On Fri, 11 Aug 2000, you wrote:
> somebody said:
> "Windows 3.0 thru 3.11 are not opperating systems. They are just shells,
> running on top of dos. Windows 95 is an opperating system. It contains a
> completly new filesystem(fat32 and fat16 with changes to support long
> filenames) and a new io.sys. windows 98 is really windows 95 with a few
> cosmetic changes."
>
> nooooooo.....
> don't make me go balistic.
> win95 is not an OS. win95 still ran on DOS, M$ just changed the name of many of the
>DOS files so no one would know it. this was on of the things some of the computer
>magazines pointed out when win95 came out (along with the fact that IE took an
>inventory of the software on your computer & sent that information to M$ when you
>logged on the internet). of course, M$ denied this at first, but eventually admitted
>it was true. it may have a new file system, but it's not an OS - they just did a
>slightly better job of hiding DOS.
>
> i think there were actually more changes made in win98, under the hood. one case in
>point. PKZIP, the command line version, will run fine in a DOS box under win95,
>under win98 however it will just crash. PKWare had to come up with a new program to
>run PKZIP from a command line in win98.
>
> that's my opinion....
> and you all know what opinions are like
> *haha*
>
> adrian
Correct as far as you go Adrian, W98 is also still just A GUI
runnin on top of good 'ol outdated 640K DOS. I don't know about
win2k, don't have it don't want it. 'Bout all that windoze 9x is
still the best at is a game platform, and everything I've read says
W98's much better than win2k for that.
DOS isn't hidden in any W9x, just edit MSDOS.SYS to BootGUI=0,
and you'll boot to DOS 7.x (W98 is DOS 7.1). Add 'Logo=0' and you
can watch it doin it. If you boot to DOS in any other fashion (eg,
DosMode, <F8> at boot), a quick run of 'mem /c' will show there's
some windoze overhead still present. If you edit msdos.sys to
eliminate Windoze, 'mem /c' will show no Windoze overhead present.
[note: all W9x CD's are not created equal, some will provide a
pure DOS prompt by using F8 at boot]
This 'pure' DOS prompt is suitable for even flashing your bios,
MOF, I prefer it to doin flashes from a floppy. It also will
sometimes get a DOS based program runnin which refuses to work
right in DosMode, or <F8> Which is another reason to keep Windoze
around, 'least for a while ;) That and rippin the TT fonts to use
with Linux, so don't microwave those old W9x CD's just yet ;->
--
~~ Tom Brinkman [EMAIL PROTECTED]
