Hi Eric,
inspired by your mail (and also help from others in the list! Thank you,
folks!) I did the following:
- I made a simple check of booting times:
(startup when I hit the computers power button till the moment the
system is working)
FreeDOS starting from HD23 sec
FreeDOS starting from USBstick 16 sec (this is inside my editor -
autostart - and I can type already into a text!)
Windows7 fresh install 59 sec (but not in the editor)
So I did the following:
- install Windows 7
- resize/format a separat 200 MB FAT partition (called „FDOS“)
Now I can do the following:
+ hit the computer POWER ON and start working 16 seconds later (FreeDos,
Text-Editor)
+ d:(change drive to see the „FDOS“ partition on the HDisk)
+ COPY (or MV) files from the Stick to the HDisk or back
+ save directly to the FDOS partition on the HDisk when in my editor
…and obviously do all stuff (printing!) when I boot into Windows7
This is working nicely for me. No rocket science but a working system.
Looking at the endless problems I encountered with trying to solve the USB/HD,
printing issue, the hard way (which I wouldn’t be able to do anyway)
I am quite happy with this configuration.
Regarding the boot-time of 16 secs this is even better than booting from HD
which doesn’t give me any advantage anyway.
So if my FreeDOS bootingstick might become corrupt one day, I just have a copy
at hand. Files are either on HD or separate Discs save.
Thanks for your suggestions and help,
- Thomas
> Am 18.04.2021 um 22:25 schrieb Eric Auer :
>
>
> Hi Thomas,
>
>> A dual boot Windows+FreeDos would be absolutely my preferred system...
>
> Can your Windows version resize itself? Can it create a FAT partition
> for DOS in some other way? Then I think you should do that, maybe
> already copy the contents of the DOS install disk there and boot
> the DOS installer. In the installer, you can now skip the step of
> partitioning and formatting the harddisk and just tell it to use
> the FAT partition as install target. If your Windows itself uses
> NTFS partitions, the FAT partition will be the only one visible
> to DOS and it will be used as C: by DOS after install. It might
> have another drive letter during install if C: is already used by
> the install CD or USB stick, of course.
>
> Obviously, you should only use a Windows version of which you have
> a license. If that is not the case, it probably is not worth the
> effort to install ANY Windows at all. You can just dual-boot with
> DOS and Linux then and let your Windows apps run in Wine on Linux.
>
> If you want a dual-boot system with Windows and Linux, the same
> strategy as above should work: Use Linux to resize itself, or
> maybe easier, tell it to create a FAT partition for DOS already
> while you install Linux. Then boot the DOS install disk (CD, DVD
> or USB stick) and tell the installer to use that FAT parttiion,
> without FDISK changing partitions and without formatting.
>
> I have no idea what XP embedded can do or cannot do, but when
> in doubt, it probably can do a lot less than Linux, because it
> sounds like a stripped-down version of XP and XP is very old.
>
> Regards, Eric
>
> PS: The FAT partition for DOS should be a LBA partition and it
> must be a primary (not extended / logical) partition, because
> it is complicated to configure DOS to boot properly otherwise.
>
> You need to keep that in mind when making / resizing partitions,
> but it should be quite feasible with GPARTED in Linux or maybe
> with built-in or 3rd party tools of more modern Windows versions.
>
>
>
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