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DOS 5,0 vs DOS 6.22

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Smack2k

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When I was a kid, by the time I started using PCs (was using Apple's previously in mid 80s, early 90s) DOS 6 and 6.22 were out and installed so its really the only version of DOS I have worked with. I am setting up a 386 PC and was going to install DOS 5.0 on it and I wanted to ask what are some of the big things I should look out for that arent available in DOS 5 compared to DOS 6.22 when it comes to configuring things like autoexec / confg.sys / memory / etc?
 
MS-DOS 5.0 is the last version to support old versions of Windows (before 3.0), and to run on the PCjr (if patched).

The biggest drawback of MS-DOS 5.0 for me is that you cannot skip processing of config.sys/autoexec.bat.
If your configuration crashes at boot, you better have a boot floppy handy. (Same is true for OS/2 before Warp.)

MS-DOS 6.22 comes with additional tools (SCANDISK, MSD, DEFRAG, ...) and has a nicer MEM output format.
There isn't really a compelling reason to use any other version unless you want to run really old, incompatible software.
 
Svenska said:
MS-DOS 5.0 is the last version to support old versions of Windows (before 3.0), and to run on the PCjr (if patched).
Click to expand...

I'm running Windows 2.11 on PC-DOS 7 and it seems to work. There's a SETVER entry for WIN200.EXE claiming it's version "3.40" per the recommendations floating around the web; I didn't even set it myself, it was there out of the box, apparently.
 
That might be; I've never used PC-DOS. But I remember Windows simply crashing on MS-DOS 6.22, while working fine on 5.0.
 
PC-DOS is only *slightly* modified from the Microsoft sources so'd be a little surprised if one worked but not the other, but who knows. It might depend a lot on the details of your specific system; I seem to recall reading that on 286 and higher systems there are a lot of if/ands/buts about which versions of HIMEM.SYS and EMM386 you can use, etc.
 
Svenska said:
MS-DOS 5.0 is the last version to support old versions of Windows (before 3.0), and to run on the PCjr (if patched).

The biggest drawback of MS-DOS 5.0 for me is that you cannot skip processing of config.sys/autoexec.bat.
If your configuration crashes at boot, you better have a boot floppy handy. (Same is true for OS/2 before Warp.)

MS-DOS 6.22 comes with additional tools (SCANDISK, MSD, DEFRAG, ...) and has a nicer MEM output format.
There isn't really a compelling reason to use any other version unless you want to run really old, incompatible software.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the tip.....I guess I will stuck with 6.22.......I know the OS so might as well stick with it!!

Appreciate it....
 
Windows 1 and 2 will run fine under Dos 6.22, as well as Win9x's DOS 7.x as long as SETVER is loaded and configured.
 
I've been enjoying diving into FreeDOS lately. It has been more than a decade since I last messed with it, and it seems to have improved greatly. We shall see how compatible it is, though..........
 
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