How do you install Dos?

[James T Kirk USS Enterprise]

welcome everyone!

i have trouble in the past, ever since they stopped offering those w98 startup disks.

How do you install Dos?

 

[USAFRet]

Assuming you have suitable hardware, you put the 3.5" floppy labeled Disk 1 in the drive. Run setup.exe.

The real question is why? What are you trying to do?

 

[Delroy Monjo]

If you have WIN7, goto accessories and click CommandPrompt

 

[James T Kirk USS Enterprise]

hi USAFRet

to use as a dual boot os system, one being dos, the other being windows.
to use as a backup, in case of system crash.

ALL new computers now days do not have a 3.5 unfortunately, so this option is not available.
but, yes, this would be the easy way to do it.

however, as you might recall, inorder for it to be successfully installed (DOS), each "startup disk" was different.
meaning that every version of windows had its own version of the "startup disk", and i guess, was ONLY capatible with that "version" of windows.
and, if you know about this subject, you will also know that they stopped making "startup disks" around w98, so no "startup disk" is available for xp or win7, even assuming that i HAD a 3.5, which i don't.

but what i do have is DOS 1.1 & DOS 7.1, which i think can be run "outside" of windows. the purpose of/and to be "able" to run Dos as it OWN os, it cannot be run/installed "inside" of windows inorder for it to work.

inorder to have a dual boot os, you have to have a dual boot program, which i have, though some programs have this option normally available, such as linux mint 7.

i want to run windows and dos, but cannot figure out HOW to install DOS outside of windows. they won't install.

HI Delroy Monjo,
be run "outside" of windows...
[as a dual boot os]

GOD IS MY SHEILD

 

[Deuce65]

Which version of dos are you trying to install, and on what type of media do you have the install files?

 

[Hawkeye22]

hi USAFRet
however, as you might recall, inorder for it to be successfully installed (DOS), each "startup disk" was different.
meaning that every version of windows had its own version of the "startup disk", and i guess, was ONLY capatible with that "version" of windows.
and, if you know about this subject, you will also know that they stopped making "startup disks" around w98, so no "startup disk" is available for xp or win7, even assuming that i HAD a 3.5, which i don't.

but what i do have is DOS 1.1 & DOS 7.1, which i think can be run "outside" of windows. the purpose of/and to be "able" to run Dos as it OWN os, it cannot be run/installed "inside" of windows inorder for it to work.

Don't confuse DOS with windows or DOS with a windows command prompt. Windows versions 3.11 for workgroups and earlier required DOS as Windows ran on top of DOS, thus you had to install DOS first, then windows. From a DOS command prompt, you would enter the "win" command to start windows. Since the "win" command was usually in DOS's autoexec.bat file, windows would boot at startup making it appear that windows was the dominant OS.

Windows XP and higher use the NTVDM (NT Virtual DOS Machine) to launch command prompts and issue older DOS commands, however, they do not rely on DOS.

USARet is correct Put in disk one and run setup.exe.

 

[Alabalcho]

... or find out about FreeDOS

 

[USAFRet]

to use as a dual boot os system, one being dos, the other being windows.
to use as a backup, in case of system crash.

Having a second OS to use in case of a major crash is a good idea. DOS, however, is not a good choice.
If you were to actually get it installed, what then? You get a DOS command prompt. No internet, no applications.
Do you have any software to run it with?

but what i do have is DOS 1.1 & DOS 7.1

DOS 7.1 is part of Win95B – Win98SE. It is not a standalone OS. The last standalone DOS OS was 6.2.2.
And DOS 1.1 is right out. No support for any drive size that you currently own. Zero support for any comms except maybe, possibly a really old slow modem.

A much better choice would be a Linux distro, even if just on a LiveCD. Or as mentioned above, FreeDOS. Something from this century anyway.


You say you have 1.1 and 7.1. On what media do you have these?

 

[hang-the-9]

welcome everyone!

i have trouble in the past, ever since they stopped offering those w98 startup disks.

How do you install Dos?

Find a Pre-Pentium 4 system, install the DOS disks you have on it.

Newer computers will not run DOS, you won't have the drivers to work with any of the hardware.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Newer computers will run DOS just fine. It's the hard drive and lack of VESA support in modern video cards that present a problem. New drives now run 4096 byte sectors natively as opposed to the old 512 byte sectors. DOS will not work on 4096 byte sector drives (unless you can locate an older 512E drive that emulates 512 byte sectors in firmware). You'll also run into the 2GB per volume limit with DOS (32768 byte clusters).

 

[hang-the-9]

Newer computers will run DOS just fine. It's the hard drive and lack of VESA support in modern video cards that present a problem. New drives now run 4096 byte sectors natively as opposed to the old 512 byte sectors. DOS will not work on 4096 byte sector drives (unless you can locate an older 512E drive that emulates 512 byte sectors in firmware). You'll also run into the 2GB per volume limit with DOS (32768 byte clusters).

Are there USB drivers for DOS for newer systems? Or Audio? You'll have no mouse or keyboard support once past BIOS as many systems don't have the PS/2 ports. I have not tried installing DOS in ages (last time I think it was in use anyplace I worked was mid 90s), but I'd think you sill need to load the drivers for the hardware to get it working in the OS.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Newer computers will run DOS just fine. It's the hard drive and lack of VESA support in modern video cards that present a problem. New drives now run 4096 byte sectors natively as opposed to the old 512 byte sectors. DOS will not work on 4096 byte sector drives (unless you can locate an older 512E drive that emulates 512 byte sectors in firmware). You'll also run into the 2GB per volume limit with DOS (32768 byte clusters).

Are there USB drivers for DOS for newer systems? Or Audio? You'll have no mouse or keyboard support once past BIOS as many systems don't have the PS/2 ports. I have not tried installing DOS in ages (last time I think it was in use anyplace I worked was mid 90s), but I'd think you sill need to load the drivers for the hardware to get it working in the OS.

There are/were USB drivers available at one time but they only supported mouse/keyboard, and, if the BIOS has support for "legacy" support on the USB ports no drivers are required for mouse/keyboard. For the most part none of the other hardware is needed to simply run DOS, and legacy PCI sound cards are still available if you know where to look, and your motherboard has at least one PCI slot. No drivers are required for things like chipset or IDE/SATA.

 

[popatim]

If you're worried about windows crashing hard, just install it again as your second OS - on a separate partition naturally.