No command.com in Win98

[JonRSHHPENS]

I have a machine that suddenly seems to have lost command.com. It will not boot into DOS mode, and running "command" from run will not work. Keeps saying "command.com or one of its components not found." Everything else seems to be working fine. Command.com does exist in a couple of locations. Even tried copying command.com from another machine. Msconfig reports that the path includes c:\ and c:\windows. I've had several other support folks here scratching their heads over this. I gather this is an extremely rare ocurrance. Any ideas other than reload the OS? Thanks.

 

[reghakr]

Get out your emergency boot disk, start up with it and type sys c:

Then restart.

Or look at the c:\msdos.sys file and verify the following:
[Paths]
WinDir=C:\WINDOWS
WinBootDir=C:\WINDOWS
HostWinBootDrv=C

reghakr

 

[JonRSHHPENS]

Reghakr: Tried both solutions. c:\msdos.sys was identical to your example. Booting with Win98 system disk (no CD-ROM support), I was able to load sys c: but upon rebooting (without boot disk) DOS still did not work. Attempting to enter Windows without rebooting after running sys c: from the a:\ results in "VFAT device initialization failed."

Looks like at one point, command.com is working, but somewhere Windows is losing it. I have tried various "bare-bones" autoexec.bat files, and my config.sys only has the line "files = 240".

I probably should just reload Win, but curiosity is getting the better of me. General IT support for a large medical organization in NW FL.

 

[reghakr]

You shouldn't need any path information in the autoexec.bat I would rename both autoexec.bat and config.sys

Do you have BootGUI=1 and BootMulti=1 in the msdos.sys file?
Why notpost back with all the items under the [options]section.

Do you have win.com in the c:\windows directory?

reghakr

 

[tsuji]

Hello, JonRSHHPENS.

Use your Start|Find|Files to have a quick locating of two shortcuts "Exit to Dos.pif" and "MS-DOS Prompt.pif". Rightclick out their properties/Program, and look at their command line box see if they point their command.com to the one in %winbootdir% which is usually c:\windows. If not, change them to point to the one at c:\windows.

The reason is that if they point to a differently locating command.com than the one loaded in the memory, you may get the error/error message.

regards - tsuji

 

[JonRSHHPENS]

We tried all of the suggested solutions and none worked. We ended up reloading Windows. Interesingly, there was no "exit to dos.pif", etc. on either that machine or a sister machine (Dell GX-1) with fully functional DOS. This looks like an extremely rare error so I'll just file it under "reload Windows as needed." Thanks. --Jon R, General IT support for a large medical organization in NW FL.

 

[reghakr]

The I guess you never chose Shutdown>Restart in MS-DOS Mode. That's the only time it's created.

reghakr