This proposal by me bases on a bug report of a user that said that the FreeDOS installation destroyed his Windows and he had to reinstall his complete Windows.
I assume he/she was a Newbie, but things like this should not happen.
My proposal with a blinking red text based on the fact, that it is almost impossible to overlook this.
But I can understand that a lot of other people do not like this blinking.
So I would recommend to change the colour of "If this is not what you intend, please stop now." to red or another good visible colour
without blinking (whole sentence). If you have a better text, why not?
As people often overlook even a red or other colour, it would make sense to add a second security feature. So
using "Return to DOS" as default feature would make it very secure. And it would be consistent with other pages on the same installation.
Please keep in mind, that a lawyer could check the actual behaviour and have stupid ideas about destroying important data on a Win machine.
Fritz / Willi
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2025 at 11:54 PM
From: "Jerome Shidel via Freedos-devel" <[email protected]>
To: "FreeDOS Developers" <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: [Freedos-devel] Installer question
From: "Jerome Shidel via Freedos-devel" <[email protected]>
To: "FreeDOS Developers" <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: [Freedos-devel] Installer question
Hi All,
Recently, it was suggested that the main welcome screen for the FreeDOS CD & USB installer have its welcome screen warning message changed.
At present, this screen says the following on the Interim Monthly Test Build:
Welcome to the FreeDOS T2511 installation program.FreeDOS is a complete operating system. If you choose toinstall this on your computer, you may overwrite the operatingsystem you have now (for example, Windows.) If this is not whatyou intend, please stop now.Do you want to proceed?Yes - Continue with the installationNo - Return to DOS
While most of the text on that screen is Black on White, the two mentions of FreeDOS are Dark Blue on White. The default option on this page is to continue with the install. All other pages which offer a “Return to DOS” have that as the default option.
The suggestion was to make the “please stop now” portion of the text blink as Red on White in an attempt to call more attention to the warning. The installer and V8Power Tools is capable of doing blinking text. There are a couple translations for this page which already contain some Red on White blinking text. But, there is no blinking text in the English text.
During the most recent online meeting, we discussed this topic in depth. While there were a couple attendees in favor of implementing Red Blinking text on this screen, I think the majority did not like that idea. Personally, I am not in favor of having this screen contain blinking text in the primary language.
Someone stated during the meeting: "There are some more recent video BIOSs and virtual machines that will not blink text. Those machines only enable the intensity bit."
However, some alternates were put forth during the meeting.
First, the default option on this page be changed to “return to DOS.” This is a simple change and would be consistent with other pages that provide the option to abort. I plan on finding a few minutes to adjust this before the next interim test build.
As for the message portion, it may be permitted to display a portion of that text as a different color (like Red on White) without blinking. We may also want to reword the message to make the “danger” more prominent.
Your opinions and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
:-)
Jerome
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