DOS Under Win9x

[Bill Layer]

Hi All,

>    Why not just get a DOS boot disk and boot up into DOS and avoid WINDOWS
>altogether.  As long as you don't mind running just your DOS application, this
>should work, shouldn't it?

This, and the previous posting re: clean installs are really on the mark. I have never seen a Win95/98 upgraded system that was as stable as clean install. Support for DOS programs under Win95 is really very good, but most programs will need their .PIF setup manually to run right. In some cases, this means forcing the program to run in true DOS mode, whereby Windows shuts down and restarts, and then executes the prog on bootup. This last method can be slow, but it almost always works. Another added benefit of the latter  strategy is that custom autoexec.bat and config.sys files can be written for each application, to load (or not load) the required drivers, libraries etc.

As I understand it, Win98 has gotten more intelligent about auto-configuring DOS apps to run, but I can't attest to it as I'm still a 95 user. (I just support several 98 systems here at work). 

One last important thing to remember, is that (in past days) DOS programs didn't always run right under DOS either! Memory management, environment space, and drivers were always an issue for DOS programs. It's one of main factors that has driven the popularity of Windows. I'd make sure you can run the prog flawlessly under DOS before blaming Windows...

My 79 cents.


Bill Layer
Sales Technician
<b.layer at vikingelectronics.com>

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