Editing/Adding to the Win98 Setup Menu????

[bobhope]

Is it possible to add to the windows setup menu?? Just to clarify I mean the menu with that you/I press F8 to get into when it says "Starting Windows" ... 1.Normal, 2.Logged, 3.Safe Mode etc etc.

My main goal with this is to be able to make the setup menu appear everytime the computer is started [I know how to do this... just add BootMenu=1 in the MSDOS.sys file or go into msconfig and click show start menu etc etc] and be able to have an option at the bottom of the list, or anywhere if that's possible to allow the computer to boot up certain programs etc.

I want it so that booting up in Normal mode loads everything, as you would expect and then the extra option I can select what I want to boot.

The idea is to have it so that my games run better, some of them don't run very well when I have other programs loaded, i.e. msn messenger, zone alarm, etc. So I would want to choose between normal and 'games mode'. Obviously with this I would need to be able to change it depending on further software/games installed.

IS IT POSSIBLE????

My computer...
K6-2 500MHz,
160 MB SDRAM, [128 + 32]
30.6 GB Hard Disk Drive,
Windows 98 SE Upgrade from Windows 95

P.S. I haven't used it yet cos I only just installed it a min ago cos it was on this site so I thought I'd take a look but I have System Policy Editor thingy majig installed, don't know if this helps??

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[reghakr]

bob,

From Lockergnome:

GnomeTIP

You can control how Windows boots up very easily; just edit the MSDOS.SYS file in your root folder. First 'turn off' its read-only attribute.

Look for the [Options] section; do you see much there? Start adding stuff! For the most part, these additions use '1' (yes) and '0' (no). BootGUI=1 (boot into Windows); DblSpace=0 (load DoubleSpace drivers); DrvSpace=0 (load DriveSpace drivers); LoadTop=1 (load command shell in upper memory); BootMenu=1 (turn on boot menu -- recommended); BootMenuDefault=1 (choice in boot menu); BootMenuDelay=2 (seconds to delay boot menu); BootKeys=1 (keyboard shortcuts for more booting options); Logo=1 (see the Windows splash screen); AutoScan=0 (automatically scandisk after a 'bad' shutdown); BootWarn=0 (warning about going into Safe mode); DisableLog=0 (boot up logging). Tweaking programs (like X-Setup) will allow you to change these attributes without breaking a sweat.

More info is available from this microsoft Knowledge Base article:
Q118579 - Contents of the Windows Msdos_sys File

In Internet Explorer, go to Help>Online Support, choose the Microsoft Knowledge Base, then check the box that says specify an article ID number, then paste Q118579 into the search box.

reghakr

 

[bobhope]

Thankyou for your response but that wasn't really what I meant. I know how to add stuff like that and what it all means, and in actually fact when I adding stuff like that and re-started it came up in safe-mode, I pressume because not at of the settings are supported by Win98SE or because they are not all supposed to be present at the same time. I mean is it possible to add to to the list, so that it reads... (for example)

1. Normal
2. Logged (bootlog.text, or whatever's written here)
3. Safe Mode
4. ...(I can't actaully remember what's written here either)
5. Step By Step
6. Command Prompt
[7. Games Mode]

So that instead of having to load up the computer normally, then go into X-Setup and select/deselect things and going into the MSCONFIG and editing what loads up, then having to re-start so that it all takes effect, is there no way of just having (for want of better words) 2 ways to boot up the system, 1st way, NORMAL MODE, boots up everything on the system, 2nd way, GAMES MODE, only boots up things like the sound card drivers, Video Card drivers, directx support/drivers, that kind of stuff so that the programs that take up memory space, like msn messenger, zone alarm, modem drivers, winamp, winzip etc aren't loaded at all, thus letting the games have more memory.

The main reason I'm asking this is because everytime I try to play AVP (Alien Vs. Predator), the Sims etc, complex games like them, I get so far into them and they crash, meaning I have to re-start and lose all that I've done in the game, whereas if I Ctrl+Alt+Del and close everything down except the sound card, video card and Explorer, the games run fine, no 'hickups' whatsoever. There must be a way of doing something like this without having to manually shut everything down each time I want to play a game surely?

Any advice/help would be great!

Thanks in advance.

 

[reghakr]

I don't think it is possible. The only thing I can suggest is to make a new hardware profile.

reghakr

 

[butchrecon]

I agree. A new profile is about the only way you can do this. I dont think you can edit the boot menue to do what you want. James Collins
Systems Support Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

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