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[w2cs@ipass.net: RE: [TRLog] Empty AUTOEXEC.BAT]

Subject: [w2cs@ipass.net: RE: [TRLog] Empty AUTOEXEC.BAT]
From: geoiii@kkn.net (George Fremin III - K5TR)
Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 11:32:05 -0700
----- Forwarded message from "Gary J. Ferdinand  W2CS" <w2cs@ipass.net> -----

> As I recall, Windows 98 is the first release of Windows to remove the
> reliance on DOS.  You go thru startup or shutdown menus to boot DOS if you
> ever feel a need to.  Otherwise, you use MS-DOS windows or full-screen
> sessions while under the Win98 bootup.  The Win98 operating system itself no
> longer even requires DOS to be first installed before Windows is installed.
> DOS mode compatibility is supplied within Win98; Win98 is no longer a big
> application sitting on top of DOS.

Well not really - as far as I can tell Win98 should have been
released as a "Service Release" for Win95.  Win98 only adds a
few new hardware drivers for things like USB ports.  It also 
adds the "web like" interface to windows explorer.  I have found
this interface is slower and takes up more screen space than the 
Win95 version - infact I use Win98 with the Win95 shell so I 
get USB but dont have to deal with the slower web like interface. :-)

They both are still running DOS under them - Win95 will report it
assome version of DOS 7 and Win 98 reports the same thing as 
Windows 4.10. 

You can still have an AUTOEXEC.BAT file and a CONFIG.SYS and you 
can still boot the machine into a command line interface - either
from power on or from the GUI (graphical user interface) aka Windows. 

> While it is still possible to have AUTOEXEC.BATs, etc., most of the "stuff"
> you had there is no longer needed, subsumed by Windows 98 registry and
> various system files such as win.ini and system.ini.  AUTOEXEC.BAT is, of
> course, of interest when booting to DOS instead of to Win98, but that's not
> what you're talking about here.

Well - yes and no - if you run all of your DOS programs in a DOS box
(in a window or in full screen mode) you do get all the features
of Windows - like disk caching etc - but if you boot to DOS mode
you will discover that you willnot have some of this stuff and 
may even find you need to setup and/or install things like
Smartdrive or the drivers for your sound card, CD rom drive and mouse.

> it.   TR does not use such an environment variable.  (Note only environment
> variable definitions are in my AUTOEXEC. No PATH statements, HIMEM
> statements or anything else!)  Most of that c..p Windows98 takes care of and
> is no longer needed.
> 

This is true as long as you run in a DOS window or DOS full screen mode 
under Windows - but if you boot to DOS you will find you may need to
add drivers and path statements to your AUTOEXEC and CONFIG files.

I have found that not every Windows install is the same - they 
seem to have diffrent setups depending on how they 
were installed etc. 


> | >      Of course, my DOS programs won't work without DOS.  And
> | > it's strange that once when I booted up in Windows and had not
> | > yet put the PATH line in the AUTOEXEC., my screen said some-
> | > thing like this:  UNABLE TO START WINDOWS.  CAN NOT FIND
> | > WINDOWS.COM  (I think that's what it said.)  So maybe Windows
> | > needs a DOS path?

Yep - it does.  :-)


-- 

George Fremin III        "When a true genius appears in the world,
Johnson City, TX           you may know him by this sign; that the 
K5TR (ex.WB5VZL)            dunces are all in confederacy against him."    
830/868-2510                                   -- Jonathan Swift
geoiii@kkn.net                              
http://www.kkn.net/~k5tr                   

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