Message-Id: Date: Thu, 27 Nov 1997 13:08:38 +0000 From: Matthias Paul To: opendos AT delorie DOT com, opendos-support AT delorie DOT com, paul-ma AT reze-1 DOT rz DOT rwth-aachen DOT de Subject: Re: adding opendos to a win 95 computer Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Disposition: inline Precedence: bulk Hi, >Andrew Jardine asked: >I'm running Win 95 upgrade on top of ms-dos 6.22. I'd like to run opendos, >but I'm worried that simply launching the install against my Win 95/dos >partition might mess it up somehow. Can I safely load it without worrying >about Win 95 having a fit? It should work with COD 7.02 B1+, which s INSTALL is Win95 aware and will automatically install LOADER to select between OpenDOS and your previous OS (Win95+MS-DOS 6.22). However, OpenDOS is still beta at the moment. >Can I get back to ms-dos if I need to? Of course, OpenDOS has an UNINSTAL utility, but you can also select between your OSes using the LOADER menu. >What I'd really like to do is load Opendos in a logical drive and access it with >my boot manager so the dos files under Windows 95 are accessable, but I >don't suppose there is any way to do that is there? Since OpenDOS, MS-DOS and Windows95 all use FAT, you will be able to access files across these systems. However, there are some special precautions because of Win95 somehow FAT-incompatible way to handle it s VFAT long-filenames, which clash to our password protection scheme, the DELWATCH and some of the UNDELETE mechanisms, and also to OS/2 extended attributes, all introduced years before Win95. What does this mean for you? From DOS you can only see the SFNs, and sometimes you might have problems to access files, which OpenDOS interprets as password protected though they are not. From MS-DOS/ Windows95 you will see password protected files as hidden files, but not protected. Using OpenDOS disk maintenance utils like DISKOPT will destroy Win95 LFN s, though the files itself will remain accessable under their SFNs, but Windows would have alot of trouble. Of course, the same applies to most other (older) disk tools (from 3rd parties), not especially written to be Win95 compatible. Instead of MS-DOS 6.22, OpenDOS *can* use LFNs if you load the seperate LONGNAME driver, which also is still in its beta phase... Given modified boot sectors (which might require some manual work), OpenDOS 7.02 B2+ also supports booting from other *physical* drives than A:/C:, but not from other *logical* drives (it will always use the active primary partition of the corresponding physical drive). So, if you only have one harddisk with multiple partitions, than OpenDOS can only boot from C:. If you have two harddisk, it can also boot from D: (given that the second hard disk also has an active primary partition), but you are not able to boot from drives beyond D:, Having a 3rd or 4th hard disk will also allow to boot from E: and/or F: If you have multiple primary partitions (the OS/2 FDISK can create them), only one of the potential C: drives is active at the same time. This would allow to have OpenDOS and Windows95/MS-DOS in strictly seperated boot file spaces. Information interchange would than only be possible only on the other logical partitions or via floppies. If you are worried too much, please just wait for the release version, and don t use a beta. And, it is always a good idea to make a full backup and (once more) to check the boot disks before installing a new OS... Matthias ------------------------------------------------------------ Matthias Paul eMail: Web: http://www.rhrz.uni-bonn.de/~uzs180/mpdokeng.html