Installing MS-DOS from Win95?

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Sue & Andrew - 27 Feb 2004 10:15 GMT

I want to multiboot WinXP and MS-dos (nostalgia for old DOS games!).
Unfortunately, my 10-year-old MSDOS setup disks don't want to read....

The Win 95 CD comes with MSDOS, and you can set up multi-booting for
Win95 to give a MS-DOS boot option...

What would be the easiest way to simply remove the Win95 part and
leave MSDOS as a working OS?

Any suggestions?

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Bill Starbuck - 27 Feb 2004 10:32 GMT

I suggest first that you discuss how to run these games within Windows
XP. Consult one of the WinXP newsgroups.

Second, the formatting of the harddisk may be incompatible with both
the version of DOS you have and the version of Win95 that you have.
The safest way to get a multiboot system with different disk formats
is to buy a product such as PartitionMagic and to use it to create
separate partitions. It may also be that Partition Magic can format
one partition as a bootable DOS one. See
www.powerquest.com

Bill Starbuck (MVP)

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philo - 27 Feb 2004 18:32 GMT

> I want to multiboot WinXP and MS-dos (nostalgia for old DOS games!).
> Unfortunately, my 10-year-old MSDOS setup disks don't want to read....
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>
> Any suggestions?

although you could create a fat16 partition
and use a boot manager

those old dos apps may not run right due to the much faster cpu
of your machine.

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Andrew - 27 Feb 2004 19:33 GMT

Thanks for the replies.

Win XP allows you to format a fat(16) section - you can even install on it
if you want to. But I used WinXP to create a fat partition and a NTFS
partition. With XP, it can recognise that you have another OS installed, and
automatically set up a boot loader giving you the option. That all works
fine - I currently get the choice between win95 and XP, no conflicts etc.

However, it is a bit of a hassle to load in win95, then use its 'reboot to
dos' option. And not sure how the XP loader would handle that. Hence the
aim to be able to just erase the win95. I could modify msdos.sys file to
load DOS instead of win95. I guess it boils down to what files does the
MS-dos part of win95 actually need? I can delete the rest of them.

> > I want to multiboot WinXP and MS-dos (nostalgia for old DOS games!).
> > Unfortunately, my 10-year-old MSDOS setup disks don't want to read....
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
> those old dos apps may not run right due to the much faster cpu
> of your machine.

Reply to this Message

Jeff Richards - 27 Feb 2004 21:55 GMT

If W95 is already installed in a FAT partition, then simply edit MSDOS.SYS
so that Windows doesn't start.There are several ways to do this - see
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];118579
Contents of the Windows Msdos.sys File

Then remove the files you aren't using.

Signature

Jeff Richards
MS MVP W95/W98

> Thanks for the replies.
>
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> load DOS instead of win95. I guess it boils down to what files does the
> MS-dos part of win95 actually need? I can delete the rest of them.

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Andrew - 28 Feb 2004 05:10 GMT

Thanks - I thought that was all that needed to be done. Follwoing it, I
wasn't sure what win95 files to delete, and which to keep....I guess the
ones to keep are primarily in the command directory.

Oh well - space is hardly a premium. I'll just leave win95 installed. :)

> If W95 is already installed in a FAT partition, then simply edit MSDOS.SYS
> so that Windows doesn't start.There are several ways to do this - see
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
> > load DOS instead of win95. I guess it boils down to what files does the
> > MS-dos part of win95 actually need? I can delete the rest of them.

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Bill Starbuck - 28 Feb 2004 06:29 GMT

>Win XP allows you to format a fat(16) section - you can even install on it
>if you want to. But I used WinXP to create a fat partition and a NTFS
>partition. With XP, it can recognise that you have another OS installed, and
>automatically set up a boot loader giving you the option. That all works
>fine - I currently get the choice between win95 and XP, no conflicts etc.

Surprise, surprise! Thanks for explaining that.

Bill Starbuck (MVP)

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