Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 09:58:05 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
X-Sender: eliz AT is
To: Hans-Bernhard Broeker <broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: Some Systems Defined
In-Reply-To: <199901261743.SAA07909@acp3bf.physik.rwth-aachen.de>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.990127095755.25202J@is>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com


On Tue, 26 Jan 1999, Hans-Bernhard Broeker wrote:

> The only *real* difference is that the DOS part of Win9x has
> undergone substantial reduction of features and a redesign of some of
> its behaviour since the previous release, DOS 6.2x.

There's no reduction in DOS features in DOS 7.x, AFAIK.  There are the
same features, but when Windows is up, it bypasses many of them,
instead emulating the same functionality with protected-mode code.

> The second major difference is that the 'DOS command line' (windowed
> or fullscreen) inside the running Windows 95 GUI is not really a
> classical DOS box (Virtual machine running an instance of DOS'
> command.com) any more. Instead, it now runs Win32 'console mode'
> executables as well, and starts up a virtual DOS machine only if you
> actually call a DOS program).

I don't think this is correct.  I think every DOS window starts a
virtual machine with a separate instance of command.com.  Otherwise,
we couldn't have had a separate set of environment variables in each
DOS window.