Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2000 07:50:18 +0100 (MET)
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To: opendos AT delorie DOT com
From: Bernie <bernie AT mbox302 DOT swipnet DOT se>
Subject: Re: Fw: Re: Using Loader with DRDOS and WIN95
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Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com

Bruce Morgen wrote:
(Please note that I left out most of the parts where I could say something
like "I agree.")

>That API exists only after 
>the GUI is loaded and running.

Yes, that's correct.

>> IMHO those two are all that is needed for DOS (+ command.com or 
>> something like it of course).
>
>Actually, only IO.SYS and a 
>shell like COMMAND.COM are 
>needed -- from DOS 7 on, 
>MSDOS.SYS is a text file 
>used by the GUI loader 
>started by WIN.COM.  

You are very correct, sorry my misstake.

>> In Win9x the computer boots DOS 
>
>Yes!
>
>> (with 32bit API) and 
>
>No -- this API doesn't exist 
>until the GUI is running!

Hmm... Sorry but no. If that was the case then I couldn't be able to start
win.com at all on my computer since the 32bit APIs have a very nasty bug in
them that makes my AMD K6-2 400 stop ("IOS error" or somthing like that). I
have now installed the bugfix.

>One can confirm the absence 
>of the 32-bit API by the 
>fact that no long filenames 
>are visible unless the GUI 
>is running!

Doesn't the 32bit API provide anything else but LFN and FAT32 support?
 
>Wrong.  These are DOS 7 files 
>and can't run without a 
>running GUI if you can do 
>without long filename support.

I must say I have never tried... I'll do a test later today if I remember.
(setver.exe might be needed)

>> * (more or less) impossible to install hardware into it
>
>Sorry, here we disagree.  If 
>you do things in the correct 
>order, Win95's hardware 
>detection is really quite 
>reliable given the correct 
>driver(s).  

Really? I now have my NIC, SB16 and TV-Card on the same IRQ (5) because
that's the only way I've found (so far) that Windows accept them
(impossible to find the NIC otherwise - but I knew it was working). And
neither is now recognized as the things they are so the drivers don't work
(luckily things seems to work anyway).

>> * slows down your computer so much
>
>Again we disagree, on my 
>pre-Pentium hardware Win95 is 
>no slower overall than Win3.11.  

Hmm.. Well it's slower on all my computers (486, Pentium, Pentium MMX and
AMD K6) then DOS. Although Win 3.x multitasking has always worked better
then Win9x's (I know I'm relativly alone on that) I have no idea if Win 3.x
or Win9x is fastest.

>It does take up more RAM, but I 
>have a fairly fast SCSI disk 
>subsystem and disk swapping is 
>quite fast -- and much less 
>crash-prone that is is under 
>Win3.11.

It's not often I get crashes in 3.x - 9x (or NT for that matter) crashed on
a daily basis for me (even if I only used them for a few minutes). Tip:
Keep clear of the right mouse button in 9x and NT.

>> * way to big (or "demanding on the hardware")
>
>Win95 works OK in 16, 24, or 
>32 MB.  I can't say the same 
>for Win98 or NT.

But I'm not comparing with those OS but with DOS.

Anyway, it's important (IMHO) that we point out the things that are
incorrect in Windows and not just poor out random errors that are results
of incorrect installations etc.
I think that if one hears one thing in an arguement that is easily prooved
wrong then the entire discussion is believed to be wrong by many people.
//Bernie
http://hem1.passagen.se/bernie/index.htm DOS programs, Star Wars ...