----- Forwarded message from "Gary J. Ferdinand W2CS" <w2cs@ipass.net> -----
> As I recall, Windows 98 is the first release of Windows to remove the
> reliance on DOS. You go thru startup or shutdown menus to boot DOS if you
> ever feel a need to. Otherwise, you use MS-DOS windows or full-screen
> sessions while under the Win98 bootup. The Win98 operating system itself no
> longer even requires DOS to be first installed before Windows is installed.
> DOS mode compatibility is supplied within Win98; Win98 is no longer a big
> application sitting on top of DOS.
Well not really - as far as I can tell Win98 should have been
released as a "Service Release" for Win95. Win98 only adds a
few new hardware drivers for things like USB ports. It also
adds the "web like" interface to windows explorer. I have found
this interface is slower and takes up more screen space than the
Win95 version - infact I use Win98 with the Win95 shell so I
get USB but dont have to deal with the slower web like interface. :-)
They both are still running DOS under them - Win95 will report it
assome version of DOS 7 and Win 98 reports the same thing as
Windows 4.10.
You can still have an AUTOEXEC.BAT file and a CONFIG.SYS and you
can still boot the machine into a command line interface - either
from power on or from the GUI (graphical user interface) aka Windows.
> While it is still possible to have AUTOEXEC.BATs, etc., most of the "stuff"
> you had there is no longer needed, subsumed by Windows 98 registry and
> various system files such as win.ini and system.ini. AUTOEXEC.BAT is, of
> course, of interest when booting to DOS instead of to Win98, but that's not
> what you're talking about here.
Well - yes and no - if you run all of your DOS programs in a DOS box
(in a window or in full screen mode) you do get all the features
of Windows - like disk caching etc - but if you boot to DOS mode
you will discover that you willnot have some of this stuff and
may even find you need to setup and/or install things like
Smartdrive or the drivers for your sound card, CD rom drive and mouse.
> it. TR does not use such an environment variable. (Note only environment
> variable definitions are in my AUTOEXEC. No PATH statements, HIMEM
> statements or anything else!) Most of that c..p Windows98 takes care of and
> is no longer needed.
>
This is true as long as you run in a DOS window or DOS full screen mode
under Windows - but if you boot to DOS you will find you may need to
add drivers and path statements to your AUTOEXEC and CONFIG files.
I have found that not every Windows install is the same - they
seem to have diffrent setups depending on how they
were installed etc.
> | > Of course, my DOS programs won't work without DOS. And
> | > it's strange that once when I booted up in Windows and had not
> | > yet put the PATH line in the AUTOEXEC., my screen said some-
> | > thing like this: UNABLE TO START WINDOWS. CAN NOT FIND
> | > WINDOWS.COM (I think that's what it said.) So maybe Windows
> | > needs a DOS path?
Yep - it does. :-)
--
George Fremin III "When a true genius appears in the world,
Johnson City, TX you may know him by this sign; that the
K5TR (ex.WB5VZL) dunces are all in confederacy against him."
830/868-2510 -- Jonathan Swift
geoiii@kkn.net
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr
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