Over the past few months, there have been a number of threads here on
various alternate OS's to DOS 6.2. DR DOS, Open DOS, Russian DOS, and
so on have been mentioned. I Am interested in replacing my DOS 6.2 with
DOS 7 that comes with WIN98, but I don't want to waste time unless there
is a good chance that it will do what I want. I would appreciate
encouragement or discouragement from anyone who already went down this
road.
MY SYSTEM:
In one C: primary 2GB HD partition: DOS 6.22, WIN3.11, + a wide variety
of shareware and freeware DOS utilities. Some of these DOS utilities do
file operations like SD (Super Directory), SWEEP (file copy, move,
rename, etc.), PCOPY (like SWEEP), Notron Utilities 8, etc. Also:
PKZIP, TSE Editor, WordStar, TAPCIS for Compuserve, LIST, and dozens
of other shareware and commercial DOS programs.
In another C: primary 4GB partition (but 32 bit FAT): WIN 98 second
edition. I run stuff here that there is no equivalent for in the DOS
partition.
In a 3rd D: secondary 1GB partition: Common 16 bit FAT drive to move
files between the two OS's.
WHAT I WANT IN MY DOS / WIN 3.11 PARTITION:
1) 32 bit FAT for smaller clusters.
2) Able to access data in the D: partition if it is > 8GB into the HD.
This would allow increasing size of the WIN98 partition. DOS 6.X has an
8GB limit to the HD.
3) Otherwise, be fully compatible with DOS 6.2 utilities and programs
that I am already running, including WIN 3.11 and stuff that runs on
that version of WIN.
4) No sacrifice in DOS6 features or speed.
What I would have to do is re-format my DOS partition from 16 bit FAT to
32 bit FAT. Then grab the DOS7 system files from the WIN98 CD and the .CAB
archived utilities that are not normally installed, and install these on
my DOS partition, replacing all or most of the DOS 6.22 OS stuff. No
problem for me doing this, but it will take time and risk, and why do it
if it won't meet my goals. By the way, I have good backup / restore so
no chance of loosing data in the process.
All suggestions are welcome.
Thanks, Barry
