Date: Thu, 30 Jan 1997 09:11:17 -0600 (MDT)
From: Roger Ivie <IVIE AT cc DOT usu DOT edu>
Subject: Re: [opendos] and Windows..... OpenDOS.386, uk keymap, cd-rom drives?
To: OPENDOS AT MAIL DOT TACOMA DOT NET
Message-id: <01IETH3A3DAQ8YCO6Q@cc.usu.edu>
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Sender: owner-opendos AT mail DOT tacoma DOT net
Precedence: bulk

I just installed Windows on OpenDOS for a friend of mine last night. He has
an apparently odd Gateway system that eats its hard disk every few months 
(he'll boot the machine to find garbage scribbled all over the FAT), so I've
taken OpenDOS over there for him to play with.

The immediate thing it fixed for him was the inability to both have access to
his CD-ROM drive and run some of his demanding flight simulators. Under
MS-DOS, if he had the CD-ROM driver loaded he didn't have enough memory to
run his flight simulators. This was particularly annoying as one of them
had extra scenery on CD-ROM...

I'll be interested to see if OpenDOS lasts longer on his machine than MS-DOS
always does. I really have no idea what keeps happening to his machine; he is
not doing anything particularly odd or intensive (I work my machines harder
than he does his, and I certainly don't view myself as the mythical "power
user").

>1.  Windows 3.11 has begun acting strangely.  I have noticed a file in c:\
>    called OPENDOS.386, which to my mind, could be a driver to boost
>    compatibility with OD.  Is this true?  If so, how should I install it?

Hmm, I assumed it was a swap file used by EMM386.

>3.  Windows crashes if I have a DOS session and use the Cd-ROM drive
>    simultaneously, via media player.  I am using corelcdx.
>    I can use the cd-rom drive via a DOS program, though.
>    Out of interest, I tried using NWcdex, but windows refused to acknowledge
>    the drive at all.

Oddly enough, I don't think I tried accessing the CD-ROM from Windows. No
wait, that's not true; I installed the multimedia pack from CD-ROM. I don't
recall whether I had a DOS box running at the same time, though.

One thing I had to do was carefully clean up the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT
files after I installed windows. Basically, I took out everything Windows
put in there except for some environment variable settings (adding
windows to path, defining temp).

Among the things Windows wanted to do were:

	- Load its own version of EMM386 instead of OpenDOS's
	- Load SMARTDRIVE
	- Load IFSHLP.SYS
	- Load MSCDEX

I pointed EMM386 back at the OpenDOS version and removed the other drivers
(smartdrive, ifshlp) Windows wanted to load. Since I already had NWCDEX running,
I also ripped out MSCDEX.

One thing has seemed better so far with Windows on his machine. One of the
first things I generally do to a Windows installation is make a new PIF
for a DOS prompt which runs in a window and can execute in the background.
That's always been a bit flaky on his machine (although it's rock solid on
all the other machines I use), but it seems to be working fine with OpenDOS.
It is a bit early to tell for certain, though...

I think I finally have him convinced to buy a tape drive for backup. I'm
getting tired of re-installing his machine every few months and he's getting
tired of losing some work from time to time.

Roger Ivie
ivie AT cc DOT usu DOT edu