Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
Hi Liam, >> > Nothing you've said is remotely persuasive, IMHO. >> >> I'm not here to convince you. But thanks for sharing your opinion. > > I am not attacking you here! :-( > > I'm just trying to warn you that you're doing something dangerous > that's risky to your computer and your data, the same as I would to > anyone I saw behaving dangerously if I thought that they might not > realise. I was trying to be helpful. I understand. Sorry for sounding a little rude. Nevertheless, I know, what I'm doing. (And even if not, I won't complain.) Cheers, Robert -- +++ BTTR Software +++ Home page: https://www.bttr-software.de/ DOS ain't dead: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On Mon, 3 Jan 2022 at 21:33, Robert Riebisch wrote: > > Nothing you've said is remotely persuasive, IMHO. > > I'm not here to convince you. But thanks for sharing your opinion. I am not attacking you here! :-( I'm just trying to warn you that you're doing something dangerous that's risky to your computer and your data, the same as I would to anyone I saw behaving dangerously if I thought that they might not realise. I was trying to be helpful. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
Yes, Ralf: I have a really basic question regarding the date format. After decades, I decided I would like the date format to be -mm-dd instead of mm-dd-yy As this thread has drifted off into a completely different topic, here's a bit humor to get back on the issue at hand (though I am not sure a lot of US folks immediately understand In numeric abbreviation, Euro and Yank dates swap the position of month and day. -- members.iinet.net.au/~kilgallin/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
Hi Liam, [...] > Nothing you've said is remotely persuasive, IMHO. I'm not here to convince you. But thanks for sharing your opinion. Cheers, Robert -- +++ BTTR Software +++ Home page: https://www.bttr-software.de/ DOS ain't dead: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On 12/30/2021 2:22 AM, JR wrote: Hi there I have a really basic question regarding the date format. After decades, I decided I would like the date format to be -mm-dd instead of mm-dd-yy As this thread has drifted off into a completely different topic, here's a bit humor to get back on the issue at hand (though I am not sure a lot of US folks immediately understand ;-) ) https://xkcd.com/2562/ Happy New Year! Ralf -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On Sun, 2 Jan 2022 at 16:44, Robert Riebisch wrote: > > > I have to ask: why run this old version? It's a bit dangerous to let > > Because I *can*. :-D Doing unsafe things for no good reason is... not smart. > TB2 as a target for remote code execution these days? I doubt so. Not TB2. XP. Yes, very much yes. > Sure, Mint has TB. All mainstream OSes have T'Bird. (Since TB is mostly used for an unpleasant deadly disease, let's not overload it, eh?) > At work I'm happy with Outlook and wouldn't know, why I should talk to 4 > different mail servers. I have one mailbox with multiple addresses and > that's fine. [1] I find Outlook useless junk. It can't even quote properly. [2] If it is at work, one does not get to choose. [3] My employer ran 2 email systems, one for all staff, one for a major department. I needed both. The all-company server changed 3 times in 4 years. > I already planned to switch, but it just didn't happen for now, because > I did a lot of tweaking in TB2. You can just load an old profile into a new version and that's it. If you use extensions, then pick an old enough version that they work. Nothing you've said is remotely persuasive, IMHO. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Country code
This has drifted quite apart from the original subject, I will post. Robert Riebisch said: | why I should talk to 4 different mail servers. I have one | mailbox with multiple addresses and that's fine. One reason is that if a mail server does not work well, as this did for most of past year, there is another to try. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
Hi Liam, >> This message is written on virtual Windows XP using Thunderbird 2.x from >> 2010. ;-) > > I have to ask: why run this old version? It's a bit dangerous to let Because I *can*. :-D > such an old app connect to the internet, especially on a very old, TB2 as a target for remote code execution these days? I doubt so. > insecure OS. Thunderbird is still around, works absolutely fine, and > is stable, supported and gets regular security patches. Just install > it on the host OS -- Mint 20.2 includes T'bird. I have it on my spare Sure, Mint has TB. > I used it as my primary work email (and calendar) client for 4 years > in my last job, talking to 4 different email servers. In my first few At work I'm happy with Outlook and wouldn't know, why I should talk to 4 different mail servers. I have one mailbox with multiple addresses and that's fine. > months I tried every major FOSS email client and came back to T'bird. > It does more than any of the others, and it's fast and powerful. Why > not just run the current version, or even the previous version if you > want some XUL addons. > > https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/releases/ I already planned to switch, but it just didn't happen for now, because I did a lot of tweaking in TB2. Cheers, Robert -- +++ BTTR Software +++ Home page: https://www.bttr-software.de/ DOS ain't dead: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
Hi Ralf:
Well, it really would bode you well if you were a bit less arrogant at
times.
{These are called ‘You statements’ and are the typical way we
communicate. We tell the person what he did or didn’t do, whether it was
right or wrong or what he should or shouldn’t be doing. Such statements,
more often than not sound like accusations and blame. It conveys
judgment. No one likes being judged and hence it closes down
communication lines. It puts the person on the defense, making him
unable and unwilling to be open to what you have to say and truly listen.}
The article goes on to mention `I' statements.
https://innerspacetherapy.in/communication-you-i-statements/
--
members.iinet.net.au/~kilgallin/
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Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On 12/31/2021 2:37 PM, tom ehlert wrote: At that point, the system wants to create a page file that is larger (by default) than the 2GB fixed file size limit of FAT16/32. FAT has a limit of 4GB. it's DOS that limits this unless you indicate at DosOpen that you understand the difference between signed and unsigned (2GB and 4GB) offsets for file systems. so the limit for NT was 4GB, not 2 GB (or at least should have been) Well, it really would bode you well if you were a bit less arrogant at times. This was a simple typo... Ralf -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On Sat, 1 Jan 2022 at 20:21, Robert Riebisch wrote: > > This message is written on virtual Windows XP using Thunderbird 2.x from > 2010. ;-) I have to ask: why run this old version? It's a bit dangerous to let such an old app connect to the internet, especially on a very old, insecure OS. Thunderbird is still around, works absolutely fine, and is stable, supported and gets regular security patches. Just install it on the host OS -- Mint 20.2 includes T'bird. I have it on my spare work laptop. I am running it right now on macOS – *flips 2 vdesktops right* – v91.4.1. I used it as my primary work email (and calendar) client for 4 years in my last job, talking to 4 different email servers. In my first few months I tried every major FOSS email client and came back to T'bird. It does more than any of the others, and it's fast and powerful. Why not just run the current version, or even the previous version if you want some XUL addons. https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/releases/ -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On Fri, 31 Dec 2021 17:37:29 +0100 Liam Proven wrote: > > This typical Microsoftish genius idea, makes you jump through all > > kinds of hoops that include a third party online repartitioning > > tool to install it on an NTFS partition bigger than 2Gb. > > That's unfair. I think it's connected with the way NT <5 bootstrapped > an installation. > > Relevant digression: you can start NT installation from DOS. This was > a very useful feature and I urged IBM to copy it, but the techies I > spoke to could not understand why. > > NT 3.x predates EIDE; indeed I ordered and returned a bunch of very > early EIDE Pentium 1 PCs because NT could only see the first 512MB of > their 540MB disks. We had to swap them for SCSI machines. > > When NT 3.1/3.5/3.51 came out, most PCs could not boot from CD. Many > CD drives were attached to sound cards via proprietary interfaces; > Panasonic, Mitsumi and Sony were common: > https://goughlui.com/2012/11/12/tech-flashback-before-atapi-cd-roms-were-proprietary-interfaces/ You could get NT 4 just on floppy disks. > No OS could boot off these, and most only supported DOS and Win9x in > DOS compatibility mode. > > This also made it possible to install over the network without a > local CD drive. > > So, you could boot a PC under DOS, make a FAT partition, copy the NT > files from the CD or a network server onto the FAT partition, run > WINNT.EXE *under DOS* and it built a very minimal installation system > on the hard disk. The folder name varied but it was something like > C:\~$win.nt$\ > > Then it rebooted the PC into that, where a 2nd stage setup ran and > built the real NT system. Then it rebooted into _that_. If you picked > NTFS that now ran `CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS` on your drive. > > I don't think MS was trying to be awkward, and this functionality was > a lifesaver. It allowed me at one corporate client to bring up a whole > roomful of dozens of NT 4 machines with only a single optical drive on > the server, which saved so much money it paid for about 2-3 more PCs. > > You could bypass the DOS step by booting from 3 special NT boot > floppies, but the DOS method was quicker, easier and more versatile. > > Under OS/2 2.x and later, you only had the floppy method, and you had > to get your CD working under those boot floppies, adding drivers, > editing its vast multi-hundred-line CONFIG.SYS file to suit... it was > a major pain. If there were no OS/2 drivers for your CD, then you had > to copy the install files to a partition that the boot floppies could > access. The setup program only ran under OS/2 2 itself and couldn't > start from DOS. > > But the 2-stage NT setup is why it went through this > format-as-FAT-then-convert process. It limited your Windows system > drive to a max of 4GB until PartitionMagic came along, but it worked > and it meant it was easy to get NT onto machines that OS/2 only > installed upon with great difficulty, or not at all. > My perspective on this is different because I also had experience with other OSes back in those days that did better in that regard. I don't see any good reason for not just offering the option to directly format the drive as NTFS and install to it from the start in addition to offering the option to install on FAT from DOS and than later convert to NTFS when needed like you explained. It's truly a pity since the NTFS version shipped with NT 4 can handle much larger partitions. I still have a real hardware NT 4 install with a second 160Gb SATA drive formatted with it that works great. I don't consider saving money by not paying programmers to make it possible to install directly to NTFS to be a good reason especially since they were already swimming in cash back in those days. In contrast, BeOS could install itself directly from crummy Windows 9x by popping the CD in and running a Windows installer (or somehow transferring the files from the CD to the PC) and also had it's own native installer. Pretty sure Be had less programmers working on BeOS than M$ had working on NT. Linux even back in those days of pppd shell scripts and weekly kernel compiles could also be installed on FAT with umsdos if you wished so for some reason. And it could even emulate permissions on top of FAT. You could also of course install it from the network. If all else failed, you install it entirely from floppies. M$ has a history of always doing the bare minimum. Like MS DOS vs PC DOS vs Dos Plus/DR DOS. I'll concede though that the worst installer ever by far in my experience is the one for NeXTSTEP. Solaris with it's nightmarishly slow java installer was pretty bad as well. Happy new year, -- ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
Hi Travis, > Reminds me of my last XP machine, supposedly, XP could handle up to 4GB > of ram, but when I installed 4GB in my machine, XP only saw 3.5GB. No > idea why, I never did find out what the technical reason was, but it was > a commonly known problem, since almost everywhere I tried to get the ram > from for the pc insisted XP wouldn't see more than 3.5GB. Kind of odd I > thought, but it accomplished what I needed, so I was ok with it. I > still have that machine around here somewhere, though I've not turned it > on in a couple years. :) As we are already totally off-topic: Yesterday I finished migrating my beloved Windows XP x86 running on a ThinkPad R500 to VirtualBox hosted on Linux Mint 20.2 MATE on a ThinkPad E570. This message is written on virtual Windows XP using Thunderbird 2.x from 2010. ;-) Cheers, Robert -- +++ BTTR Software +++ Home page: https://www.bttr-software.de/ DOS ain't dead: https://www.bttr-software.de/forum/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
Ahh, thanks, that makes a lot of sense. Wasn't aware such things were still the case these days, but these two messages answer the question sufficiently, thanks for that. On 1/1/2022 8:23 AM, Liam Proven wrote: On Sat, 1 Jan 2022 at 02:12, Travis Siegel wrote: supposedly, XP could handle up to 4GB of ram, but when I installed 4GB in my machine, XP only saw 3.5GB. What Jon Brase said, broadly. Remember the original PC's 640 kB limit? The 8088 and 8086 could address 1 MB of RAM, but DOS on the PC could only use the first 2/3 of it. The top 1/3 of the address space was reserved for ROMs (not just the PC BIOS, but also the video card's BIOS, possibly the ROM of a bootable network card or SCSI card and so on) and for I/O space. If you added an hardware LIM-spec EMS card, then the page frame went in that top 384 kB too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanded_memory#:~:text=Expanded%20memory%20is%20an%20umbrella,to%20as%20%22LIM%20EMS%22. Well, 32-bit PCs have an analogous issue. 32-bit Intel x86 chips can address a total of 4 GB of address space. This space is not just RAM, but also ROM, I/O space and so on. While a 1980s video card might only have 32 kB of RAM, mapped into the space above 640 kB, a 21st century video card may have several gigabytes of its own RAM. Too much to map into a 32-bit memory space, or there'd be no room left for RAM! So a relatively small window is mapped into the memory map -- maybe 256MB or so -- and that's used to write data into the video card's memory. Also mapped in there is the ROM of any bootable hardware, and I/O space, and so on. So just like 384 kB of the 1MB of address space in the PC was reserved for ROM, video memory and I/O, and so couldn't be used for RAM, in a 32-bit PC, a certain amount of its 4GB of address space is reserved for ROM, video memory and I/O and can't be used for RAM. And just like EMS on an 8088/8086 PC, in x86-32, there is an additional mechanism for accessing more by paging little chunks of it into the limited available space: it's called PAE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension Mac OS X can use it, Linux can use it, Windows Server can use it, but in order to boost sales of 64-bit Windows and Windows Server, and accelerate the transition away from 32-bit OSes, Microsoft made sure that the ability is turned off in 32-bit Windows. It's there in the hardware, but 32-bit XP/Vista/7/8.x/10 can't use it. ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On Sat, 1 Jan 2022 at 02:12, Travis Siegel wrote: > > supposedly, XP could handle up to 4GB > of ram, but when I installed 4GB in my machine, XP only saw 3.5GB. What Jon Brase said, broadly. Remember the original PC's 640 kB limit? The 8088 and 8086 could address 1 MB of RAM, but DOS on the PC could only use the first 2/3 of it. The top 1/3 of the address space was reserved for ROMs (not just the PC BIOS, but also the video card's BIOS, possibly the ROM of a bootable network card or SCSI card and so on) and for I/O space. If you added an hardware LIM-spec EMS card, then the page frame went in that top 384 kB too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expanded_memory#:~:text=Expanded%20memory%20is%20an%20umbrella,to%20as%20%22LIM%20EMS%22. Well, 32-bit PCs have an analogous issue. 32-bit Intel x86 chips can address a total of 4 GB of address space. This space is not just RAM, but also ROM, I/O space and so on. While a 1980s video card might only have 32 kB of RAM, mapped into the space above 640 kB, a 21st century video card may have several gigabytes of its own RAM. Too much to map into a 32-bit memory space, or there'd be no room left for RAM! So a relatively small window is mapped into the memory map -- maybe 256MB or so -- and that's used to write data into the video card's memory. Also mapped in there is the ROM of any bootable hardware, and I/O space, and so on. So just like 384 kB of the 1MB of address space in the PC was reserved for ROM, video memory and I/O, and so couldn't be used for RAM, in a 32-bit PC, a certain amount of its 4GB of address space is reserved for ROM, video memory and I/O and can't be used for RAM. And just like EMS on an 8088/8086 PC, in x86-32, there is an additional mechanism for accessing more by paging little chunks of it into the limited available space: it's called PAE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension Mac OS X can use it, Linux can use it, Windows Server can use it, but in order to boost sales of 64-bit Windows and Windows Server, and accelerate the transition away from 32-bit OSes, Microsoft made sure that the ability is turned off in 32-bit Windows. It's there in the hardware, but 32-bit XP/Vista/7/8.x/10 can't use it. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
The issue is memory-mapped hardware. Any hardware that exposes configuration resisters or data buffers on the main address bus ends up taking a block of physical address space that could be used by RAM. If your CPU, motherboard, and/or OS can't deal with physical addresses wider than 32 bits, then you can have a maximum of 4 GB of RAM *and* hardware that can addressed. So if you have 4 gigs of RAM and a graphics card with half a gig of VRAM exposed to the bus, then you end up with half a gig of main RAM that's unusable. Even with a CPU/OS/mainboard that can handle >32 bit physical addresses, you may see some RAM unusable: if the mainboard assigns DIMMs to consecutive addresses starting from zero, with no holes, and you have 4+ GB of RAM and a device that only handles 32-bit addresses, then the device will end up stealing addresses from some of your RAM under 4GB. Note that "dealing with physical addresses wider than 32 bits" doesn't mean "64-bit". Motherboards generally don't have a neat power-of-two bus width, and and when a CPU or OS is called 32/64 bit, that generally refers to *virtual* addresses. For x86, a 32-bit CPU/OS with PAE will handle 36-bit physical addresses. Dec 31, 2021 19:12:31 Travis Siegel : > Reminds me of my last XP machine, supposedly, XP could handle up to 4GB of > ram, but when I installed 4GB in my machine, XP only saw 3.5GB. No idea why, > I never did find out what the technical reason was, but it was a commonly > known problem, since almost everywhere I tried to get the ram from for the pc > insisted XP wouldn't see more than 3.5GB. Kind of odd I thought, but it > accomplished what I needed, so I was ok with it. I still have that machine > around here somewhere, though I've not turned it on in a couple years. :) ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
Reminds me of my last XP machine, supposedly, XP could handle up to 4GB of ram, but when I installed 4GB in my machine, XP only saw 3.5GB. No idea why, I never did find out what the technical reason was, but it was a commonly known problem, since almost everywhere I tried to get the ram from for the pc insisted XP wouldn't see more than 3.5GB. Kind of odd I thought, but it accomplished what I needed, so I was ok with it. I still have that machine around here somewhere, though I've not turned it on in a couple years. :) On 12/31/2021 5:37 PM, tom ehlert wrote: At that point, the system wants to create a page file that is larger (by default) than the 2GB fixed file size limit of FAT16/32. FAT has a limit of 4GB. it's DOS that limits this unless you indicate at DosOpen that you understand the difference between signed and unsigned (2GB and 4GB) offsets for file systems. so the limit for NT was 4GB, not 2 GB (or at least should have been) Tom ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
> At that point, the system wants to create a page file that is larger (by > default) than the 2GB fixed file size limit of FAT16/32. FAT has a limit of 4GB. it's DOS that limits this unless you indicate at DosOpen that you understand the difference between signed and unsigned (2GB and 4GB) offsets for file systems. so the limit for NT was 4GB, not 2 GB (or at least should have been) Tom ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On 12/31/2021 8:14 AM, Liam Proven wrote: On Thu, 30 Dec 2021 at 21:04, Deposite Pirate wrote: Windows XP can indeed officially be installed and boot from FAT32. https://kb.iu.edu/d/ajqm AFAICS that page is inconclusive and merely says that XP supports FAT16, 32 and NTFS, which was never in doubt. But I checked and you're right. It's a long time since I installed XP! Actually, since Windows 2000, the default installation option will always create and install on a NTFS partition, though you could install on a FAT[16/32] partition optionally. I think this option has been removed with one of the service packs for Windows XP (SP2?), as it creates a problem when the computer you use as your host has more as 2GB of physical RAM. At that point, the system wants to create a page file that is larger (by default) than the 2GB fixed file size limit of FAT16/32. Ralf -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On Fri, 31 Dec 2021 17:14:10 +0100 Liam Proven wrote: > FWIW, I always used to have a DOS boot partition (C:) and put Windows > on D: back in the XP days. It was useful to have the ability to > dual-boot DOS for BIOS reflashing and occasionally for emergency data > recovery. I made the partition big enough to hold XP's pagefile, as > this was slightly quicker than having it on NTFS, it reduced > fragmentation on the Windows system drive, and if you needed the space > in DOS you can just delete PAGEFILE.SYS — Windows will silently > recreate it next boot. Seems to me as a great way to do it, especially in those days where you often just had one drive to work with. -- ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On Fri, 31 Dec 2021 at 01:46, Deposite Pirate wrote: > > Windows NT was designed to work with FAT. Windows NT 4 ... and the 3 earlier versions... > always > first formats the install partition as a FAT16 filesystem and then if > you selected NTFS at install, it converts the FAT16 file system online > to NTFS on the first reboot after install. Yep. > This typical Microsoftish genius idea, makes you jump through all kinds of > hoops > that include a third party online repartitioning tool to install it on > an NTFS partition bigger than 2Gb. That's unfair. I think it's connected with the way NT <5 bootstrapped an installation. Relevant digression: you can start NT installation from DOS. This was a very useful feature and I urged IBM to copy it, but the techies I spoke to could not understand why. NT 3.x predates EIDE; indeed I ordered and returned a bunch of very early EIDE Pentium 1 PCs because NT could only see the first 512MB of their 540MB disks. We had to swap them for SCSI machines. When NT 3.1/3.5/3.51 came out, most PCs could not boot from CD. Many CD drives were attached to sound cards via proprietary interfaces; Panasonic, Mitsumi and Sony were common: https://goughlui.com/2012/11/12/tech-flashback-before-atapi-cd-roms-were-proprietary-interfaces/ No OS could boot off these, and most only supported DOS and Win9x in DOS compatibility mode. This also made it possible to install over the network without a local CD drive. So, you could boot a PC under DOS, make a FAT partition, copy the NT files from the CD or a network server onto the FAT partition, run WINNT.EXE *under DOS* and it built a very minimal installation system on the hard disk. The folder name varied but it was something like C:\~$win.nt$\ Then it rebooted the PC into that, where a 2nd stage setup ran and built the real NT system. Then it rebooted into _that_. If you picked NTFS that now ran `CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS` on your drive. I don't think MS was trying to be awkward, and this functionality was a lifesaver. It allowed me at one corporate client to bring up a whole roomful of dozens of NT 4 machines with only a single optical drive on the server, which saved so much money it paid for about 2-3 more PCs. You could bypass the DOS step by booting from 3 special NT boot floppies, but the DOS method was quicker, easier and more versatile. Under OS/2 2.x and later, you only had the floppy method, and you had to get your CD working under those boot floppies, adding drivers, editing its vast multi-hundred-line CONFIG.SYS file to suit... it was a major pain. If there were no OS/2 drivers for your CD, then you had to copy the install files to a partition that the boot floppies could access. The setup program only ran under OS/2 2 itself and couldn't start from DOS. But the 2-stage NT setup is why it went through this format-as-FAT-then-convert process. It limited your Windows system drive to a max of 4GB until PartitionMagic came along, but it worked and it meant it was easy to get NT onto machines that OS/2 only installed upon with great difficulty, or not at all. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On Fri, 31 Dec 2021 at 00:02, Jon Brase wrote: > > NTVDM exists and runs a stripped down version of MS-DOS 5. I think it even > does have non-stripped versions of the relevant files available if the user > decides to sys a floppy. But I've never heard of it being possible to run > anything but there provided build of MS-DOS 5 in NTVDM. Maybe he ran the > FreeDOS installer and managed to pull in components of FreeDOS, but unless > he's using an emulator or VM, I agree that he certainly isn't running FreeDOS > on top of XP. Oh, yes, absolutely, but it's dedicated to the built-in DOS, as far as I know. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On Thu, 30 Dec 2021 at 21:04, Deposite Pirate wrote: > > Windows XP can indeed officially be installed and boot from FAT32. > > https://kb.iu.edu/d/ajqm AFAICS that page is inconclusive and merely says that XP supports FAT16, 32 and NTFS, which was never in doubt. But I checked and you're right. It's a long time since I installed XP! It seems it's NT 6 and above (Vista & later) that make NTFS a hard requirement for the Windows System drive. FWIW, I always used to have a DOS boot partition (C:) and put Windows on D: back in the XP days. It was useful to have the ability to dual-boot DOS for BIOS reflashing and occasionally for emergency data recovery. I made the partition big enough to hold XP's pagefile, as this was slightly quicker than having it on NTFS, it reduced fragmentation on the Windows system drive, and if you needed the space in DOS you can just delete PAGEFILE.SYS — Windows will silently recreate it next boot. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On Thu, 30 Dec 2021 18:40:07 -0500 dmccunney wrote: > You might be*able* to. I encountered a guy years back adamant that > Win2K should be run from FAT32. He thought it was faster. (I thought > he was a fool.) > > Why you might *want* to is another matter. "A file system DOS can > read and write" is generally not a sufficient reason. It might very well be faster, as FAT is a pretty simple filesystem that doesn't do journaling amongst other things. NTFS itself sucks compared to many full featured filesystems written for Linux. The main problem with using FAT32 with NT is you don't have permissions. Permissions and security are however not a big concern of your typical microsoft user to this day. Thus the option to format and install on a FAT partition is right there in the 1st stage text mode installer of both XP and NT 4 and is officially supported. Windows NT was designed to work with FAT. Windows NT 4 always first formats the install partition as a FAT16 filesystem and then if you selected NTFS at install, it converts the FAT16 file system online to NTFS on the first reboot after install. This typical Microsoftish genius idea, makes you jump through all kinds of hoops that include a third party online repartitioning tool to install it on an NTFS partition bigger than 2Gb. -- ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On Thu, Dec 30, 2021 at 3:04 PM Deposite Pirate wrote: > On Thu, 30 Dec 2021 19:21:36 +0100 > Liam Proven wrote: > > AFAIK XP *must* be installed in an NTFS partition. It cannot be > > installed on FAT. DOS can't boot from NTFS and can't read NTFS without > > additional drivers. So I still don't know what you're doing here. > > Windows XP can indeed officially be installed and boot from FAT32. > > https://kb.iu.edu/d/ajqm You might be*able* to. I encountered a guy years back adamant that Win2K should be run from FAT32. He thought it was faster. (I thought he was a fool.) Why you might *want* to is another matter. "A file system DOS can read and write" is generally not a sufficient reason. __ Dennis ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
Dec 30, 2021 12:22:48 Liam Proven : > > I have been using NT since the first version, 3.1, in 1993. There is > no built-in facility or tool to run DOS under it and never has been. > That is why I asked. This is highly relevant and important to the > question. There are no "dots" to follow. NTVDM exists and runs a stripped down version of MS-DOS 5. I think it even does have non-stripped versions of the relevant files available if the user decides to sys a floppy. But I've never heard of it being possible to run anything but there provided build of MS-DOS 5 in NTVDM. Maybe he ran the FreeDOS installer and managed to pull in components of FreeDOS, but unless he's using an emulator or VM, I agree that he certainly isn't running FreeDOS on top of XP. Jon Brase ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On Thu, 30 Dec 2021 19:21:36 +0100 Liam Proven wrote: > AFAIK XP *must* be installed in an NTFS partition. It cannot be > installed on FAT. DOS can't boot from NTFS and can't read NTFS without > additional drivers. So I still don't know what you're doing here. Windows XP can indeed officially be installed and boot from FAT32. https://kb.iu.edu/d/ajqm -- ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On Thu, 30 Dec 2021 at 13:19, JR wrote: > Too long ago, I can't remember. Probably just followed the dots at the > time. Runs in a Windows VDM as far as I know. I have been using NT since the first version, 3.1, in 1993. There is no built-in facility or tool to run DOS under it and never has been. That is why I asked. This is highly relevant and important to the question. There are no "dots" to follow. OS/2 2.x and Warp could boot DOS from a floppy, but I don't think even they could run it from a disk partition. Not sure; I haven't used OS/2 in over 25 years. You *need* to give us more information, and accurate, verified information, not just guesses. > Sample output and version info. > > C:\>DIR F* /P > Volume in drive C is XP > > Directory of C:\ > > FAT-6502 05/17/17 7:12a > FCIV 05/17/17 7:12a > FED05/03/21 7:34p > FILE-D~1 04/23/18 7:19p > FREEDOS05/17/17 7:12a > 0 file(s) 0 bytes > 5 dir(s) 888,552,960 bytes free AFAIK XP *must* be installed in an NTFS partition. It cannot be installed on FAT. DOS can't boot from NTFS and can't read NTFS without additional drivers. So I still don't know what you're doing here. > C:\>VER > > FreeCom version 0.84-pre2 XMS_Swap [Aug 28 2006 00:29:00] > C:\> You might be able to execute FreeDOS' `COMMAND.COM` under a DOS Windows in XP but that's not running FreeDOS/ > I already tried c:\dos\country.sys and c:freedos\country.sys Did you check to see that the relevant files exist? There's no point randomly changing the lines. But anyway, I don't think this is going to work. If it can or it does it uses some tech I have never seen and that is not a standard part of the OS. -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Country Code
On Thu, 30 Dec 2021 at 11:39, JR wrote: First thing... > I am running FreeDos under Windows XP ... Er... How? 2nd thing: > included the line > "country=061,437,c:\windows\system32\country.sys" in the > c:\windows\system32\config.nt file Should this not be pointing to FreeDOS' directory and FreeDOS' `COUNTRY.SYS` file, not Windows'? -- Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lpro...@gmail.com Twitter/LinkedIn: lproven ~ Skype: liamproven UK: (+44) 7939-087884 ~ Czech [+ WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal]: (+420) 702-829-053 ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
[Freedos-user] Country Code
Hi there I have a really basic question regarding the date format. After decades, I decided I would like the date format to be -mm-dd instead of mm-dd-yy The "International English" country code of 061 will do the job. See. http://wiki.freedos.org/wiki/index.php/Country_codes I am running FreeDos under Windows XP and included the line "country=061,437,c:\windows\system32\country.sys" in the c:\windows\system32\config.nt file. Syntax for the country command is:- country code, code page, path to country.sys This command is apparently ignored as there is no change in the date format. I have tried rebooting as well. Any ideas please. The current code page page can be queried with the chcp command or the mode command (CON:) Is there any means of checking the country code? Any help appreciated. Thanks John ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
