MSDOS FS 5.1 runnable under Windows 2000/XP?

Hi Mark... Boy those are some really impressive links. It is very nice for
someone like you to do all of that research and provide it for everyone to
see. grin

And while W95OSR2 and W98 doesn't support booting to old dos, this isn't
really a big deal since you can swap out the boot files with simple batch
files. Assuming of course, the FAT isn't FAT32. And the same batch file
method can be used to swap out your config.sys, msdos.sys, and autoexec.bat
files as well.

And my HP Pavilion 8655C sports the same type of thing. As when you select
shutting down from Windows 98SE and go to MSDOS mode, it too boots up a
different set of files which loads DOS drivers that operate the sound card
and stuff. Plus it stops and doesn't run Windows either. To reset it back to
booting Windows and dropping all of the DOS drivers and stuff, you just type
EXIT at the DOS prompt and it automatically reboots and loads Windows like
nothing has happened. They also have a folder called DOSBOOT that you can
copy to a floppy disk if you want to get to MSDOS mode from a bootable
floppy.

Well all of this is good and all, but I need to use my IController
(RealFlight G2 joystick) to use under say MSFS 5.1 for DOS. And since it is
an USB device, running under MSDOS mode doesn't do me much good. As Windows
has to be up and running before it will operate. Well www.dosboot.com does
have some ideas to fire up USB devices under MSDOS, but that is another
topic. grin

And besides that, even using a special modified bootdisk just for MSDOS 7.1
mode. Flight Simulator 5.1 for DOS just acts the same way. And the only
difference is that it seems to work if you tell the Sound to XMS memory
(under Windows 98SE, it crashes with this option selected). But besides that
and the IController thing, I don't see any differences.

And the weird thing is not that it doesn't work, as everything is operating
just fine. It is just that FS5.1 under Simulator Info, claims that 5.1 isn't
using any XMS or EMS memory. But lower down it shows that FS5.1 is using XMS
handles. So it is using XMS memory after all. Then when you select some
better display features, FS5.1 reports that turning on this feature might
crash your computer since it doesn't have any XMS memory. But even turning
them all on works just fine. As they just use more XMS handles and that is
all. So it appears that FS5.1 just can't see any XMS memory, while it is
still using it anyway. Very strange, don't you think?

You also mentioned that FS5.1 came out long before Windows 2000/XP, but any
advice about running FS5.1 under NT might also work under Windows 2000/XP as
well. And I think so too. Although guess what? I've found nothing about
running this under NT. Just under OS/2, DRDOS, and Windows 95.

I also want to add some thoughts about adding stuff like himem.sys,
emm386.exe, and anything else that modifies the memory for DOS, DOS drivers,
etc. and using this same configuration to also boot up Windows too. While
this is rarely talked about, but that isn't such a good idea. As like you
have mentioned, himem.sys is already loaded by IO.SYS. And whatever switches
are different than in IO.SYS, the one in the config.sys file overrides the
one in IO.SYS, which may do more harm under Windows to Windows.

And loading emm386 isn't such a good idea either since Windows loads another
version called vmm (Virtual Memory Manager) I think it is called instead.
And while Windows will work by using emm386, the Windows version is said to
be more stable and better tweaked for Windows. And some have reported
instability problems using emm386 and other config.sys and autoexec.bat
commands for their Windows boot files. So this is something that everyone
may want to keep in mind before and after they play around in this area.

And once again Mark, many thanks!




Cheers!


____________________________________________
Bill (using a HP Pavilion 8655c under 2000)
-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0



~~~~~~~~~~~

From: "Mark D. Stotzer"
Newsgroups: alt.games.microsoft.flight-
sim,microsoft.public.flightsim,rec.aviation.simula tors,
microsoft.public.simulators
Subject: MSDOS FS 5.1 runnable under Windows 2000/XP?
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 17:06:16 GMT

Windows 3.x, 95 and 98 (and probably ME) require that Himem.sys load on
startup to provide "Extended Memory." Even if you do not explicitly load
Himem in your config.sys file it will load itself along with another file
named Ifshlp.sys which helps provide the file system. Both are required for
Windows 3.x to probably Windows ME. EMM386.exe, if loaded among others can
provide "Expanded Memory." I still have some old DOS configuration tips
posted at my ATP/Pro Pilot flight simulation site:

http://mvps.org/winmac/win95dos.html

Windows 2000 then XP were built from the NT architecture in parallel with
the above Windows versions thus, if there were any instructions to make
FS5.1 work on NT try those.

FS History

Here's a short history of FS and ATP you might enjoy:

http://simpilot.net/~stotzer/history.html

Here's another FS history page FYI:

http://simflight.com/~fshistory/fsh/start.htm

I still run Windows 98SE on my primary home system (I've been using Windows
2000 at work for years) so I can still keep loaded and run: ATP, AS1 and AS2
along with some of my old favorites likes Aces of the Pacific 1946 etc. The
homepage of my ATP site is he

http://simpilot.net/~stotzer/atp.html

-MarkS.