Win 95 DOS compatibility - the simple method

                     By Richard Hewison

I couldn't believe the problems Bill Commons had with Windows 95.
I know it isn't the great revolution it's claimed to be, but
setting it up and running DOS programs on it is relatively easy. I
keep DOS 6.22, Win 3.11 and Win 95 on the same hard disk and have
no problems running DOS or Windows stuff.

The most elegant method I've found to date is as follows:

Method A (From a freshly formatted blank hard disk)
From a clean hard disk, install DOS, Windows 3.11 and all your
usual stuff (pretend you're not going to bother with Win 95). When
you've got everything as you like it, install Win 95 and tell it
to go to a new directory (call it Win95 if you like). Once the
install process is over and Win 95 has setup all the programs etc.
go to the START button and tell it to boot to DOS.

From DOS, type "attrib -r MSDOS.SYS" then press <Return>. This
allows you to now edit this file as it was previously read (r)
only.

Now use DOS edit to edit MSDOS.SYS (this should be an ascii text
file at this point in the proceedings), i.e. "edit MSDOS.SYS" then
press <Return>.

At the end of the [options] section, slip in these few lines:

BootMenu=1
BootMenuDefault=7
BootMenuDelay=5

Now type EXIT followed by <Return>. Win 95 will boot back up. Now
tell it to Reset the Computer. It will now boot up to a multi-menu
boot-up. The default option is set to 'Boot to previous version of
MS-DOS' (option 7) so that if you leave the machine alone it will
boot to your old MS-DOS. There is a 5 second delay built in so you

have time to change the option if you wish (e.g. if you want to
run Win 95 just press 1 for 'Normal' boot).

Method B - Having already got DOS 6.XX, Win 3.XX and Win 95
installed.  If you have already installed Win 95 but would like
the above, you need to edit the MSDOS.W40 file instead. (The first
time Win 95 is installed, MSDOS.SYS is an ascii file. Once you
have used Win 95 and exited, MSDOS.SYS becomes MSDOS.W40 (still an
ascii file) and a new MSDOS.SYS (a binary sys file) is created to
replace the old one).

You will find that doing the above will keep your old DOS and
Windows 3.XX and allow Win 95 to happily co-exist without any
problems. Your memory problems with DOS progs and Win 95 should be
over. Your PC will behave as if Win 95 isn't even installed unless
you tell it to load it in from the boot menu. This method works
brilliantly for me and takes only a minute to make the edits once
you've got all the software installed.

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