it runs just fine. Years ago I did dozens of upgrades from W98 to

> W2k and had only a few problems. While it is true that if problems appear

> the only reasonable way to fix them (in terms of time and effort) is to do a

> clean install, it is not true that an upgrade from W98 to W2K will always

> have problems.

>

> Finding W2K drivers to suit a machine that was originally delivered with W98

> is likely to be a much greater problem than any issues with upgrading the

> OS.

 

Not worth wasting one's time really.

Through the years I've done hundreds of installs (probably closer to a

few thousand)

My record is that I've never had a clean install fail, and I don't think

I've ever had an upgrade work 100% correclty...so I have stopped

bothering with upgrades years ago.

 

As to Win2k dirvers, yes back when win2k first came out there were

problems with a lot of drivers not being avail...

that was a long time ago. Of course the H/W today is probably too new

for Win2k support.

 

Since the machines I setup are mostly in the P-II , P-III vintage...

I can generally get win2k drivers for everything. The only exception is

that Isometimes have a hard time getting on-board video working...

so have to pop in a PCI card

[Guest Jeff Richards]

Re: Changing Dual Boot

 

Your comment was, and I quote "It merely requires a clean install if you

want it to work!" That is demonstrably not true, and represents bad advice.

If you gave up on upgrades so many years ago then you are hardly in a

position to comment on whether or not they will work. And if you tried lots

of them and couldn't get them to work then I can only guess that you were

doing something wrong.

--

Jeff Richards

MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

"philo" <philo@privacy.net> wrote in message

news:%23YA$mNJCJHA.3348@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

> Jeff Richards wrote:

>> Sigh. Even that is not true. The W2K machine I use here is an upgrade

>> from W98 and it runs just fine. Years ago I did dozens of upgrades from

>> W98 to W2k and had only a few problems. While it is true that if

>> problems appear the only reasonable way to fix them (in terms of time and

>> effort) is to do a clean install, it is not true that an upgrade from W98

>> to W2K will always have problems.

>>

>> Finding W2K drivers to suit a machine that was originally delivered with

>> W98 is likely to be a much greater problem than any issues with upgrading

>> the OS.

>

> Not worth wasting one's time really.

> Through the years I've done hundreds of installs (probably closer to a few

> thousand)

> My record is that I've never had a clean install fail, and I don't think

> I've ever had an upgrade work 100% correclty...so I have stopped bothering

> with upgrades years ago.

>

> As to Win2k dirvers, yes back when win2k first came out there were

> problems with a lot of drivers not being avail...

> that was a long time ago. Of course the H/W today is probably too new

> for Win2k support.

>

> Since the machines I setup are mostly in the P-II , P-III vintage...

> I can generally get win2k drivers for everything. The only exception is

> that Isometimes have a hard time getting on-board video working...

> so have to pop in a PCI card