IN XP CAN I RE-BOOT TO THS DOS MODE??

[faxpay]

Right now on my Win 95 machine I can re-boot into the dos mode to run my dos based software. I re-boot by assigning a dos re-boot in the properties of my desktop icon. This provides me with enough memory for the app to work. The XP machine will not allow me to assign a re-boot.

The app will not work from a dos window not having access to enough memory. I have 1gig of mem on my XP machine but from a dos window only a small portion is allotted.

When I try to run the app in a dos window the app comes back and tells me it needs 640K of mem but only has 204k.

Can I somehow get this dos re-boot on my XP machine?

Tom
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[faxpay]

I have downloaded viryual pc. Now I find out that ms-dos is not supported in virtual pc BUT is compatible. So I put my dos 6.22 bootup disk in and it loaded up.

Now I have no idea how I copy my dos app into the correct directory or how to get my app data files onto the virtual.

Any help?

After all this I may find it don't work.

Tom
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[GrimR]

all our Dos based programs run fine from XP using what I posted, that even being WP 5.1, and Solution6 which was before windows came about.

 

[gbaughma]

The reason that you can't boot off your DOS 6.22 diskette and see your hard drive is that DOS 6.22 only supported FAT 16. You are at least running FAT32, if not NTFS on your C: Drive. So DOS isn't even going to see it.



Just my 2¢
-Cole's Law: Shredded cabbage

--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[vacunita]

You can copy your app to a floppy also. If your hard drive is formatted in FAT32 you should be able to change to it form the command line.

If your app will fit onto a floppy copy it to the floppy. Then after booting form the DOS floppy, take it out and put your apps floppy in, and then run it normally.







----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[faxpay]

vacunita,

dos 6.22 loaded fine in virtual pc.

My app is way to big to fit on a floppy.

What about the data the app creates? It wants to store in files. Where are the files? I have data files that are upwards of 15MB total.

If I can't see those files and move them around to different directories then virtual pc is useless.

Tom
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[faxpay]

edfair,

"In your 95, did you have a boot menu that gave you a choice of using the previous DOS?"

The answer is YES.

Tom
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[faxpay]

I am beginning to think the only way is to partition my hard drive and put win 95 on it. Will my partition run win 95?? considering the formating and all. Would I have to chage the formatting? can I?

And finally, where do I get a copy of win 95?

This is all new to me. Does anyone know if it can be done or someone that has done it?


Tom
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[edfair]

I had 95/DOS (dual boot), 98SE/DOS (dual boot), ME, and XPH on 4 partitions (I think 4, it may have been 3 w/o ME) with no problems using Partition Magic.

You will have an issue with the 95 since the dual boot DOS is going to require FAT16. Not a big problem since you can create an extended partition to handle more data.

Yes, you are going to need to do some formatting. But not on your XP partition. But you will need to do a reinstall on XP to get the boots correct.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[vacunita]

Its going to be too complex to install Win95 and still be able to boot into XP. Let alone talk you through the process of doing it here. You are going to have to do more operations to get that to work. If dos. 6.22 is running fine on the virtual
PC then lets proceed through that route.

Is your app on a CD? do you have a backup of it on a Cd? can you burn it to a CD?

Think of Virtual PC as a real stand alone PC . How would you get data into a real stand alone PC with DOS. you need a CD or a floppy right? Same applies here.

Once you get DOS to load you'll need to format the virtual hard drive you created. just type in

fdisk [return], this will load the fdisk utility. select option 1, to create a New DOS Partition, and 1 again to create a Primary Dos partition. when that is done restart the Virtual Pc from the Action menu: Cntrl+Alt+Del option.

Tyoe in
format c: /s

at the dos prompt to get it format.
once that is done you can restart the Virtual machine. If You have your app in a CD you can then use it to copy it to the virtual PC's hard drive.

If you don't have your APP in a CD you can create a CD image using whichever Burning software like NERO or ROXIO or whatever else you have to create an image file. No use in creating a real CD when all you need is an image file on your hard drive.

Instead of Selecting an actual burner in the Burning software select save to image. Then you can load the image onto your DOS virtual machine using the CD menu Capture ISO option.

From there you can copy it to a directory on the virtual Hard drive.



----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[wolluf]

Dosbox might be the answer:

http://www.dosbox.com/

 

[faxpay]

vacunita,

I appreciate your explanation and time.

Will I be able to copy files from the virtual pc directories and to virtual pc directories? I have a need to copy multiple files from and to. Bulks of files as much as 50 mb total. Including copying app files.



Tom,
faxpay

 

[acewarlock]

Why not get a PC and install win95 on it and run your program on it? You can get Win95 on Ebay.




This is a Signature and not part of the answer, it appears on every reply.

This is an Analogy so don't take it personally as some have.

Why change the engine if all you need is to change the spark plugs.

 

[wolluf]

faxpay - did you look at dosbox?

if you do go for virtual machine, you can use standard networking to tranfers files. Or both virtual pc and vmware allow you to define shared folders.

 

[gbaughma]

If your hard drive is formatted in FAT32 you should be able to change to it form the command line.

From Fat32 to NTFS, yes... but I don't think I've ever seen a way to downgrade to Fat16.

faxpay:

Here are some final thoughts:

Has the software developer made a newer version, that will run on XP?

If it is that important of an app, then setting up a DOS only box would be far less headaches than reformatting your existing one. Not to mention drivers and so forth for your "newer" hardware. Get an old 486 or whatever and run your app from that.

OR... run it in a virtual machine.

Just remember, printing and so forth through the XP API may be a challenge as well. Setting up a separate machine to run the app, as I said, would probably be easiest for you.



Just my 2¢
-Cole's Law: Shredded cabbage

--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[faxpay]

I thank everyone for their suggestions but I am going to give it up. I will continue to run on my 95 machines since there appears to be no straightforward way to run in XP and still have the files easily and readily available via explorer.

I use some of the txt files from the dos app to go to a Java pdf converter plus email is involved. So considering all this we will stay as we are till we have a win XP app we can use.

Thanks again everybody.

Tom,
faxpay

 

[PRPhx]

Here is what I would do.
1) You have the DOS downloaded. Good.
2) Go to

http://www.virtualbox.org/

and down load virtualbox. It's similiar to MS VirtualPC and DOES support MS Doss.
3) Install VirtualBox. Set up a DOS virtual pc. It's fairly easy and straight forward.
4) You will need to know where your DOS program resides along with the following files: Config.sys, Autoexec.bat, and any .ini files the program uses. This SHOULD get you up and running. The config.sys and autoexec.bat files will contain the setting needed to optimize expanded/extended memory.

 

[ravashaak]

Aww, don't give up. You should try DOSbox (I'm not the first person in this thread to mention it). I've managed to get a few stubborn apps and games to run this way with relative ease. Check out the following URL:

http://www.dosbox.com/

 

[Freestone]

And FWIW MS-DOS 6.22 loaded just fine in Microsoft's Virtual PC 2007...