I'll answer a few of your questions.
Christopher Meredith wrote:
>
> Forst of all, I want to tell you that my jaw dropped to the floor when I
> ran Plex86 the first time. Seeing that familiar DOS boot screen was just
> incredible. I've figured out how to partition and format the "drive" and
> I've even attempted to install Windows on it. After playing with it, I
> have some questions.
>
> 1) Can I allocate any more than 32MB of RAM to Plex86?
Yes, check .bochsrc or bochsrc.
> 2) Can Plex86 boot from the HD image created, rather than a floppy disk?
> Do you simply specify the HD image as the boot image as well?
Yes, check .bochsrc or bochsrc. Also read index.html in the docs-html or
whatever directory.
> 3) Is there a way to get Plex86 to boot and existing installation of
> Windows on another physical drive?
Well, I did that with Bochs, but I don't know how to do it with Plex and
Linux. I just ported Bochs to DJGPP (not very hard) and then made a
little TSR and modified harddrv.cc or whatever it's called. That way one
of my actual hard disk partitions gets used instead of a hard drive
image file.
> I used the FreeDOS boot image to partition and format the "drive" then
> used a Win89 boot disk to enable CD-ROM support and ran setup from a
> WinME CD. It runs scandisk fine, but seems to hang at the finished w/
> scandisk screen.
Don't do scandisk. Type setup /? and disable it, also disable the CPU
processor check (I don't remember how, it's a two-letter command-line
option--I could look it up for you if you like. It's the processor check
code in the 98/ME setup that hangs bochs; that's probably what happens
in plex too; in any case, don't use a whole ME CD. Just copy the WIN9X
directory using MTOOLS to your hard disk image. I actually installed
Windows ME under PLex, I just had to do those two command line options
with Setup.
> 4) How do I install a Windows envorinment for Plex86 to run if not from
> a Win CD?
??? What are you asking?
> 5) What performance tweaks can you recommend to get the VM to run any
> faster?
Well, if you're after speed, plex isn't what you want, because plex has
chosen ACCURACY over speed as far as I can tell in every case. Best to
go with an inaccurite solution like WINE or Win4Lin or your own project;
Plex is great because it's so accurite, which is essential for debugging
and reverse engineering ("profiling", I think ppl call it).
I've had lots of fun with Bochs doing reverse engineering, but I haven't
been able to port Plex over to DOS and I'm not proficient enough with
Linux to do reverse engineering. But I know enough Linux to install
Windows Me inside Plex86--if you need the command line options for
setup: it's the one to turn of scandisk, and the one to disable the cpu
check (that one is undocumented; I learned about that second option from
98LITE). To get ME to install I also disabled billboards and that bootup
logo (bootgui=0 and logo=0). If you can't find 98lite anywhere and you
NEED that second command line option, I GUESS I could look it up (I have
98 lite somewhere on my hd).
> Thanks in advance!
np.
