MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1

[Colonel Sanders]

While today I succesfully installed MS-DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1 onto an ancinet P-200(with MMX ). I was amazed the setup looked like the setup for Win2K (but different than any Win95/98 setup I've seen).

Anyways, your probably wondering why on earth did I revive such a dinosaur of an OS... Becuase I have a couple old DOS gmes that don't run on Windows 2000 so I dug through my closet and found me a nice PC to run DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.1.

Except there is a problem(while, a few issues anyways). I can get into the DOS shell and Windows fine. Except at the DOS prompt I cant access the CD-ROM I installed... When I boot the PC it goes to the DOS shell, I'd rather have a command prompt or go into Windows instead, any suggestions on how to achieve this?

Also, arn't there now free updates to MS-DOS 7.0 and Windows 3.11(or is windows 3.1 the same as 3.11?)?

TIA, L J

[juppy]

Hi Logan,

It's been awhile since I've done anything with DOS 5.0, but I'll give it a shot.
When you say it boots to the DOS shell, are you talking about one of those old shell programs that gave you more of a GUI approach to organizing files than the DOS prompt itself? If so, the shell program will be loaded in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. When you get to the C: prompt, type EDIT AUTOEXEC.BAT and see if there's a line in there that is loading the shell program (If the EDIT doesn't take you to an editing screen you may have to be inside the C:\DOS directory). I don't know what its called, but it should say something like C:\DOSSHELL\DOSSHELL.EXE. In order to cancel it loading you can just type REM in front of where it starts, like REM C:\DOSSHELL/DOSSHELL.EXE. If that doesn't cancel it, just take the REM back out and it will be the same again....better than deleting it IMO.

If you would rather have it boot directly to Windows, in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file add a line that says C:\WINDOWS\WIN
(I think that was it anyway)

Okay, as for the CD-ROM not working, its likely because you don't have the drivers loaded for it. I don't know if the CD-ROM takes a specific driver or if just a generic driver would work. When I used to have to do this on my machine it had a driver by some company called Oak or Oaktree or something...anyway, it was a NEC CD drive so I don't know how there would be a corelation between those two companies.
I'll try to give you the short version here cuz I realize I'm writing a book.

Here's the old AUTOEXEC.BAT AND CONFIG.SYS files off of my old machine's boot disk. They should be close enough to work for yours too, I think.

AUTOEXEC.BAT FILE CONTENTS (just a title, don't type that) @echo off CLS SET TMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP SET TEMP=C:\WINDOWS\TEMP SET PROMPT=$P$G PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\;C:\DOS SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6 LH C:\MOUSE\MOUSE LH C:\DOS\MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /L:L

The main thing you are needing is the last line. That's the Microsoft CD extension executable. The part after the /D: has to coincide with the name at the end of whatever the driver is for your CD drive in the CONFIG.SYS file. Just a note: that /L:L part just assigns a driver letter of L to the drive. If you want a different letter just change the second S to the letter you want, or if you want it to be the next available letter (usually D) then just leave the /L:L part off totally.

CONFIG.SYS file content(again, just a title...don't type) BUFFERS=20 FILES=40 DOS=HIGH,UMB LASTDRIVE=Z DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\EMM386.EXE DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\OAKCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD001 STACKS=9,256

In this one, the main one you need is the second to last line. See how the MSCD001 coincides with what you said it would be named in the MSCDEX part in the autoexec? If you've got the .SYS driver for the CD-ROM just put the name of your driver in place of where mine says OAKCDROM.SYS and it should still work fine with everything else.....I think. I hope this helps and that I didn't just confuse you more. If it doesn't work, post what your autoexec.bat and config.sys say and we'll go from there.

[Colonel Sanders]

OK, the version of DOS I have is from an old compuad which lacked a CD-ROM, so the version apparently lacks CD-ROM drivers...

So I downloaded MSCDEX v2.33 from microsoft. The problem is I don't think that includes drivers?

The CD-ROM is a Sony.

L J

[LocoCoyote]

as far as the upgrade.......DOS 6.2 was the last boxed version. It had some signifigant upgrades to 5.0

just as a test run I googled MSCDEX (we used to call it messy ducks) and found nemerous links. Don't know if there was a 5.0 compatable version...

[Colonel Sanders]

After jumping through some hurdles, I have got DOS to a point where I shall be able to run most of my old DOS games. The only problem is I didn't realize just how small my hard-drive was... I don't remember the exact size, but when it was all said and done, I go install a game that needed 26MB, and there was not enough space. The biggest problem with this is I'm using an ancient case too, and it's quite poorly built... I will now have to pull out the MB(which is no easy task due to the low amount of space) to in order to get to the screws to swap in a bigger hard-drive.

L J

[Colonel Sanders]

OK, so I decided to look a little closer at the hard-drive in question. Apparently DOS setup a partition which didn't take up all of the drive... I have an extra 4GB to work with. But I will probably still change the hard-drive for more space, and something a little more reliable. Now, it appears DOS can only handle up to 2GB partitions? What about other versions of DOS like 6? Is there any way to get around this limit, or is this something to do with FAT 16 and thus I have to live with it?

TIA, L J

[edfair]

You banged your head on the fat16 limit.

But you can create an extended partition on the drive and create some additional 2gb kogical drives to the limits of the drive or available drive letters.