I'm going with Louis on this one. When installing FreeDOS, I'd expect the installer to overwrite my MBR with clean boot code, so I don't have any troubles booting FreeDOS post install. That's what MS-DOS did, and that's what I expect from any OS in fact.
Naturally, an appropriately big warning must be presented before doing so, and if the user knows he has some tricky configuration (multi-boot), he should be able to select an option "leave my MBR alone please, I will take care of it myself". Mateusz On 22/02/2016 23:24, Louis Santillan wrote: > On Mon, Feb 22, 2016 at 3:41 AM, Eric Auer <e.a...@jpberlin.de> wrote: >> >> Hi Louis and Jerome, >> >> as advanced user, I am against installers zapping my MBR without >> even looking at it. I would need a bootable CD to repair my boot >> menu, or would need to know how to do that with DOS. Enough users >> neither have boot repair CD prepared nor know how to use DOS tool >> methods for restoring a backup of their MBR. > > I am not advocating this. > > >> As mentioned probably a few weeks ago, please overwrite the MBR >> ONLY if it was empty... By EMPTY, I mean no code present at all. >> Which is the state that you will probably see when you bought an >> empty harddisk or made a new virtual computer to install DOS on. > > This almost never happens for 99.999% of users. I have a hard arguing > for this as the only sane behavior. > >> You can mention in the readme that users can issue [some command] >> at the DOS prompt after booting from the CD to overwrite the MBR. >> That will allow them to do that at their own risk IF they want. > >> You could even add a dialog to ask the user whether they want to >> overwrite their MBR, but this includes the risk that people would >> say yes without careful thinking. Also, as said, this should ONLY >> be required if the MBR was empty before. So I suggest to grab and >> backup a copy of the MBR first. Second, check if it had boot code >> and only third, only if not, write the boot code which was missing. > > I am advocating this. Big red warning screen. > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Site24x7 APM Insight: Get Deep Visibility into Application Performance APM + Mobile APM + RUM: Monitor 3 App instances at just $35/Month Monitor end-to-end web transactions and take corrective actions now Troubleshoot faster and improve end-user experience. Signup Now! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=272487151&iu=/4140 _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
