OS blues...

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I have the opportunity to recieve a free PC from work.Not a new one,but a machine that's come back to the workshop from an upgrade.I'm presently working through my hardware studies with the help of Mr.Meyers All in One and CBT nuggets 2003 videos (kindly donated by a friend who recently took the A+),thank you Andrew) and am comfortable with my progress so far.Sooner or later though I have to flick the dreaded page which is going to say Operating Systems .

The question is this,I intend to dual boot this system (after FDISKin' the poor thing first of course) and reinstall 2 operating systems (duh!!obviously!!!).Which 2 OS would be most advantageous to my learning experience?

I have some limited knowledge and experience with DOS and I'm quite 'at home' with XP,in it's classic and Luna styles.I've worked with ME and a little with 98,but almost no experience with95 and limited experience with 2000.

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

good you getting your hands dirty... umm i would use win 98 and win xp , well thats what i did!

PS good luck and ask questions if you need we all here to learn!

 

I'd agree on 98SE and XP.

95 is fairly similar to 98SE, and Win2k is fairly similar to XP in classic mode. You would just need to learn about the differences.

ME is a problem in being mostly 98, but with lots of changes, so I'd tend to suggest that again learning the differences from 98 should do.

Harry.

 

Agree with 98 as it gives awareness of Windows 9x, but would also emphasise a look at w2k Pro as well, as I would say there are enough differences from XP that you should know about, if at all possible.

 

thanks all,I think from whats been presented that 98 and 2000 are the options to go for.I understand that 2000 and XP have a lot of similarities and that 98 will give a good insight into 9x.I'll go for that option first,I ave XP pro on my pc and it's a case of learning NT in the process.N1..

 

WOW!!!I've just finished a succesful dual-boot set-up for the first time.Using FDISK,partitioning,formatting and installing etc etc etc.."So what?" you may ask..well it's the good advice and help from your forum replies that led me to this little milestone and all I can say is.....Thank you.

 

Congrats! Feels good when a plan comes together!

Harry.

 

as Hannibal smith once said:

 

Way to go!

Just wait till you get that first successful Windows and Linux dual boot machine going. After spending a couple of years building Windows dual boot machine my first successful dual boot using Linux gave me a huge rush.... I got a rush from my first Windows dual boot machine too, but it didn't come close to the way I felt when I first did it with Linux.... I don't dance, and I just about jumped up and danced a jig. I floated for a day or so because it felt like such a milestone....

 

Pah! ( ) - try a quad boot machine!

Many years ago I had such a beast. One of the reasons I don't do this any more derives from keeping it all stable.

The OSes were Win3.1, OS/2, NT3.5 and Interactive Unix.

Which rather gives the era away....

Regards,
Harry.

 

Well, if we're bragging, I've done a DOS, Win98, NT 4.0 SP 5, Win2K Pro, and XP quintuple boot, but it didn't last long. I just wanted to see if I could pull it off.

I have to say though, Harry, my quintuple boot wasn't nearly as difficult as your quad boot.

 

I'm scared now..

 

C'mon stop scaring the new guys.

 

Oh, yeah. You're in the presence of greatness.....

 

Good,then extend your magnificence and throw me a line oh great one..!!


I've just spent a few hours perusing the Windows chapter and find myself in a veritable quagmire.There are various files i'm not getting the grasp of (yet)...


IO.SYS -handles the i/o devices (KB,HDD,FDD etc)?
COMMAND.COM -executes a c:\ prompt if needed?
MSDOS.SYS-not sure about this one
CONFIG.SYS loads drivers
AUTOEXEC.BAT- a batch file to start xxxx at boot?
SYSTEM.INI help
HYMEM.SYS-to access memory beyond the 1st 1mb ?
and I'm sure there are more....

some o/s use them,some don't,sometimes one replaces another..eeeeeek......heeeeeeeeeeeeelp!!!!

Any help or links here would be appreciated as the description of these files,their use,which o/s they are in and so on seems a little clouded to me.

Sorry if i'm being a bit fick,but I know you dudes will help.Ta in advance.

 

I'm sure the magnificent one will be along later, in the meantime....

Some of these files vary in functionality depending on the OS.

Originaly yes. i.e. in MSDOS. Later was a merged file of the original IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS.

This handles user commands such as dir, del, type, cd, and the like. It also launches any programs that are requested by typing their name at the command prompt.

Originaly the actual bit of MSDOS itself. Handled the file system and presented a standard way for programs to call it to get info/services. Later, when MSDOS.SYS was merged into IO.SYS, became a text file with boot info for Windows (start the GUI etc).

Correct. A user editable file to instruct IO.SYS to load drivers.

A batch file is a set of commands, which are run automaticaly in sequence, as if they were typed into the command prompt. This file is a standard batch file, but is run first thing after boot before the command prompt is displayed to the user.

INI files are *mostly* windows info files. They are text, but formatted in a particular way. This one contains basic info, such as drivers, for Windows. The files before were mostly for the MSDOS environment, this is Windows only.

This is ancient stuff, and somewhat complicated. It is basicaly a driver, originaly loaded from config.sys (see above) that provided services for memory above the 1MB mark. In Win9x it is loaded automaticaly, even if not mentioned in config.sys. It is needed because MSDOS, which all versions of Win9x are built on, is a 'real mode' OS, and only knows about the first 1MB of memory.

Harry.

 

Great Explanation Harry!

 

I can't really add anything to Harry's explanation. Harry, he's the man....

If you want further explanations just Google each of the terms separately. You'll get a ton of information, but Harry's summarized it all very well.

 

Hail the Harry.....

Hail the goddam lot of you in fact....


Thanks for the help all,much obliged..

after me fella's,,,,,WE'RE NOT WORTHY,WE'RE NOT WORTHY..

 

The best I have found for quad boot system and very easy to set up as well is System Commander I found out about in the Mike Meyers A+ book it is well worth looking at you can run Windows and Linux and a vast range of weird and wonderful OS's.
Well that’s my tupence worth