windows 98

On 12 February 2014 05:45, Jim Stephens <jws at jwsss.com> wrote: Not really, no. None of the Win9x family did. They all boot MS-DOS in real mode. This loads HIMEM.SYS, which puts the CPU into 286 mode to latch the A20 line and access the 64K of memory directly above the 1MB boundary; the MS-DOS "kernel" is relocated into this. Then they run the rest of CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT like any other DOS. Then they automatically load WIN.COM from the specified Windows directory. This is a stub loader that loads the Windows kernel, which is 386 code, and then flips the CPU into 386 Extended mode, executes the kernel which then loads the rest of the OS. WinME is slightly different as it removes the COMMAND.COM shell and the DOS kernel directly loads WIN.COM in its place. That's from memory - the precise details may be different, but that's the overall sequence. All of Win95, 95OSR2, 95OSR3, 98 and 98SE can be booted to a DOS prompt with trivial config file tweaks or key combinations held down at boot, just like every other version of DOS back to SCP QDOS. WinME can't, as the shell has been removed from the boot sequence - but it will write a boot floppy for you if you want, and that boot floppy will. Plain old real mode MS-DOS is an integral part of every release of Windows 9x including WinME. Digital Research had Win95 successfully booting and running on top of DR-DOS in their labs, but it was never released - MS' EULA for Win95 specifically prohibited it. Of course, Win 3.x ran fine on DR-DOS - arguably better than on MS-DOS. -- Liam Proven * Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile Email: lproven at cix.co.uk * GMail/G+/Twitter/Flickr/Facebook: lproven MSN: lproven at hotmail.com * Skype/AIM/Yahoo/LinkedIn: liamproven Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 * Cell: +44 7939-087884