Configuration advice

[ME BIGGD01]

I need to figure out the best way to do this for a friend and have an Idea in mind but would like to ask you guys what you would do. I am hoping it is a better idea then mine.

I need to set him up with a a system that has DOS 6.2 and WINXP pro. We all know that this is a pain in the arse since the file systems do not work well together. I am considering have 2 seperate Drives with a boot menu using a piece of software that will allow you to boot from either drive upon boot up. I need XP to be able to see the fat16 partitions when in that OS so the files from the older CAD program can be sent to his plotter. To be honest, this some pretty old school crap and I am trying to think of the best solution. I would like to actually have an a switch to to hit to go instantly into XP along with having the dos drives being to be connected to the XP system. This is the kind of ideas I need to think of so if anyone can suggest something other then why dont Howiee just upgrade the software (the guy is old and refuses to) (he also uses auto cad 2006 but has way too many projects with this piece of software).

I am sure some of the older fella's that have worked with DOS knows what I am looking to do and maybe has a better solution or idea. I do not want to take the easy way out doing this and would like to have the best solution.

[JIMINATOR]

hook him up with virtual pc, give it visibility to a fat16 drive, and have it all run together. No switching, should be fairly painless.

[ME BIGGD01]

hmmm, jim not familiar with virtual pc. can you explain a bit more.

thanks

[JIMINATOR]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx

It is a virtual computer session running inside of an existing session. It is useful for running things like multiple servers/operating systems with different IP addresses all in one computer. Microsoft bought the company that made this version, the linux support dropped after that. there is a version available from another company also (I forget who) and also an open source version (not sure where that went the past few years).

So he will be running XP normally, and he can then alt-tab to a character screen or alternately have the dos session within a window. when he clicks on it, it gets the focus and the input. Hot keys allow him to tab back out. The virtual session virtualizes hardware. As far as the virtual session is concerned, it is running on an old dos box. There should not be any speed degradation, since the dos machines were slow, and I don't imagine it will suck up much resources from the XP session.

[ME BIGGD01]

Jim, I downloaded the 45 day trial. I think you have my solution and I think this may work. Dude, if this works, I am buying you a case of beer:thumbs: .

Now a quick question, do you have a lot of experience withthis app? I hope you will be able to help if I have some questions like how does it load the dos version I need? Do I set it up on another drive and have the program point to it?

[JIMINATOR]

you will run the program, it will ask to set up the virtual machine. There are certain default configurations. The main thing is you specify how the drive is setup. I am certain you would want to give it access to a fat16 disk instead of a virtual drive, that way the files can be accessed by both operating systems. Anyway, once the machine is set up, you boot it. Install os from cdrom, etc. This can be in full screen text mode or windowed. OS can be dos, windows or linux, although I think they dropped driver support for linux. The cdrom, floppy & mouse emulation should also work transparently to the virtual system.

[ME BIGGD01]

Is it possible to take the actual drive which dos 6.2 is on already along with the cad program and have it run in this program? A bit confused regarding the cd iso thing. Hell, I dont even have my dos disks anymore. I think I have a full version of this virtual program from my ms partner crap but I have to look through my junk for it. I just want to make this thing work as easy as possible and as less time as possible.

[JIMINATOR]

yeah, it should be possible to set it up as a boot drive and have it go from there....

[ME BIGGD01]

I am going to have to read up on it a little bit because I am confused on it loding some sort of iso image. Either a lack of sleep is getting to me or I am just slowing down too much to figure things out these days. I have to figure out how it reads the drive also the os. Ughhhh, must go to work:( .

Thanks Jim for your help. This seems to be the best solution if I can get it to work or figure it out to get it to work. I appreciate it man:thumbs:

[ME BIGGD01]

Hey Jimbo, although really have not had the time to mess with this, I have been doing some research and really nothing is helkping with this solution. I do not see anywhere to boot from with this software. I am just not familiar with it and although it seems to be the best way of doing what needs to be done, it becomes abvious that unless you know the software, you're s out of luck. I guess not too many people here at GM other then you know about this software so if you have any Ideas what I am f'ing up please point it out. I have been looking at other forums but they seem to be missing my point what I am trying to do.

So with that, HELPPPPPPPPPPP:o .

[JIMINATOR]

don't set it to boot, just make the fat drive the master, the boot process should be automatic after that.

[ME BIGGD01]

Not sure but is it possible the demo softwrae is not offering that option. I don't see it. I do see is pull image from cd though but that is part what confuses me. I am not sure what image they are referring to.

If you get a chance maybe you can log onto my system and remotley show me because I am lost.

[JIMINATOR]

Ok, I just fired it up
Create a virtual machine
"use default settings...."
Name it DOS
Ok
Settings:
Hard Disk 1
Virtual Disk Wizard
Create New
Virtual Hard Drive
Named DosHD
Linked to a hard drive
Select your FAT Drive

Note: you should completely back up this drive,
as the two OSes can potentially clobber the drive if both are writing to it

Afterwards select the machine, and click start...

It's really pretty damn cool.

[ME BIGGD01]

Ok Jim, that worked and I got it to boot into the boot menu as it does on his machine. The problem is that I guess because the drive letters have changed, I was unable to get it to actually work. I did this quickly by plugging in a ghost image of the drive via usb connection. Ok, so I have to figure out how I am going to do this. From reading what you said, I was a little confused but hopefully you can understandd my questions.

Are you suggesting I start off lets say I do an install of dos on the boot drive which would be a fat 16 and install dos. Do you think I can keep this as a seperate drive and then install Windows XP pro on another partition (I would like this on a seperate drive also)? Knowing windows will not allow Windows XP to boot dos but is this the configuration you are suggesting and then run the virtual pc?


On a side not, I am actually impressed on how the whole thing works. When I saw the command prompt I was like this is F'ing cool. I think because the c drive from dos was now the F drive and the d drive which was win98 was another drive letter, it did not start the bat files correctly which is suppose to load up the bat files such as acad,bat and start the cad program. I also know that his computer has some dongle attached to the lpt port which could be a reason the app did not start. If I get this thing to work, I am going to be amazed.

[JIMINATOR]

Ok, so for the old system, you have to recreate the drive structure, ie, first = c, second = d, third = e. On the windows side, it doesn't matter much.

The dongle thing, make sure that the computer has a parallel port and set up vpc to pass that port to the os.

Unfortunately I do not know if that is going to work, as I am not sure how dongles work, and if they are abusing the specs in a way that vpc does not support. You might want to look for a c... er, "internet solution," but that also may be really hard to find for 11+ year old program...

[ME BIGGD01]

I am going to try it and then put the dongles on it to see if it works. Time to do this has been rough as you can imagine. I think the program is great and I thank you for the advice. Good eye bud:thumbs: .