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Windows ME - The End Of UMSDOS And BeOSfs Over Vfat?
Juan Rojo writes: "I recently got a copy of Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (which
is suppossed to be the next generation of the Windows 9x series, supposed to mantain 'backwards' compatibility with older versions. In them all the ports and memory access are unprotected). I was really surprised that "pure" DOS access was simply removed. You can't enter into pure DOS in any way. No more 'Command Prompt' option when pressing F8 at the startup.. No more 'Shutdown to MSdos' and no more shorcuts to DOS mode. I even tried removing the Windows directory and it crashes at the startup instead of going back to a DOS prompt (like Win98 or 95). The only possible way seems to be booting from a disk with a Win98 DOS kernel installed. This seems to be a serious problem for UMSDOS based unix distros, for the BeOSfs that runs over Vfat and even for using LoadLin, which many users still may need.
I wonder if Microsoft did this on purpose.. or if they have some 'excuse' about it." That doesn't sound very "backwards" compatible to me either. Considering the source, is anyone really surprised?
Microsoft is trying to get us to stop using the DOS prompt.
This is because Windows 2000 does not have it and they are expecting to move people off of the 9x architecture into Win2K very soon. They want the transition to move as smooth as possible.
Evidence of this:
- Removal of the DOS prompt.
- Adding more Windows 2000-like features to ME
- Changing the naming scheme of the OS. Windows 2000 took the naming scheme from this product line.
- The next version of Windows 2000 will include a consumer edition that will be sold for the same price as Windows 9x.
Microsoft has been promising to end the Windows 9x product line for 4 years now. They are finally starting to follow through.
I do have to add, that personally I think that removal of the DOS prompt is very premature. I feel they have to develop some decent recovery tools before taking the DOS prompt away.
I'm no Windows expert, but maybe the conspiracy loving maniacs are wrong this time.
Afaik they killed dos because
- The luser doesn't need it, and the power user should use Win2000 in their view.
- The quickstartup shutdown feature is incompatible with the normal dos booting way.
Also maybe there is some util on the CD for real users to tweak things so that an dos prompt remains an option
:P
WWJD? JWRTFM!!!
Assuming you're running with SysV startup, setup init level 5 to be a graphical login and such. Now rm -rf /usr/X11R6. Now reboot. Okay, sure, it didn't work too well did it, but you can boot into single user mode no problem. You know, the command-line only one, that's the unix equivalent of hitting F8 on boot.
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Hey guys.. If you want a DOS prompt, why don't you just make a new command interpreter? Also, you can probably still run Bash in WinMe (though I know that Bash on Win32 is horiffically slow..).
Now, for the more interesting problem of 16-bit DOS, effort should be put into the FreeDOS project.
I know WinMe is going to cause trouble. There are a *lot* of devices out there that need bios upgrades, this, that, and the other thing, which are currently only currently possible through DOS. I had to upgrade my BIOS last night, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to boot into DOS, since I didn't have any disks with it. My roommate did have a 98 boot disk, though he runs Win2k these days.
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Ski-U-Mah!
I just realized that many Java compilers and utilities for Windows run from the command line. This isn't the end of the world (you could probably make some batch files or something, or have they disappeared too?), but it may cause difficulty..
Oh well, for those that just need a command line, there will always be one, be it Bash or something like OS/2's and WinNT's CMD.EXE.
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Ski-U-Mah!
You're right. Back when I ran PC DOS 7.0, it was a very good DOS. They put a lot of effort into giving as much free memory in the lower 640kB as possible, which was nice. IIRC, I was running with over 600kB free when sitting at a prompt. I didn't run all sorts of fancy things, but it had Doskey, the CD-ROM drivers, mouse, and maybe another thing or two (it's been quite a while).
Hmm.. Looks like it sells for $50-60. A tad spendy, but not too bad (I think they actually include an AntiVirus package, and it also comes with the REXX scripting language).
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Ski-U-Mah!
It has been my (admittedly limited) experience that NT is, in fact, more stable than Win9x. However, only NT is more stable. The applications that run on NT (including Internet Explorer) are still flaky. I use NT at work (uggh) and I must log off and back on about twice a day to clear the system out, or things will just stop working. But I almost never have to actually reboot.
It's also worth noting that Windows is so inconsistent, it's not even consistently bad.
Another thing - it's my impression that Microsoft doesn't mess with the NT APIs too much (compared to Win9x), so NT should be easier to emulate with projects like WINE. OF course, most of the people working on projects like WINE are using Win9x, but in theory, wouldn't it be easier to emulate NT than Win9x? Are the APIs better documented? Perhaps a better question would be, are there as many undocumented APIs in NT as there are in Win9x?
Sorry for wandering off on a tangent; this is something I've been curious about.
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Consider: many new motherboards have no ISA slots, and soon the ISA bus will be completely removed on all new motherboards. Does this benefit the consumer? What about consumers who have ISA modems? The answer is, yes, it benefits the consumer in the long term, at the expense of a minor inconvenience in the short term. Once everyone has switched completely over to PCI and USB, we can start using motherboards that have no ISA bus (not just no ISA slots, but no PS/2 ports, no floppy drives, and no other devices that still run on the ISA bus). This leads to a more efficient design, which gives us faster, cheaper, more efficient motherboards - and that benefits everyone.
It's sad, really. This is yet another example of Microsoft's technological achievements(successful migration of the PC industry from DOS/Win16 to Win32, excavation and elimination of DOS legacy code) being marred by the relentless drive of their business side to quell competition.
Wait a minute - what? you're saying moving from DOS/Win16 to Win32 is a good thing, and yet removing DOS is a bad thing? Think about this for a moment.
DOS is not just a lower operating system--it's a basic environment that can be entirely overwritten by whatever code happens to run underneath it. Much has been said about the ability to run alternative operating systems being quelled by this design; the faults generated are actually much more devious.
So, DOS doesn't completely control your system; rather, it lets other software do whatever it wants. This quells the ability to run alternative operating systems? That makes absolutely no sense. This design is what makes LOADLIN possible - LOADLIN can completely remove DOS, and replace it with something else, while the system is still running.
DOS lets the user replace anything with everything; under the Windows model, Microsoft holds the final say on what calls you're allowed to issue, what memory you may rewrite, what partitions you may generate.
Wow, that sounds remarkably like UNIX. Applications can't directly muck around in hardware (unless they're running with root permissions, in which case the OS selectively grants them access).
Even the simple requirement to rewrite applications such as Partition Magic in full Win32 code--and that's presuming a hard drive partitioner could be allowed to function through the API--at minimum makes the code much less portable across OS's, and gives Microsoft leverage over yet another critical element of system configurations.
Hmm, making software companies rewrite old applications that require a backwards-compatibility layer so that they're more efficient and work better is a bad thing? Windows NT is 32-bit only, and is much more stable than Win98, so Microsoft wants to migrate everything to NT. The more 16-bit apps that get rewritten as 32-bit apps, the more likely this plan is to succeed.
This isn't just about Microsoft making it harder for their users to run alternative operating systems; it's about Microsoft closing off direct access to a user's own system to the point of forcing the OS to crash before giving the user a command prompt.
Uhhh, who said anything about forcing the OS to crash? Where the hell did that come from? And by the way, someone else pointed out that you can still get to a command prompt by (surprise!) opening a command prompt window.
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$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
My definition of backward compatibility does not include working with older versions of OTHER PEOPLE'S software. Nor does it include 'working in exactly the same way as the old version'. Or even 'keeping certain boot procedures the same so that other entirely unrelated 3rd party software works the same way as it used to.'
This IS NOT a backward compatibility issue.
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DOS should not be loading before Windows.
It shouldn't, I'm happy it's not, it's excellent that they've pulled out yet another layer of headaches, huzzah.
The problem--and it's a real one--is that they're preventing DOS from loading at all.
There's *no good reason* for F8 not to allow a DOS session to start up. Yes, there's a good reason for DOS not to load when Windows is loading--but from a pure troubleshooting point of view, access to the core filesystem is inordinately useful for system repair and there is no benefit to the customer for such functionality to be removed.
It's sad, really. This is yet another example of Microsoft's technological achievements(successful migration of the PC industry from DOS/Win16 to Win32, excavation and elimination of DOS legacy code) being marred by the relentless drive of their business side to quell competition. DOS is not just a lower operating system--it's a basic environment that can be entirely overwritten by whatever code happens to run underneath it. Much has been said about the ability to run alternative operating systems being quelled by this design; the faults generated are actually much more devious. DOS lets the user replace anything with everything; under the Windows model, Microsoft holds the final say on what calls you're allowed to issue, what memory you may rewrite, what partitions you may generate. Even the simple requirement to rewrite applications such as Partition Magic in full Win32 code--and that's presuming a hard drive partitioner could be allowed to function through the API--at minimum makes the code much less portable across OS's, and gives Microsoft leverage over yet another critical element of system configurations.
The philosophy of the DVD contracts was to achieve restrictions over consumers in excess of what the law would impose by preventing any vendor from being able to legally provide entire realms of fair use functionality to consumers. By doing an end run around the law, the studios hoped to effectively reverse entire swaths of public policy. Considering the anticompetitive and intrusive charges against Microsoft, this code extraction is similarly an end run around the technological capability of the generally open PC platform to run operating systems and environments other than those prescribed by Microsoft.
I don't like it, I'm not happy, and I do believe formal complaints should be issued in this circumstance. This isn't just about Microsoft making it harder for their users to run alternative operating systems; it's about Microsoft closing off direct access to a user's own system to the point of forcing the OS to crash before giving the user a command prompt.
Crashing is not a feature.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Could you show me how to do this? What do I need to type in the IE Address bar to get DOS commands to execute?
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
In fact there is a registry setting you can do t enable auto-complete in the CLI like with BASH, tcsh, and other popular UNIX shells. Futhermore there is another registry setting that will allow a window to take focus with just the mouse over it...
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
> we still have BootX which works just fine to
> load Linux
Bad example: BootX quit working for many LinuxPPC machines sometime around Mac OS 9, which forced them into a special booter called yaBoot, a sub-OS requiring a special partition and everything. In other words, Mac OS changes (even before the oft-mentioned Mac OS X) have pushed us into similar territory, boot-wise.
A while back I talked to a Microsoft technical drone who told me that Win2K will contain full command line support. He explained that everything that can be done from the GUI can be done from the command line. I recounted for him the story I read about another Microsoft spokesdroid stating that "the command line and scripting were weaknesses of UNIX." His response to that was to make a face at me.
So if what he says was true (and, of course, all his words are suspect as he was a Microsoft employee), then future versions of Windows will definately contain some kind of CLI support (which will probably be MS-DOS based).
Can someone clarify this matter?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
... will DosEmu be ported to Win ME?
how does removing dos command mode stop umsdos and other such things? they play on the fs, right?
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Having no wish to install WinME to try it, what hapens if you put BootGui=0 into your MSDOS.SYS file? (for those who don't know, this means the system boots to a command prompt rather than autostarting Windows). Also, does LOGO=0 in the same file suppress the graphical display?
Personally, I used to love the way old versions of Win9x said "It is now safe to turn your computer off" - and if you typed MODE CO80 blind at that point, you got the C:\> prompt....go ahead, find an old W9x and try it!
All your ghosts are just false positives.
Well, there's a simple solution to this. Don't upgrade to ME. Problem solved.
Microsoft want to to do away with the CLI because they like thier customer stuck in their way of thinking. Microsoft does not want thier customers think outside the box. Hey this just an assurance that they keep thier customer base.
What are you talking about? Haven't you ever heard of the First Amendment? I can damn well say anything I want about Microsoft's products. It won't do anything; but I can say it.
Umm, ever heard of a rescue disk? That disk Windows asks you to make upon installation?
Yeah. Try that.
> Every time I try to type mode co80 at the logos.sys (It is now safe to switch off your computer) screen, my computer always loses power before I can finish typing.
Try turning off power management in the BIOS, lemme know if this works. I suspect not, it probably issues a HALT or something.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Hmm, since the last DOS game I played was Duke Nukem 3D, I'd say that DOS gaming is pretty much dead. Has there been a major title released for DOS in the last 3 years? Not that I can remember, so I highly doubt that MSFT has any designs on the gaming market with this move.
In my opinion, Windows ME is for people who want to run crappy programs on new PC's. If you wanted to run good programs on a new PC, you'd run Windows 2000. Win2K doesn't work well with some older games, but it works fine with most newer ones. I've played Rogue Spear, Age of Kings, Diablo, Diablo II, Unreal Tournament, SimCity 3000, Jedi Knight, Quake 3, Alpha Centauri, and many others on my Windows 2000 box just fine. I'd say that covers many of the "must-have" games for the last 2 years or so.
If you can give up your DOS programs, Windows 2000 is the way to go. I was a hardcore DOS user back when Windows 95 came out. I refused to adopt it until well into two years after it's debut, simply because it was too slow, and I had DOS down to a science. That said, I haven't tinkered with an autoexec.bat or a config.sys in a long while, other than to make a DOS boot disk with network access here at work. I'm betting that 99% of Windows users will never need or miss DOS from their machines.
The only places DOS is really needed are shops that run DOS programs from 1992. You'll find a lot of places with some proprietary ISA card which uses some ancient DOS program, all manufactured by a company that is out of business or hasn't updated their software in five years. The solution is simple here, DON'T UPGRADE!
That's right, don't upgrade to a new machine. I've got a few of these situations here at work. Try finding a new machine with ISA slots from Gateway or Dell. You can do it, it's just a pain.
If your program was written 5 years ago to run in DOS, does it really need a Gigahertz Pentium III? No. Use your old boxes until they die, then find another old box. Upgrade to a different product, or insist that the vendor produce a 32-bit version of their software. Whatever you do, don't buy a brand new PC and then try to run your ancient software on a shiny new OS.
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When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
I've taken a look at a WinME beta, and command.com is still there, it still runs on top of it, you can still start the ms-dos prompt from inside windows, it's just you can't get the dos prompt by itself. They've gone out of their way to turn that off.
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There is a tweak to enable tab completion in cmd.exe too. There is also popup command histories and everything. If you want to know more, email me.
~GoRK
I wish I'd have seen this when it was fresh. Perhaps my comments could have made it to the top. The person who submitted this to slashdot is *obviously* not a MS beta tester, or else he would have known the answer to his own gripe. Thus he probably has "secured" his copy illegally and even though it IS microsoft, I don't think he has any room to gripe. 1) WinME is the (purportedly) final step towards bringing consumer windows (3.1/95/98) into sync with the NT kernel (3.1, 3.5, 3.51, 4.0, 2000) With this comes the obvious (and necessary) absolution of the GUI as essentially an application on top of DOS. DOS applications run in VM's just like in NT and OS/2. 2) The filesystem is the same FAT32 we've always had access to. If you boot to DOS (more on this later) you will have access to all the files. WinME *DOES NOT BREAK* the vfat or usmsdos filesystem drivers!!!! 3) WinME uses the NT Bootloader *WHICH CAN BOOT DOS, LINUX, AND BEOS FROM NATIVE PARTITIONS!!!!!* or it can boot seperate windows/dos versions from the same partition. Seen the 98/2000 dual boot configs? How about a 98/ME/2000/Linux running all off of one VFAT partition. It's not that difficult! I cant honestly believe that this thing was posted (boy there is always someone to make that same complaint every article isnt there?). Windows was never supposed to BE dos. Ever. Now that they've finally seperated the two, complaining "I can't boot DOS!!!" is totally idiodic and stupid. It's not the same OS, for god's sake. If you want to boot DOS, install DOS! I should also note that there *is* a recovery command prompt in WinME (It's also there in Win2K) where you can boot up to a 32bit command prompt and run Win32 CLI binaries without having to fire up a GUI. This is the same interface that Embedded NT and Embedded Windows2000 use when you don't need/use GUI support. ~GoRK
Folks,
I think this whole issue is a tempest in a teapot.
The reason is simple: there is this program called Partition Magic that allows you to run FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS, Linux EXT2, etc. on the same hard drive. I'm sure the publisher of Partition Magic will update the program so Windows ME users can also load a second operating system on the same drive on a different partition such as commercial Linux distributions. I won't be surprised that Caldera will release an update to OpenLinux e-Desktop 2.4 that does this.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
It's a pretty pathetic excuse for a command line compared to, say, bash, but you can do what you ask.
Type
cd "c:\program files"
and the logical thing will happen.
The problem, of course, is that the long directory names they use are too hard to type, and there's no shortcut mechanism at all - you can't hit tab to complete the name, and you can't say "cd \progra*" to have the shell expand the name, because there's no file name expansion.
Ironically enough, for a lot of those file names, typing
cd c:\micros~1
would be easier. Unfortunately, NTFS is a "real" file system, so that won't work if you're using it (as I am on my NT system).
Hope that helps; I do 99% of my work in Linux, BeOS or MacOS nowadays, but I remember all too well the days when I had to use a Windows system all the time.
D
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I looked for it on my NT Server 4.0 system and it wasn't there - is this new for Windows 2000?
Maybe it really is time to upgrade, although all that silly fading in and out stuff drove me bats when I saw it.
D
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Wow, it works!
Wonder why they didn't just make that the default.
D
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The entire Win32s for Windows 3.1 and Windows 4.x series (95, 98, 98SE, ME) has existed for one purpose: get all applications replaced by Win32 versions and migrate everyone to NT.
The original intent of Win32s and Windows 95 might have been to be a stepping stone to NT, but Microsoft has been strangely really lax about the execution. They've almost purpously kept NT out of the mainstream market by keeping things like Plug'n'Play, USB support, and DirectX on the shelf for 3 to 4 years after the 9x folks got it.
I wonder if this is a situation similar to Apple in the 1980s, where the "Apple II forever" people kept the lineup on the market for years past the point where it was competitive. It's almost as if iinternal forces inside Microsoft are conspiring to keep the 95/98/ME line going, and when upper management looks at the revenue figures, they can't argue.
Don't forget, these guys have a monopoly on the desktop. If they wanted the world to run the NT kernel, they could get us there. Instead, they want to treat Windows 2000 as an upsell and continually pedddling crap like Windows ME. The sell of Windows 95 was "Just like NT, except with backwards compatibility". But now the sell of ME seems to be "Just like 98, except without the backwards compability". Bizarre.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
But this change will make some important procedures harder (fixing the BIOS, installing old games, etc.). Microsoft may think that most of their customers aren't doing that; but many of their cutsomers hire people to do that sort of thing (or ask friend to do it for them). This makes dealing with Windows machines even more of a pain than it already is. Of course, since CD-ROMs started being inaccessible from DOS mode under standard Windows installations, DOS mode had gotten significantly less useful anyway.
It makes sense. I don't LIKE it, but it makes sense. MS has been promising to make DOS a thing of the past since 3.1, they've just finally delivered. No more legacy 8 and 16 bit processes should mean more stability. Would you be the one to say that Windows doesn't need all the stability it can get?
As I said, I don't like it, I prefer to do half my work CLI style, but I've seen it coming for 6 years now.
Microsoft has continuously clamed Windows 9x as a compleate operating system but anyone willing to challange Microsoft will notice that Windows 9x runs on top of Dos just as Windows allways has.
:) This can be done with Sys command (if memory serves.. this was a long time ago).
/windows if you can find a program like win.exe... run it... Dose Windows ME boot?
:)
Windows is obsolete. This has been my assertion for a long time. It's not an operating system itself but a batch of enhancments to Dos (multiasker, graphical interface, and network driver...).
As such Microsofts cheaf compeditor wasn't Apple or Linux or IBM but Dubble Dos and Deskview and every Dos enhancment pacage out there.
This being part of why Windows won the market. Why switch to MacOs, Unix or OS/2 when you can continue to use Dos? The industry standard for 10 years...
Microsoft couldn't remove Dos... Dos is what put Windows in the marketplace.
Now Microsoft CAN and they DO. There is no omnus motive to this. So an old obsolete Dos ultility won't work on WinME... blah... LILO still works...
Linux dosn't run under Dos it reboots out of Dos into Linux. UMSdos still works. It just needs the stupid file system nothing more.
My worry isn't that Microsoft removed Dos from WinME. My consern is that 5 years of Windows computer experts successfully ignored it's the fact that it's there becouse Windows is still a Dos App...
The question is.... Did Microsoft really remove Dos or did they just do a better job of covering up it's existence?
Experement... this will mess your Windows up a tad but try this anyway...
Install a Dos upgrade (IBM Dos or DrDos... MsDos upgrade won't do it...) or just install Dos by hand
If it works it'll boot dos... not proff... That's got Dos installed on a Dos FS... like Linux installed.. it may not have been there before...
Then go to cd
Even if it has some nasty behavure and crashes if Win.exe runs and TRYS to boot Windows.. you have your varification... Thow it dosn't boot under any stock version of Dos.. this to be expected... I'm supprised that Win 9x ran fine under Dos 5.x
If however it dosn't even give a graphic "Booting Windows" or anything like that.. Dos really has been removed...
I'm saying all this while I have no access to WinME... so just experement and post responce..
Oh yeah and ummm reinstall becouse nodoupt this'll really mess up Windows
I don't actually exist.
Moderators, please mark this as troll material.
>"Microsoft has the right to produce whatever kind of program it wants to, and we have no right to judge its endeavors."
Actually, we have every right. The quality of a product is judged not by those who develop it but by those who use it.
As far as "backwards compatability" is concerned and as an administrator, I have since win95b considered having to be familiar with winblow$ having to be backwards compatable. Removing this makes dealing with users client machines that much more inefficient and unnecessarily difficult to maintain. All the more reason to use Linux or BSD exclusively.
...Of course I look at the very bright side to this. My company has been replacing Winblow$ and SCO servers for months now with Linux, now is the chance to really make some headway into clients desktop machines.
>when Windows Millennium Edition ships, I'll be standing in line for my copy.
That makes one of us.
>and I'm not going to pretend I'm some how more important than Bill Gates.
You've got to be kidding. This isin't actually *too* bad. it does *kind of* look like a fear tainted/ignorant newbie point of view. on the other hand though, it is pretty ignorant....definitely thinly veiled troll material.
-- "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."- Albert E.
Some facts from a review i read (on german c't):
MS themselves did state that ME will be the last Windows based on the old technology, so a kind of MS-DOS is still there underneath.
I think they just wanted to broaden the impression that ME is "pure 32-bit" (as if that was an advantage on its own
> They announced two years ago that they would be removing DOS mode.
Actually, they announce it every time they come out with a new version.
The question is, did they really remove it this time, or just hide it better?
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> I can see it now, if they had left dos in then the story would read "Microsofts 20th attempt at a graphical OS still relies on the command line".
Actually, many of us are perfectly happy to run a GUI that is layered on top of a "command line OS".
The reason for any such cynical headlines that you suggest would be that MS has previously lied about removing DOS from Win9x, and got caught out at it. If they are lying again, we'll probably see headlines very like what you suggest.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> They would love to dump Win9X and significantly cut down on their development costs, as well as deliver a more stable product to their customers.
Interesting. I had always assumed that they didn't really want to dump it at all. It is essentially paid for, and they darn sure aren't putting much into it for the returns they're getting on it. (Didn't we hear of a proposal to re-introduce Win 3.1 as a device OS last year?)
Nor did stability ever seem to be of much interest to them, until Linux started breathing down their neck. (Or, more correctly, until the media noticed the difference and started commenting on it.)
> Just like any other vendor with a large installed customer base, they are a slave to backward compatability.
Yes, it's a regular albatross.
OTOH, the real issue is the APIs. It seems that you could retain the API and change out everything underneath, and the customer would hardly know the difference. And if you needed/wanted to change the API, you should be able to run two APIs (call them "old" and "new") on the same platform, and warn everyone that "old" is no longer supported after such-and-such a date.
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Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The question is, did they really remove it this time, or just hide it better?
Apparently, all they have done is modified IO.SYS to always invoke WIN.COM, instead of COMMAND.COM like it used to. I'm curious as to what would happen if you replaced WIN.COM with a copy of COMMAND.COM.
All the old standbys used to test Win9X still crash WinME, from what I understand. If you fire up a DOS debugger and overwrite the first 64 KB of memory with zeros, the system will halt instantly. Why? Because Windows still depends on the real-mode DOS kernel for certain critical tasks.
Granted, WinME has not been released yet, and this is third-hand information, so take this with a good amount of salt. But extrapolating from Microsoft's past performance, I think this is a safe bet.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
DOS should not be loading before Windows. It shouldn't, I'm happy it's not, it's excellent that they've pulled out yet another layer of headaches, huzzah.
The problem is, they didn't pull out DOS. By all reports, WinME still uses the real-mode DOS layer to boot and for various critical system operations. Microsoft has cut back on their DOS habbit, but they haven't kicked it.
All Microsoft has done is modify the real-mode startup code to always load WIN.COM (or its moral equivalent), rather then giving you the choice between WIN.COM or COMMAND.COM like it used to.
Hardly the picture of progress some make it out to be.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
The former IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS of pre Windows 95 were changed to hide DOS.
...
MS Windows 95 was basically MS Windows 4.0 and MS-DOS 7.0 packaged together. DOS 7.0 was modified such that after processing CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT, it automatically invoked WIN.COM. (There were other changes, but they aren't relevant to this discussion.) Once Windows was actually up and running, you saw some real changes over Win 3.x, but early on, the boot process is almost exactly the same.
The intent was to remove it then, but this broke to many programs of the time that relied on MSDOS.SYS to be there.
That is bordering on Microsoft propaganda. Some of those programs that "relied on MSDOS.SYS to be there" include COMMAND.COM and WIN.COM, I've found.
When MS was getting ready to release Windows 95, there was still a lot of hardware out there that needed real-mode DOS device drivers to work. If Microsoft got rid of DOS completely, all that hardware would be non-functional until new device drivers could be written. That was one of the biggest problems with OS/2, and Microsoft knew it. So, instead, they kept the existing system of loading Windows on top of DOS, complete with backwards compatibility with drivers loaded in CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT.
(There is also a good deal of real-mode DOS activity even after Windows 4.0 is running, but for the sake of brevity, I'm ignoring that here.)
If you edit MSDOS.SYS to include the line BootGUI=0, then Windows 95 and 98 function exactly like the old DOS+Win 3.x combination did. You boot to a command prompt, and can start Windows by invoking WIN.COM.
With Me, DOS is completely removed. IO.SYS is nothing more than a loader
This, again, borders on Microsoft propaganda. DOS isn't completely removed in WinME. Instead, the DOS kernel (such as it is) was modified to ignore CONFIG.SYS and COMMAND.COM, and instead start the Windows 4.X boot process immediately.
Rest assured that the real-mode DOS kernel is still present, functional, and quite critical in Windows Millennium.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Microsoft uses dos to boot windows: "Microsoft sre shit, they still have msdos in windows"
Microsoft get round to writing a non-dos bootloader (and lets face it that's all it has been for the last 5 years): "Microsoft only did it to make it hard for Linux users. It's a conspiracy! They should have left dos support in!"
I love you guys, I really do. You guys remind me that comparitively, I actually am somewhat grounded in reality.
Gfunk007
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
I don't see why this would affect BeOS, unless they changed the structure of the VFAT filesystem. The BeOS installer, at least with the Linux-friendly version, is a boot disk, and the Be filesystem resides on the Linux ext2 filesystem. It doesn't use Linux OS services at all, and Linux isn't running. I'd imagine it works the same way under Windows.
--
I have an old MSN CD-rom sitting around for this very purpose.
Adam
OHMIGOD, Microsoft has finally lived up to a promise from many years ago and removed support for MSDOS? Those bastards!
</SARCASM>
This is about a non-story if I ever heard one. On the one hand, MS is blasted by the non-MS community for maintaining legacy 16-bit code. Then, when finally cutting it free, the same community suddenly realizes that they've been benefitting from the old 16-bit code and throws a hissy fit. You can't have it both ways.
All this really means is that people will need to keep old boot diskettes around, or perhaps look at creating a boot floppy using FreeDOS. If it doesn't work now with FreeDOS, I suspect that it could certainly be made to given the proper impetus. In any case, it hardly means the End Of UMSDOS And BeOSfs Over Vfat, as the title of the article suggests.
---
---
"Go Metallica. Die RIAA." -- Linus Torvalds
Also, hiding DOS gives them the ability to spin the media nicely: "The first Windows without DOS." I bet that works very well.
That would have been Windows NT, chum.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Under the Aug-95 version of windows 95, it was possible to boot to your old version of DOS. You could also boot up under dos 7 (win95 dos) and then start up windows 3.1 It worked beautifully. In fact I had my system set up to do just that.
But then M$ came out with OSR2. In addition to all the positive new features, such as fat32 support, were two "features" that made me want to kill some redmondites. They disabled the ability to boot from another version of dos, and they went out of their way to break win31 compatibility.
You could still set up a menu to try and boot to a previous version, but it would break the first time you used it, forcing you to use a dos71 boot disk and sys your C drive with it.
As for the win31 compatibility, M$ messed up dos71 so that it would HALT YOUR SYSTEM whenever it detected you trying to use win31. It would come up with a message saying that this version of windows was not compatible with your system yada yada yada. Ctrl-alt-delete wouldn't reboot you either, you had to hit that reset button or cycle the power.
Turns out there was nothing "incompatible" about dos71 and win31. I quickly determined that they had modified io.sys. When I pointed this out in a newsgroup I got a few trite remarks back and one good one. Some bright person had modified io.sys so that it wouldn't halt your system. He pointed out his webpage which held the patch needed. When I used it on my io.sys, win31 worked just fine.
So don't be too suprised about anything M$ does that isn't in the best interest of their customers, or a segment of their customers. Monopolies view their customers as a resource to exploit. Companies in competitive markets see their customers as their most precious resource. One that must be preserved and positively encouraged to stick with the company because they can always take their business somewhere else.
I had just about forgotten how bad the personalities behind M$ really were, then I saw this. The only reason they have for doing this is so they can shove win32 down the throats of more people and lock out access by competing products.
You'd think with the lawsuit that they would have learned something. Guess again. Actually that is a good thing becuase it means they intend to continue doing the kinds of things that got them in trouble in the first place. One way or another they will destroy themselves in the process.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Microsoft is trying to push pure windows because it is something that they purely control. The next step will be to do away with 9x altogether and go straight to NT. This puts M$ in a strong position of influence over developers both inside and outside the company. Why? Because M$ soley controls and defines the win32 api. That means that if you develop for windows, M$ is who you have to deal with. Borland has to play nice with M$ to get the information they need to create their compilers. Imagine the runaround they must get from the redmondites. M$ could easily install hidden calls that only they could make use of. Calls that are faster or offer more functionality than publicly documented ones. Many people believe they have done this already. I for one would bet money they have.
Basically the point I'm making is that by eliminating a customer's ability to run something M$ doesn't have direct or indirect control over, they are securing their chokehold on the desktop.
I'd hardly call this a good thing.
Thank God for people like Stallman and Torvalds. Without them we'd all be stuck using OS/2. (Now don't get me wrong, I loved OS/2, but its no Linux.)
As it stands right now, no one uses real mode drivers except when necessary. If someone is using oakcdrom.sys with mscdex, it means their system is running in MS-DOS compatibility mode and they don't know how else to get the cdrom running.
Win9x doesn't even parse config.sys or autoexec.bat unless they're something in them to begin with. Want to make sure you're only using super high performance 32bit drivers? Make these files 0 length. Chances are you won't see any difference because the only drivers that would be in config.sys or autoexec.bat are ones you specifically put there yourself, or were put there by a dos based program.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I don't remember suggesting that M$ applications were better. Before you can call something better, you've got to have something to compare it with.
What I did do was accuse M$ of creating hidden features in windows to give their own applications an artificial advantage.
This accusation is not new, its been around for some time now.
So you claim to work for M$ in the OS division. Maybe you do. I also may have been wrong in my assumption that M$ was guilty of creating a double standard through manipulation of the API.
But tell me this, are your application divisions partitioned off from your other divisions? Do they enjoy access to priviliged information (or the people who created that information) that other outside developers do not?
I know if I were running a multifaceted enterprise such as microsoft, I'd want my divisions to be able to benefit from each other's knowledge as much as possible. Duplication of effort is money down the drain, as well as time wasted. When two groups don't work together they can go in mutually exclusive directions, creating even bigger problems.
I'd have a hard time believing that M$ would completely separate its divisions and not allow them to share information in a manner authorized by management. To do so would put them on a level playing field with other application developers. Gates wouldn't want that because it would be giving an advatage to the enemy.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Emmm Windows NT runs what is little more than a DOS emulator. It is DOS in a protected environment
Yes, NT's DOS is emulated. And Microsoft didn't write the emulator, either. They bought it from some company (forget the name) for NT3.1, and as far as I can tell it hasn't been updated since then.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
On the other hand, loadlin doesn't actually use DOS anyway -- it just unloads Windows and loads up a Linux kernel... I can only imagine that this would still work under WinME, since it is not a protected OS like WinNT.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
PC DOS 2000
So what? Who in their right mind would be using Millenium when dos and 9x are being phased out in the first place in favor of Windows 2000? I say good riddence.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
MSK
The disappearance of the DOS prompt makes it more difficult to install alternative OSes, but there are ways around that. True, you can't run LOADLIN out of a DOS box anymore, but do you really need to? You always have the option to boot from floppies if you don't want to devote a complete partition to your new OS.
(Another problem: WinNT - and I suppose 2000 as well - doesn't allow raw access to the floppy device, so RAWRITE won't work. Solution: use a bootable CD. Your PC can't boot from CD? Then it's probably not worth to run Win2K or ME.)
I believe there's a greater threat: rescue CDs. Nowadays, you rarely get a full Windows CD when you buy a new PC. All you get is media that allows you to restore the PC to its original configuration.
For example: my company-issued laptop has such a rescue disk. I also have an official Win98 CD, but I suspect it won't install without the rescue disk. This disk only allows to choices: either wipe out the whole disk, or only "fix" the C: partition.
My desktop PC (running NT) has a restore medium as well, and that one effectively repartitions the complete hard disk before reinstalling. (For this one, I do need to install from the rescue disk: I tried installing the "official" WinNT CD.)
I have installed Linux on the laptop, but now I'm hesitant to use the rescue disk (in case Windows really gets messed up).
Installing Linux/BeOS/*BSD on the other machine? I don't think so. If I ever need to reinstall NT, I'll lose everything on the disk.
Ironically, these two machines were sold by vendors who claim to support Linux...
WWTTD?
Nobody ever said you could get a funtioning Windows boot off a floppy. Let's read this again...
That's right. DOS.
--
--
"I personal[ly] think Unix is "superior" because on LSD it tastes like Blue." -- jbarnett
A) DOS is gone from WinME. DOS never really was in Win95, it was present, but DOS apps ran in a VM. What Windows ME does is boot straight into protected mode because it helps in booting quickly, and the machine is very vunerable in this state. Also, it gets rid of uneeded code.
B) The legacy 16bit stuff is still there. 8 bit stuff has been gone for a long time. Most Win95 machines rarely switch into real mode unless you're running some funky hardware or software. However, all the 16bit stuff is still there.
C) It doesn't get rid of the CLI. Just like NT, WinME still has a DOS prompt.
D) You call the DOS prompt a CLI?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
It's called a VM. If you knew how Windows worked, you wouldn't say stupid stuff like that. Command.com (the DOS prompt) is (and always HAS) run under a virtual machine in Windows 95. The machine operates in protected mode, and run a VM to run the DOS prompt. This is different from the straight DOS prompt which is ACTUAL real mode DOS. Windows 95 has NEVER run on top of DOS. The only DOS code (IE non protected mode) is some funky old drivers. The DOS prompt by itself was the last bits of DOS Win95 had. It was real mode DOS in which the entire machine operated in real mode without a VM. They didn't go out of their way to turn it off, they just got rid of it entirely.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Wrong. WinME doesn't use WOW. WOW is only for "pure" 32bit versions of NT. 16bit processes are handled by the same "24bit" Win95 kernel. 8 bit processes (just like the 16bit ones) are run in a virtual machine just like they always have. The only thing that has changed is that it is no longer possible to take a Windows95 machine into pure real mode DOS (without VM's or protections running.)
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Okay, now I can officially say that about half the posters on this topic (even the +4's and +5's) have no clue what they are talking about. To put it succinctly
/.
1) It's bfs, not BeOSfs, don't EVER forget that;)
2) MS is not removing DOS comptability. It is simply removing the ability to boot into real-mode DOS. This is a feature that most people don't even use anymore. Unless you've got really old hardware drivers that need real-mode DOS (very rare) you're machine is in protected mode most of the time. Unless you use the "Reboot into DOS" option, you're not missing anything.
3) It is not removing the command line. From inside Windows, everything will still be the same. The DOS prompt will run on top of a VM (virtual machine) just like it always has, you can run DOS applications from the VM, just like you always have.
4) MS is not removing 16bit compatibility. 16bit compatbility has nothing to do with DOS support. Win9x/ME is still the "24bit" 16/32bit kernel.
5) Stability will only improve slightly. In previous versions of Windows, Windows booted DOS first, which then booted the Win95 kernel. WinME boots straight into Win95, so any stability problems that take down you're machine at startup or shutdown will be alleviated.
6) This will have no effect on bfs/vfat or UMSDOS. Those don't actually depend on DOS. The only thing that will change is that you can't use loadlin anymore.
7) This is not some marketing gimmick, or some way to supress CLI users, or anything like that. DOS mode conflicted with some stuff, it made the machine very vunerable at boot, and very few apps actually needed "pure" DOS mode anymore (as opposed to the VM DOS mode, just so we're clear) so Microsoft decided to get rid of it. It certainly doesn't deserve a nearly 700-post barrage on
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Sorry, I mean 16bit real-mode DOS process. The person before me had reffered to this as 8bit, and I wasn't paying attention.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Windows ME will still have DOS compatibility. To get rid of DOS would mean to re-write Windows (ala NT). There was an article in PC Magazine or Smart Computing or something I read that said there was a way (undocumented of course) to get to DOS mode. Microsoft is most likley doing this so they can create an illusion of having DOS gone so they can get people used to the "no dos" design of there upcoming OS that will merge Win 9x and NT (2000).
Of course that is just my opinion
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
Cute. Course, MS will make sure that none of the drivers for the latest and greatest hardware works with win 9x two years from now. Sure companies will make strives to maintain support, but it'll eventually fall off. Especially if the drivers are easier to develop under win >= 1000. Just think of all the win-modems that have minimal R&D put into them. (Not that I'd ever buy one of those)
Then, of course, as a developer for a windows market, you'd be crazy to not develop _for_ the new platform. Meaning, you're going to have to have at least some win-me machines. Then, as we typically do, once we start using the newer interface, it'll be hard to go back to the older one ( Just like win95 -> win3.1, or even win98 -> win95 ).
As a disclaimer, I'm biased towards all my OSes. (because they each give me something the others do not).
-Michael
-Michael
This has gotta be one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. Do I have to tell you how many times DOS has saved my ass? "Oops! Some how my registry and half my sys files have been corrupted, better get into DOS mode and transfer that term paper that's due tomorro to a floppy." This has happened more than once. I don't care what anyone says, floppys and DOS are indespensible if you run 95/98/98SE.
Eric
Make it idiot-proof and someone will build a better idiot.
Dammit man!! Read the other posts. There's still an "MS-DOS" icon,a nd you can still type "command" to pop up a DOS window. The ONLY thing that is different is that you can't BOOT into a PURE dos...you can't have WinME DOS running with no actual WinME.
/s switch to format..you can't "copy system files."
You still have FULL access to the command line from within windows. I'm on WinME right now - the only difference is the lack of "Reboot to MSDOS" and an "Command Line Only" on the F8 menu. Oh yeah, and there's no more
Actually, I forget where the article is offhand (you can probably find it by doing a search on LinuxToday), but according an article reviewing the beta of Win ME, they stated that the only boot disk you can make is one of their rescue disks. The /s switch in format no longer works, and I don't believe there's a "Copy system files" option in the GUI format command.
This is not good, seeing as I can't see newbies trying to flash a BIOS knowing which files to delete off the boot disk to make room for the BIOS image. On the other hand, some recent motherboards (my Epox mobo being one them) do allow you to flash the BIOS via a command option in the CMOS setup...
Just my $.02...
Frankly, DOS just don't cut it anymore.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Officially, they claim it isn't, but they probably forgot to remove it from their ftp servers, it's still here.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
I assume that most of the hubbub here is about the Mac-like interface, that is, no CLI access to anything. Well, it just ain't so.
True, you can't boot to dos mode. I made myself a bootable utilities cd. Asus, the maker of my K7V, has a Windows flash utility now. I've tried it (nervously, I might add) and it worked fine.It has a Win98 command prompt, generic ATAPI cdrom support, and support for lots of SCSI cards. I also have a neat Seagate utility I found on it that can zero out any hard drive, provided you know the number of heads, sectors, and cylinders.
The point is, do you really need a DOS mode? Make one of these cd's. If you need an iso image, I'm sure I could make one available if there were enough demand. I don't know about the legality of distributing such an image, though...
"We apologize for the inconvenience."
The CLI is still available as cmd.exe or command.com.
16 bit windows apps are still available via WOW.
8-bit processes?
The poster is worried that he can't boot to "pure" dos (no memory management, etc). This sucked for me, too, but really it's the way to go.
This isn't just about Microsoft making it harder for their users to run alternative operating systems; it's about Microsoft closing off direct access to a user's own system to the point of forcing the OS to crash before giving the user a command prompt.
Uhhh, who said anything about forcing the OS to crash? Where the hell did that come from? And by the way, someone else pointed out that you can still get to a command prompt by (surprise!) opening a command prompt window.
It sounds like you've never had Windows crash on you before. Here's a pop quiz for you then:
You turn on your computer to find an error message by Windows saying, "An error has been found in your kernel. Click OK to boot from an existing backup kernel or Cancel to attempt to load the kernel." Do you:
A) Click on Cancel and cross your fingers?
B) Click OK and hope your backup kernel boots?
C) Restart the computer, push F8, go into DOS mode, and restore the kernel from a backup copy?
or D) Stick in your Emergency Win9x Boot Disk?
Well, according to you, you might as well trash C, since you don't like the command prompt. And D? Well, you want a "faster, cheaper, more efficient" motherboard that doesn't have a floppy drive hookup, so scratch that. I guess you'll just want to cross your fingers, huh?
Windows ME is being promoted with a new bundle of system tools called "PC Health." What it does is keeps records of your system's settings by creating backups of the kernel each day, so technically, if you want to go back to the way your computer looked, say, 10 days ago, you could restore the copy of the kernel that existed 10 days ago, and *POOF*, everything's fine and dandy, right? But from my five years of experience with the Windows 9x kernel, if thing's aren't working the way they should, you can NEVER rely on being able to boot to the GUI. Something always gets in the way...Blue Screen of Death, system freeze, "Cannot find 'fortheloveofgoddonotforgettoloadthis.dll'. System Halted.", etc. But you know what? Whenever I've been in a mess, I've ALWAYS been able to get to the command prompt.
If Linux/BSD doesn't boot of the kernel, you can always go into debug mode and boot from either the backup or the Generic, and at least that will get you back into your system. For any and every system technician, there needs to be a back door into the system in case there ever is a problem. That back door shouldn't be having to reinstall Windows or reformatting your hard drive.
Guys, you're being absurd. They announced two years ago that they would be removing DOS mode. In fact, they had planned on doing so for Win98, but needed to maintain it for one more edition.
The entire Win32s for Windows 3.1 and Windows 4.x series (95, 98, 98SE, ME) has existed for one purpose: get all applications replaced by Win32 versions and migrate everyone to NT.
This is not a hidden agenda. Gates talked about this in the EARLY 90s ('92 or '93). Back then WinCE was referred to as modular windows, Chicago was Windows 4.0, etc.
None of this is secret. None of this is aimed at killing Linux. This is aimmed at killing DOS applications that won't run in a NT VDM. Those applications are the enemy, not Linux. They prevent MS from killing the DOS legacy and moving everyone to NT.
Right now, MS is saddled by that compatibility and limits their products ability to work. There is a world of difference between NT 3.51/4.0/5.0(W2K) and Win3.1/95/98 (can't say for me) in terms of stability, etc.
They keep migrating to new driver models that were more similar to the NT ones to improve stability and make the migration easier (more driver support for NT).
This isn't aimed at Linux, it is aimed at helping MS make a better OS.
Alex
Slashdotter's haiku
Is missing a syllable
Ridiculed by trolls
Make affiliate bucks
"Officially, Microsoft says you can boot to the real-mode command prompt only from the Emergency Boot Disk, which may leave too little memory free for running BIOS-flashing and similar programs that run only from the command prompt. Unofficially, Microsoft insiders told us to create a minimal bootable floppy disk by copying Io.sys and Command.com from the WindowsCommandEBD folder to a blank formatted disk."
=======================
Enlightenment is a Trap
You can still run DOS applications inside Windows ME (ie: as a window or full screen), but you just can't reboot the machine to a "pure" DOS prompt. If you have a boot floppy made with a previous version of DOS/Window9x, then you can get to a real DOS prompt that way. Also keep in mind that your config.sys and autoexec.bat are not parsed anymore either. Windows ME still has the dependence on the DOS underlyings and DOS really have not been completely removed, but the ability to easily access real-mode DOS has simply been made difficult. The primary purpose of doing this is to further enforce the movement of device drivers away from old style config.sys "DEVICE=" lines and various TSRs for supporting hardware and towards natively written 32-bit drivers. Such 32-bit drivers will generally be easier to port forward to future versions of Windows based on NT (Win2k and future) if those manufacturers don't already support NT. A side benefit is that native 32-bit drivers in Windows ME will generally be easier for users to configure and adapt to hardware changes (such as power state or docking changes). For example, being able to use native 32-bit network drivers instead of 16-bit DOS IPXODI/VLM drivers generally will have a tremendous boost in performance and usability. Switching from a 16-bit DOS CDROM SYS driver with MSCDEX to a fully native will generally not only be faster, but will allow access to long filenames. Although it is true that systems with older, no-longer supported hardware may still depend on DOS-mode TSRs or SYS drivers and may not be able to get updated drivers, Windows ME is not intended to be a general purpose upgrade for all older systems. Going forward, the next consumer OS after Windows ME will be based on NT and will have even more dramatic legacy hardware support issues, since many older manufacturers have neglected to support NT at all.
Don't waste those cycles! Put them to use! http://www.distributed.net/
I tried this. But no matter how fast I try to type, my computer always loses power before I can finish typing it.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
What if your hd is formatted FAT32? AFAIK, DR DOS won't be able to read it.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Every time I try to type mode co80 at the logos.sys (It is now safe to switch off your computer) screen, my computer always loses power before I can finish typing.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!
Will I retire or break 10K?
Basically this is a move by Microsoft to make people become less reliant on the CLI side of windows by removing the functionality (which could just as easily stay and make no difference) in order to condition people for future releases of windows which won't contain the MS-Dos support.
Twice so far (in two months) have I _needed_ to boot into dos only to be thwarted by this "feature". Luckily I had a boot disk handy.
nf
There is already a WIN-BASH. Its called Slashdot.
Emmm Windows NT runs what is little more than a DOS emulator. It is DOS in a protected environment - i'm 99.9% sure that you cant run doom or quake in that environment. In fact I believe virtual PC on the Mac runs a more realistic version of dos.
Also on Win2k I find the command prompt less responsive than when i'm working on a remote linux machine. That is definitely not true dos.
Realistically using the format tag isn't a valid way to verify an operating system.... it's like trying to identify the model of car by it's exhaust fumes.
I was actually thinking of it from the Mac user perspective (been spending too much time in my parents house again :))
Mac users routinely slag windows off since it's just a graphical add-on for dos.
I'm sure dos is in there somewhere though
The hidden version of Autoexec.bat now reads:
if $windowsfound win
echo Error : No graphical OS found
echo Error : Halting startup process. Beat your OEM to pulp for a windows CD.
:loop
goto loop
To be fair you are being just a little hard on Microsoft here.
I can see it now, if they had left dos in then the story would read "Microsofts 20th attempt at a graphical OS still relies on the command line".
Surely this is a step in the right direction and surely the linux/BeOS people can find a way round it.
After all winNT hasn't included a true dos for a heck of a long time and ultimately that is the model that the simultaneous windows versions are striving towards (slowly striving that is).
UMSDOS and BeOS over FAT aren't about the COMMAND.COM. I've installed BeOS PE in a blank MSDOS partition more than once. It's about the file system. WinME still uses FAT32 as its file system, and BeOS can install on NTFS. It doesn't matter whether or not they removed COMMAND.COM in WinME, it matters that the file system structure is still valid. Get it?
Free BeOS, runs from a Linux partition
Well, they have *a* shell under Windows 2000, with an add on product that they actually purchased from another company. The company was Interix, so now the product is Microsoft Interix 2.2.
Here are the product features directly from the Microsoft website. While I'll admit it feels kind of dirty to use this product, for those of us in a "closed Microsoft community" type of shop who have no choice but to run a Microsoft Workstation product on our desktop, it means we can still do *some* of the things we're used to doing at home.
Product Features
KornShell, C Shell and Bourne Shell with full job control
Over 300 utilities, including scripting tools such as awk, sed, perl, Tcl/Tk
Berkeley Software Design (BSD) sockets mapped to Winsock
Memory-mapped files
Subsystem vendor ID (SVID) interprocess communication (IPC) mechanisms: semaphores, message queues and shared memory
Pseudo-terminal support
Color curses support
Ability to execute Win32 applications from Interix
Full tty semantics mapped to console windows
Pseudo-terminal support
File-link support and true case-sensitive file names
Full integration with Windows NT security model, administration, file systems, networking and printers
Support for POSIX.1 (system services) and POSIX.2 (shell and utilities)
X11R5 runtime, including X clients such as xterm, twm, xrdb, and xlsclients
Support for running X Windows applications on remote displays
Support for daemons running as Windows NT services
telnetd & rlogind services (multiuser login support)
Berkeley r-utilities (servers and clients)
cron, syslogd & other daemon/service support
Internet clients: ftp, telnet, ping, rsh
Integrated tape device support
Interix Software Development Kit
Development tools, including make, RCS, lex, yacc, cc, c89, nm, ar, strip
ANSI C, POSIX.1 and POSIX.2 interfaces
Color curses library
BSD-style sockets library support
X11R5 libraries and header files
gcc (GNU C) compiler
g++ (GNU C++) compiler
g77 (GNU FORTRAN77) compiler
Support for Microsoft Visual C/C++ versions 4.0 and 5.0
System Requirements
Intel x86, Pentium, Pentium Pro and compatible systems
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation or Server version 3.51 or higher, Windows 2000 Professional, Server or Advanced Server
15-100 megabytes (MB) of available hard-disk space
Windows-supported CD-ROM drive and mouse
Check out www.microsoft.com/unix/interop/default.asp for information on UNIX interoperability on Windows 2000 platforms.
Ed Booher
Network Engineer
One Call Internet
www.onecall.net
[Disclaimer - Any and all views, opinions, out looks, philosophies, words of wisdom, words of brash stupidity, and principles out lined in this post are the belief of the Reverend Eddie W. Booher, Jr. and are not necessarily synonymous with the views of his employer or religion.]
"Genius may shine aloof and alone, like a star, but goodness is social, and it takes two men and God to make a Brother."
But isn't it still a shell over 20 year-old DOS code, just now without access to the underpinnings of the shell?
-
-
Give me liberty or give me something of equal or lesser value from your glossy 32-page catalog.
Microsoft abandon the prompt when it is integrated in MacOSX.
I guess this won't please the developpers : in most of my former companies, they were using some special compilation stuff to be launched from within Visual Studio.
Also, what about gamers who still love to play eiher Quake1 or Doom and who won't be able to launch their favorite mod anymore?
This definitively make me think Microsoft is inviting people to use Windows2000 rather than WindowsME.
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
I think most of you don't understand that the only thing they've done is remove the DOS option from the boot menu, as well from the shutdown menu.... You STILL have access to the DOS prompt, you can STILL boot to DOS by using a diskette.
And I know a little trick that will boot you too DOS very easily... All you have to do is make a batch file that renames c:\windows\system\vmm32.vxd to c:\windows\system\winlod.vxf and then rename c:\windows\command.com to c:\windows\system\vmm32.vxd.
You then restart your computer and voila BOOM you're in DOS. Just make another batch file which does the contrary and restart, and voila BANG you're in Windows.
Yeah I beta tested for WinME and this was a hot topic in the newsgroups. The way I see it, this was done really to prepare people for the next Windows release (Whistler) which will be base on the NT kernel and will have only an emulated dos support (Like W2K). This is a great step in the right direction since one of the main reasons for Win9x's instability is due to its backwards compatibility. Get rid of it, get rid of a lot of problems. Personally I'm all for it, if I want to play Nascar Racing 1.0 I'll use a bootdisk.
I don't see why loadlin, beos, etc need DOS mode anyway. An executable is an executable...it can still kick out windows and start clean. Mac people never had a DOS to work with and we still have BootX which works just fine to load Linux. It's not a big deal.
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
When Microsoft bought out Win95 and it still had DOS people complained that it was just a shell running on DOS, not a real OS.
Now when they bring out WinME and DOS is gone, people suggest that they have to have an "excuse" to do it...
Go figure.
Hi, you can actually boot DOS in WinME. Make a rescue disk and boom, you're in DOS if you boot of the disk. I'm sure with some hacking one can make this true for the HD boot too. Imagine, my machine could boot Win2K, WinME, Suse6.4, and DOS all from one boot menu :)
l8r
someguy...