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Dual boot systems

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Floppies_only

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Gang,

I've got a computer that I would like to run different versions of Windows on. I've heard that modern computers can be made into dual boot machines, so that you can run, say, Windows XP on one partition and Vista on another. I'd like to run Windows 2.1 and 3.1, and maybe 3.0. Was there a program for older machines that would enable me to run both of these on the same computer?

Thanks,
Sean
 
Well in DOS, just make different partitions on the drive. Seems those versions of Windows didn't self-boot unless you added the lines to AUTOEXEC.BAT, all you'd need to do is change to the appropriate partition and boot off the appropriate version of Windows.

--Ryan
 
Yes, that'd work as long as your various OSs can all run from the same DOS boot partition. The way it's usually done is with multiple *primary* partitions containing the various different systems, and a boot manager that selectively hides all the primary partitions other than the one you want to boot.

m
 
Floppies_only said:
Gang,

I've got a computer that I would like to run different versions of Windows on. I've heard that modern computers can be made into dual boot machines, so that you can run, say, Windows XP on one partition and Vista on another. I'd like to run Windows 2.1 and 3.1, and maybe 3.0. Was there a program for older machines that would enable me to run both of these on the same computer?

Thanks,
Sean
Click to expand...

Two words: System Commander. I've been a faithful customer since 1994 and it's never let me down. Using System Commander, you can even pull off tricks like multiple DOS and Windows 9x versions in a single FAT16 partition. I have about 4 different DOSes on my 1st 2G primary partition right now.
 
I could be very wrong about this, but I believe that all of the early versions of windows version 3.11 downward can coexist as long as you rename their installation directions to something other than the default "WINDOWS". At least I'm pretty sure I've seen a system with both Win31 and Win30 installed at the same time.

System Commander is pretty neat though.
 
Anonymous Coward said:
I could be very wrong about this, but I believe that all of the early versions of windows version 3.11 downward can coexist as long as you rename their installation directions to something other than the default "WINDOWS". At least I'm pretty sure I've seen a system with both Win31 and Win30 installed at the same time.
Click to expand...
Yes, 16-bit Windows (1-3.11) wasn't really an stand alone OS. It was more of an add-on application. So all those versions can coexist if you install them in different directories.

Anonymous Coward said:
System Commander is pretty neat though.
Click to expand...
It sure is!

// Z
 
Anonymous Coward said:
I could be very wrong about this, but I believe that all of the early versions of windows version 3.11 downward can coexist as long as you rename their installation directions to something other than the default "WINDOWS". At least I'm pretty sure I've seen a system with both Win31 and Win30 installed at the same time.
Click to expand...

You have to install them into different directories, not rename them after installation. But yes, this works great.
 
Zeela said:
Yes, 16-bit Windows (1-3.11) wasn't really an stand alone OS. It was more of an add-on application. So all those versions can coexist if you install them in different directories.
Click to expand...
If you boot Windows 98SE to a DOS prompt, giving you "MS-DOS 7.10", you can then run Windows 3.1x (and earlier) without even needing to dual-boot into another version of DOS.

IBM had "OS/2 for Windows" but it was a misnomer: it did not run OS/2 from within Windows; rather, it ran Windows from within OS/2. The full OS/2 2.x package included the Windows 3.1 files, but with "OS/2 for Windows", you used your own existing Windows 3.1 installation disks, as it was missing those files (thereby allowing a lower price). Or you could just forget about the whole Windows-within-OS/2 kludge and just dual-boot into a real DOS/Windows installation.

I once managed to squeeze a dual-boot installation of OS/2 2.1 and DOS/Windows 3.1 onto a 40 MB hard drive. Then Windows 95 came along and took over 40 MB just by itself, even before Microsoft "integrated" IE!
 
I checked out System Commander and 'GASP' found one has to pay for it and also have to pay for a Partition Commander. In my set-up on a W98SE 20g hd I use XOSL (Extended Operating System Loader)(Source Forge) a graphical interface which includes and uses Smart Boot Manager along with the optional Ranish Partition Manager. RPM is a somewhat incomprehensible program which I somehow muddled thru. This setup works flawlessly for me and the only problem I had was in trying to install Ubunto with it's ridiculous Ram demands which wiped out XOSL and I had to reinstall it. I don't know whether XOSL works with XP or Vista. SMB allows you to boot from floppy or CD as well as all the other usual OS including Linux and BEOS. I doubt it would be able to use Mac OSX but I have never tried,

Lawrence
 
I run multiple versions of Windows on my 80286 by the method the other guy mentions...I have...long life multi-boot configs!

C:\WIN31 - Windows 3.1
C:\WIN30 - Windows 3.0
C:\WIN203 - Windows 2.03
C:\WIN101 - Windows 1.01

Of course, there are problems, particularly with Windows 1.01 and it's ability to run on top of MS-DOS 6.22 (I get the microsoft splash, then a bunch of random beeps and gibberish going down the screen, before it loads into Windows, where I can't do anything except click on executables and lock up the machine. So I might made an older DOS boot disk just for that fun task, like DOS 5.00 or older.
 
I don't remember what it was called, but I used to have a CD with this program that let you multi boot just about anything you wanted though a GRUB like menu system. The down side was the only way to get rid of it was to completely wipe the hard drive. Even a normal format wouldn't get it. I'll have to try to track down the CD to see what it was and possibly image it.
 
Mad-Mike said:
Of course, there are problems, particularly with Windows 1.01 and it's ability to run on top of MS-DOS 6.22 (I get the microsoft splash, then a bunch of random beeps and gibberish going down the screen, before it loads into Windows, where I can't do anything except click on executables and lock up the machine. So I might made an older DOS boot disk just for that fun task, like DOS 5.00 or older.
Click to expand...

Suggest DRDOS 6. It pretends to be Compaq DOS 3.31, which Windows 1.0x seems happier with.
 
Can you not execute a different version of COMMAND.COM from the current one, or do the BIOS files have to match the shell version? For that matter, I believe you can install something like LILO or GRUB on the boot block and in theory load different DOS versions. I'd like to make a disclaimer though about which CPUs and hard disk interfaces those bootloaders can be made to work from.
 
One snag is that you can't dual-boot PC DOS 7 / 2000 with Windows 95, because they both claim to be DOS "version 7.00". There was a utility to allow dual-booting by patching the PC DOS version to 6.99, but then you couldn't FORMAT /S or SYS a disk because the version number wouldn't match.
 
JohnElliott said:
Suggest DRDOS 6. It pretends to be Compaq DOS 3.31, which Windows 1.0x seems happier with.
Click to expand...

I am well aware of this, but I have small memory issues with DR-DOS 6, I had that on my XT for the longest time, and kept running out of RAM, especially when it came to networking and intnernet. So I swapped to MS-DOS 6.22, which freed up at least 50-100K of RAM for some reason.
 
JohnElliott said:
Suggest DRDOS 6. It pretends to be Compaq DOS 3.31, which Windows 1.0x seems happier with.
Click to expand...
That's ironic, because Microsoft purposely programmed the beta release of Windows 3.1 to crash if it was run from DR-DOS 5.x or 6.x. (Actually, it stopped with a "non-fatal" error message; the default choice was to exit, but it allowed the user to continue at their own risk.) This was at the time when DR-DOS had gained significant market share due to the disaster of MS-DOS 4.0 and the delayed, buggy release of MS-DOS 5.0.

However, Windows 3.0 was also selling like hotcakes and Microsoft thought it could scare people back into using MS-DOS if they got the impression that Windows 3.1 would be incompatible with DR-DOS. Ultimately, the final release version of Windows 3.1 removed the DR-DOS incompatibility, but by that time the trick had already worked: DR-DOS's market share plummeted, and Digital Research sold out to Novell, who in turn sold out to Caldera. Caldera filed a lawsuit against Microsoft for their anti-competitive tactics, which Microsoft settled for an undisclosed sum.
 
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