[Posted & Mailed, due mostly to the age of the original article.]
On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 21:20:39 GMT, in <alt.comp.shareware.nettamer>,
Post by l***@sonic.netwell, i'm joining the 21st century in about 2 weeks, when my new laptop
arrives from dell -- a monster, with everything I need to have fun with
music and video. i would like to keep dos on it, too, but i have been
discouraged by a recent discussion on this ng. several posters seemed to
imply that once XP is on your hard drive, it is hard to install dos.
[snip]
That's not strictly true. Hardware issues (see below) aside, booting from a
clean DOS floppy then doing:
FDISK /MBR
FDISK
will work in nearly all cases. ;-)
(And when it doesn't, a take-no-prisoners application of Norton's
DISKEDIT.EXE will.)
HOWEVER... Be advised that this will completely wipe out the Windows XP
installation (which, in and of itself, is a *good* thing, about which I'll
have more say later; but you do need to be prepared for it). Also,
standard-issue DOS (typically MS-DOS 6.22) will not support logical drives
larger than 2GB. This further implies a limit of 48GB total physical drive
capacity per system (i.e., 24 alphabetic characters available after A: and
B: are written off to the floppy drive(s); make that 23 characters and 46GB,
presuming you also burn a letter for a CD-ROM or DVD drive). Far more
likely, you'll run into the "1,024-cylinder" limit first (under DOS 6.x, all
partitions and logical drives MUST start within the HDD's first 1,024
cylinders, as reported to the OS after any LBA/CHS translation done by the
drive's on-board controller; this typically equates to around the 8GB mark);
and even you don't, dealing with 20+ separate logical drives on a day-to-day
basis will very rapidly turn into a major PITA. In addition, the
memory-management utilites (HIMEM.SYS, EMM386.EXE, etc.) supplied with
MS-DOS 6.x cannot handle more than 64MB of installed RAM.
Given all this, I would strongly recommend that you base any "DOS"
installation on MS-DOS 7.x. What? You say you've never heard of "MS-DOS
7.x"? Well, that's because Microsoft never marketed it as such; but be
aware, that is exactly what came with all copies of "Windows 95" and
"Windows 98" -- which in reality were nothing more than "Windows 4.0" and
"Windows 4.1", respectively, bundled in the same box as DOS 7.x (7.0 for
Win95, 7.1 for Win98) -- yes, marketing BS notwithstanding, even as late as
the ill-conceived "Windows Millenium Edition" <spit!>, Windows was still
just a GUI riding atop the "real" OS: MS-DOS 7.x. So, you'll need the boot
floppy and distribution CD-ROM from some flavor of Win9x (I would strongly
recommend Win98SE over the other variants, for reasons that are not terribly
relevant here; but in any event, be sure that it is _at_least_ Win95/OSR2,
so you'll get FAT32 support).
You'll also need someone who knows how to *properly* set up a dual-boot
system, unless you plan to make Win9x the sole/primary OS on that system
(and even then, there remain some "issues" to be dealt with, given the
specific hardware involved). This brings us back to the matter of WinXP,
mentioned above... In short: You *DO*NOT* want Windows XP, period. It is
seriously BAD NEWS for all sorts of reasons, which (again) are not really
relevant here. For further reading on this topic, I refer you to:
<http://www.hevanet.com/peace/microsoft.htm>
or <http://www.futurepower.net/microsoft.htm>
and (read all three):
<http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/03/14/11winman_1.html>
<http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/03/21/12winman_1.html>
<http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/03/28/13winman_1.html>
and finally:
<http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html>
Note, this is just the "tip of the iceberg", so to speak; but it should be
sufficient to give you the basic idea.
Now, before you think this is all bad news, there *may* be a "silver lining"
of sorts here. At least until very recently, Dell *did* offer many of their
systems with Windows 2000, instead of Windows XP; but you had to really
"look under rocks" to find reference to it on their web site, or to get the
sales drone to acknowledge that this was indeed possible. Now, Win2K is
still far from ideal; but unlike WinXP, it is at least *potentially*
"tameable". So if it is not already too late, the first thing you need to
do is swap out your copy of WinXP for Win2K (it may be simpler/easier to
swap out the whole system, depending on Dell's bureacracy; but I'll leave
that matter to you). Then RUN, do not walk, over to
<http://www.litepc.com/index.html> and pick up a copy of either "2000lite"
or "98lite", depending on which version of Windows you plan to use.
There's more to consider, of course. But we're already getting into areas
which are so specialized (and so far off-topic for this newsgroup) that I
don't feel comfortable going into them right now.
Post by l***@sonic.netanyway, i have doubts as to whether i will ever find a modem that will
work with my comm programs.
[snip]
That's another matter entirely. And you're right to be concerned; many
"modern" modems (especially those built into systems that are marketed with
Windows bundled in) are those Ghod-awful HSP or "software modem" atrocities
-- and no, NetTamer will not work with those pieces of crap. However, there
is again a potential "silver lining": Many newer systems (even laptops) do
NOT include a built-in modem, due mostly to the ever-increasing popularity
of so-called "broadband" (i.e., DSL and "cable modem") internet service. By
now, most "business-class" hotels offer an Ethernet port in each room; so
even dedicated "road warriors" really have little need for dial-up
capability any more. Hence, traditional modems are being ditched as a
cost-cutting move. This leaves the door open to add a conventional analog
modem via a PCMCIA slot. Shopping for a new "non-HSP" PCMCIA modem may be a
bit of a chore (dunno, really -- I've not looked for one in awhile); but at
the least, such modems can be obtained easily on the used-gear market.
Post by l***@sonic.netI always thought Partition Magic would be the cure
for what ails me, but several people here think otherwise.
[snip]
It will likely come in *very* handy, but it's not a panacea. See above.
Post by l***@sonic.neti don't want to keep the old puter as i want to simplify my life down to
one computer.
[snip]
Well, not to be facetious; but a good argument could be made that, at least
given this scenario, two computers (each optimized for their intended tasks)
is "simpler" than trying to force one computer to be a "jack of all trades"
(and likely "master of none") -- especially given the extremely wide
disparity in the hardware and software involved.
Post by l***@sonic.netit seems a little ludicrous that an os as mature as windoze
cannot tolerate a second operating system side by side with it. it seems
like software has gone backward and not forward in this respect.
[snip]
It's not a matter of the software's "maturity". Most of the problems you're
butting up against are the result of deliberately user-hostile decisions
made by the marketing departments at Dell and (especially) Microsoft. IOW,
if they wanted to provide backward compatibility, it would have been very
easy for them to do so (perhaps even easier than removing that backward
compatibility, at least in most cases). But MS long ago adopted a policy of
deliberately crippling new versions of their products vis-a-vis either the
competition's products or older versions of their own products, in order to
provide an "incentive" for customers to "upgrade" -- we used to call that
"planned obsolescence", and it was a dirty word. Yes, that is a cynical
assessment -- but it's also completely accurate.
--
Jay T. Blocksom
--------------------------------
Appropriate Technology, Inc.
usenet01[at]appropriate-tech.net
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
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