> At 02:06 PM 4/10/2002, anarkisseD wrote:
> >I want to protect it against itself! <G> I want to boot to DOS without
> >having to use F8. I want to make certain any "messaging" software
> >doesn't open up a back door that others can send files through. etc etc
With win95 you can alter the msdos.sys file to boot directly to dos or
display the 95 menu first, allowing you to choose dos. The same may
be possible with 98, but I am not sure.
> Trying to install win$ to upgrade your DOS though is unwise as the DOS
> included is far less powerful than the older DOS and you can always just
> yank utilities off the floppy disk that it makes ("rescue disk") and get
> more utils off the net. the DOS with w98 was never made with the intention
> that you'd use it regularily and it is really only an underpinning for a
> few simple tasks and rescue work.
I was told that dos7 that comes, at least with win95 has certain ``powers''
the last ``real dos'' does not: a) dos5 and dos7 copy and move files
faster than dos 6.22 b) dos7 supports fat32 which saves wasted disk space,
does 6.22 does not c) internal commands (e.g., if and for) are enhanced.
It may not come with all the standalone programs like move, but these
can be simply added, if they run with dos 7x.
I know at some point, microsoft provided a cmd.com that simulated dos,
but did not actually provide a way to boot ``in dos mode'' (I guess
no IO.sys and msdos.sys). Did this occur at win98 or later?
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Howard Schwartz
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howardbschwartz "at" california.com
