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Actually Windows XP does comes with DOS. The only problem is windows XP does not provide a TRUE Dos Mode. (Microsoft modified this to work this way!)
So, if you want to have DOS separately you can install in in a different partition then Windows XP is on.
but remember two things.
1. Install Dos in Partition D:
2. Then install Windows XP in Partition C:
And also remember to have Dos partition formatted as FAT
whereas Windows XP partition as FAT32/NTFS.
So, if you want to have DOS separately you can install in in a different partition then Windows XP is on.
but remember two things.
1. Install Dos in Partition D:
2. Then install Windows XP in Partition C:
And also remember to have Dos partition formatted as FAT
whereas Windows XP partition as FAT32/NTFS.
hsksattish
Broken In
Whats the difference between the true DOS mode and the dos mode in xp?
siriusb said:
Yes, but I was trying to make things more simple for him to understand.
Next, it is true that Microsoft has removed the support for 16 bit subsystem in XP but thats not the real reason for not having a TRUE dos mode.
@hsksattish Actually, In Windows XP you cannot directly boot your system to DOS, whereas it was possible in Windows 98 by modifying some system files.
So, in XP you can access DOS only through XP's interface, that means once you are loged in to XP and the desktop is visible you can go to START-->RUN-->and type CMD to get to the DOS.
I would like to add one more thing here, Actually what happens when you start your computer which has Microsoft Windows Installed ?
Once the hardware test is over, the DOS KERNEL starts to run which loads the variables into the memory for executing commands to load Windows.
This happens with ALL versions of Windows including XP.
So, whats the difference ?
In Windows 95 /98, the DOS activity was visible to the user and it was very easy to makeout that DOS has been loaded first and then Windows 95/98 is going to be loaded.
But in XP Microsoft modified the DOS Kernel to hide itself when loading into memory and it looks like Window XP is directly loading. And thus, since Microsoft had to modify the DOS Kernel itself to achive this "hide"
procedure, it actually happened that the accessibility to the TRUE Dos Mode got lost. So, now you cannot modify the system files in XP to boot into Dos Mode.
How Microsoft was able to modify the Dos Kernel ?
Since, Microsoft uses its own version of DOS namely , MSDOS and not PCDOS so it had the Kernel object files which they easily modified.
What is next?
The next OS of Microsoft --- Windows Vista will not have DOS KERNEL at all.
siriusb
Cyborg Agent
Tech&Me,
You are misinformed. There are three windows kernels, AFAIK, out there: dos, NT and CE. Upto Win ME, DOS kernel was used. That is why those OSes were able to provide the "true dos" mode. But windoes NT, XP and vista use the NT kernel. The main difference is that the dos kernel is 16bit whereas the nt kernel is 32bit.
That is why, in NT kernel based OSes, if u want 16 bit support, you get an emulated dos environment. And since emulation cannot represent all situations, some DOS programs don't run.
You are misinformed. There are three windows kernels, AFAIK, out there: dos, NT and CE. Upto Win ME, DOS kernel was used. That is why those OSes were able to provide the "true dos" mode. But windoes NT, XP and vista use the NT kernel. The main difference is that the dos kernel is 16bit whereas the nt kernel is 32bit.
That is why, in NT kernel based OSes, if u want 16 bit support, you get an emulated dos environment. And since emulation cannot represent all situations, some DOS programs don't run.
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