On 4/14/2021 11:10 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
On Wed, 14 Apr 2021 at 19:11, Ralf Quint <freedos...@gmail.com> wrote:
Windows 95A uses MS-DOS 7, which it is possible to boot directly into
by editing the MSDOS.SYS file (which in this version is a
configuration file, not a binary as in older versions.)
Win95B and later use MS-DOS 7.1, which adds FAT32 support. Again, it
is perfectly possible to extract this and run it standalone if you
wish.
Indeed people have done this and made it into a standalone product,
which you can download -- for example, here:
https://winworldpc.com/product/ms-dos/7x
That is something completely different, preventing from booting into
Windows and then using "MS-DOS 7" does NOT (by any means) mean that
Windows 9x is running "on top of DOS".
Well, basically see above. Windows ME doesn't depend on "DOS" just as
much (or little) as Windows 9x does, and they removed one additional
stop from the boot process to make it even less dependent...
It skips the config files and loads the GUI directly -- i.e. it
executes C:\WINDOWS\WIN.COM directly, instead of COMMAND.COM. You can
easily patch it not to do so.
Again, totally different issue. And you can not really do this with
Windows ME anymore.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/2802303/dos-lives-in-windows-me--how-to-regain-the-ability-to-boot-and-run-in-character-mode.html
Windows ME will even create a boot floppy for you, which boots to
normal command-line DOS -- with some restrictions. If you wish, you
can patch the boot disk by changing just 2 bytes to make it completely
functional:
https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/3286/how-did-windows-me-cripple-dos
WinME still runs on DOS. DOS was bundled with Win95, Win98 & WinME,
which was an illegally anti-competitive move since other companies
sold DOS-compatible OSes.
What was "bundled" was the majority of DOS tools, for use under the
Windows VDM. Again, that is something totally different from from
"running on DOS".
MS were sued by Digital Research:
http://www.digitalresearch.biz/DR/Info/fullstory/amendment.html
DR produced a modified version of DR-DOS that could run Windows 95:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170624231328/https://www.v3.co.uk/v3-uk/news/1996865/cebit-caldera-windows-dr-dos-denying-ms-claims
It was codenamed "Winglue" and demonstrated at CEBIT:
https://www.theregister.com/1998/09/28/caldera_s_dr_gets_onsatellite/
I stand by my comments.
And I stand by my comments that none of Windows 9x/ME is "running on
DOS". I don't have the time right now to provide the detailed proof for
that, but just look at the addresses of some of the DOS services before
the booting of the Windows 9x GUI and afterwards (in a DOS prompt). They
will be decisively different. You can install a TSR before the booting
of Windows 9x GUI that redirects some of the DOS vectors to produce some
debug output and you will not see that debug output when calling the
same DOS vector while running under Windows 9x. That was also the
problem with some DOS drivers for some SCSI adapters for example, which
would not work under Windows 95, until the manufacturer provided a
proper Windows driver for it.
Ralf
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