X-Authentication-Warning: delorie.com: mailnull set sender to djgpp-bounces using -f From: Hans-Bernhard Broeker Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: Dos shell ,dos box ,MS-Dos ...... Date: 4 Apr 2002 09:26:04 GMT Organization: Aachen University of Technology (RWTH) Lines: 40 Message-ID: References: <%pUq8.117748$1S3 DOT 3748632 AT twister1 DOT libero DOT it> NNTP-Posting-Host: acp3bf.physik.rwth-aachen.de X-Trace: nets3.rz.RWTH-Aachen.DE 1017912364 17473 137.226.32.75 (4 Apr 2002 09:26:04 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse AT rwth-aachen DOT de NNTP-Posting-Date: 4 Apr 2002 09:26:04 GMT Originator: broeker@ To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com infonews wrote: [...] > explain > me what is Dos that is in Windows ME ( operating system on my PC).It cannot > be an operating system (that is windows ME ! ). It can be. And it is, to some extent. The first stages of booting your PC, even in Windows ME, are still executed by an instance of DOS. It's needed, because the first stages of the Windows ME bootup process itself can't access your harddisks all on their own. They need and use the services of DOS for that. The boot block of your harddisk loads and executes IO.SYS, which is the operating system kernel of DOS. MSDOS.SYS used to be the next binary part to be loaded and executed, but sometime around Windows 95, M$ converted that one into a configuration textfile. Go have a look at it, some time. This DOS instance then proceeds to fire up the Windows systems, which replaces just about all of the services of that DOS kernel by its own drivers. So DOS has been reduced to a slightly glorified "bootstrap loader" for the Win32 system. But it's still there. In all earlier versions of the "9x" series of Windows, you could prevent the startup of Windows itself from happening automatically, by putting certain entries into MSDOS.SYS, CONFIG.SYS and/or AUTOEXEC.BAT. But ME does it unconditionally, so it *appears* like there was no separate DOS anymore. That was done mainly to satisfy the claims by MS' marketing droids about how ME would be the "first consumer Windows without a DOS sitting under the hood". But if you get down to the technical facts, there still is --- only its camouflage gear has become more elaborate. The emergency boot disk the system will create for you, e.g., still is a pure and uncrippled DOS system. Go figure. -- Hans-Bernhard Broeker (broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de) Even if all the snow were burnt, ashes would remain.