Re: Windows XP

From: Kevin G. Rhoads (kgrhoads_at_alum.mit.edu)
Date: 10/20/04 

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 13:52:41 +0000

>The fundamental problem is that XP does not have DOS. The "dos box" is a
>DOS EMULATOR which does not support extended memory managers such as
>Phar-Lap.

This is not quite true. There is no real DOS, true. The emulator does
support Phar-Lap's TNT-DOS extender. It just doesn't support *some*
older versions of that emulator. SO the Phar-Lap extender that comes
with FPS1 doesn't run under NT/XP, neither the version for the tools
nor the version for the generated EXEs, but you can run both FPS1 tools
and the EXEs it creates under NT/XP with a later version of the PharLap
extender -- I got two different later versions on eBay and it works fine
with both. You can even REBIND the generated EXEs with a later version
of the PharLap 386DOS or TNT-DOS extender. The same is true of MASM
6.11 variants and such -- and VC++ 1.x -- all use versions of the
PharLap 386DOS/TNT-DOS extender, and all can be run under NT/XP with
some zero to some finite amount of fussing. You can also run MASM 6.12
and later under pure DOS using the TNT-DOS extender (I have only tried
a few versions, not an exhaustive list).

The trouble is PharLap's restrictive license policies which disallow
redistribution unless you pay a per copy fee.

Of course, if you really need DOS with XP, you get a partition refrunger,
convert the NTFS partitions to FAT32, and use Win98 DOS boot disks.
THat is how I have this machine here at work set up. A few small
FAT16 partitions, for when I need DOS 6.x; and two FAT32 partitions,
one hosting Win98 and acting as the backup for the other FAT32 partition
which hosts WinXP Pro. Under XP I can "see" all the partitions at once.
Under Win98 (or its DOS) I can see either FAT32 (but not both) and all
the FAT16 partitions. Under true DOS 6.x (0r earlier) I see the FAT16
partitions only.

DOS is useful to read single-sided floppies and to format floppies. XP
is hopeless at floppy formatting and won't "see" single sided formats.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: BP 7.0 has seconds of delay under WinXP
    ... FPC did support go32v1, but I never saw it run. ... XP is so widespread, it makes sense to support it, if possible. ... was part of the appeal of DOS software, ... I can imagine a separate dos extender being like a pager. ...
    (comp.lang.pascal.borland)
  • Re: Best DOS version to put on a 5160 XT?
    ... Or did 3.3 just not support a larger drive very well? ... DOS 3.3 supports FAT12 only, which means that no partition could ... is the first version to support partitions>32M that I would ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.classic)
  • Re: Best DOS version to put on a 5160 XT?
    ... Or did 3.3 just not support a larger drive ... DOS 3.3 supports FAT12 only, which means that no partition could ... is the first version to support partitions>32M that I would ... could install a later version of DOS, but the extra bells and whistles ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.classic)
  • Re: Ghost 2003 cant see FAT32 partitions? Rich text
    ... >> Apparently an earlier Fat16x remnant. ... This disk happens to be a SATA RAID 0 pair, but Dos can ... > see its FAT32 via the BIOS. ... > all partitions, and recreate all. ...
    (comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage)
  • Re: New filesystem for Linux
    ... of DOS that has ever objected to arbitrarily aligned partitions in the MBR. ... As late as Windows 98, DOS would object to non-aligned logicals, at the very least with some settings for the BIOS use/don't use LBA or "Large" settings. ... In any case, yes, non-cylinder aligned logical partitions really do cause trouble. ...
    (Linux-Kernel)