22 replies to this topic

[wendy]

I've been updating the HELP.HLP file to cover information relevant to MS-DOS 7 and modern environments.

 

This is a DOS help file, intended to be run by QBASIC.EXE and HELP.COM.  You can copy it as EDIT.HLP and load it in the QBASIC editor.

 

Recent updates are new sections like ABOUT (copyright info etc), JO.SYS.  I've updated entries for XCOPY to show new Win98+ options, and SYS and some other commands relating to Windows ME. 

 

Should be up at h++p://www.os2fan2/files/help.zip.  A version is attatched here.

 

I'm thinking of deleting all of that stuff about DBLSPACE and DRVSPACE except for a short note about it somewhere.  This should make the overall file smaller. 

 

v2 is at http://www.os2fan2/f.../dos7help.zip  Type HELP ABOUT to see version changes.

 

Mainly added COMP, EXE2BIN, GRAFTABL, BASIC, and a few other changes.  MSD has a version-history, with 3.01 allocated to 2.12 (between Windows 3.11 = 2.11 and Windows 95 = 2.13).  It is mostly complete, although the plan is to reformat LFNBCK into something similar to the rest.  It now has all of the DOS commands in NT4's NTCMDS,HLP file.

 

 help.zip   324.33KB   1119 downloads

 DOS7HELP.ZIP   614.27KB   57 downloads

 

The focus of the new help is towards people who want to experiment with a variety of MS-DOS and PC-DOS versions.  It includes entries on things like versions of different files (Mouse, msd, that sort of thing), an index of additional topics etc.  More commands have been picked up in the beta help files (append, join, fastopen).

 

The mystery of the JO.SYS is given in winboot topic.

[betrand]

I've been updating the HELP.HLP file to cover information relevant to MS-DOS 7 and modern environments.

That's gonna be a good read . i am often wondering about Dos and Modern hardware.

[0ffer]

I'm thinking of deleting all of that stuff about DBLSPACE and DRVSPACE except for a short note about it somewhere

 

It will be a great!

[wendy]

The Help file is not really about modern hardware.  It's supposed to be an update of the MS-DOS 6.22 file, which is included with all modern Windows 9x. 

 

It's more intended to be about the sort of commands that one might meet in MS-DOS 6.xx to 8.xx, rather than how to get the stuff onto a modern machine. 

 

New commands are being added, and some bits are to be rewritten, including a new section on root-directory files. 

[0ffer]

The full list of external MS-DOS commands by version from 2.0 to 6.22

 

Windows 2000 as the creator of the MS-DOS 7.10 from Microsoft

[betrand]

not really about modern hardware.

Yeah, I thought afterward you might have meant something else

modern environments

.

Good thing to have around though, that updated help file, when running the OS.

 

Wendy,

Offer, thanks, .

[wendy]

I'm not planning to go back much further than DOS 5.  Since this is intended to be a replacement for the help in OLDMSDOS, it's mainly about Windows 9x, recent MS-DOS and Windows stuff, and Windows NT.  2000/XP is the last version in discussion.

 

The plan is to cover DOS 5 to 8, with a few reductions etc.  SCANDISK is still a bit bloated, but i might reneter data about DRVSPACE.  

 

The redistributable drivers (MOUSE, MSCDEX, EMM386, HIMEM, RAMDRIVE, and SMARTDRV), are now complete with MOUSE, and a version table has been created because programs update these without call. 

 

Some discussion on Windows 9x and Windows NT are included, including multiple booting.  This is largely new.

 

I've included WINBOOT as an entry, with the default config.sys.

 

Otherwise, the thing is being restructured along the lines of 4DOS.HLP, with entries for environment, root-files, and "What is MS-DOS 7" (along with What's new).  Some of these should answer questions like 'there is no msdos-7. 

 

Some sections like LFNFOR are badly linked.

 

I found that HELPMAKE supports comments,  ".comment", so i can put these into the folding editor (.comment !topic .....), which allows me to leave things to later and still find them.  It's a boon to editing.

[Wonko the Sane]

I'm thinking of deleting all of that stuff about DBLSPACE and DRVSPACE except for a short note about it somewhere.  This should make the overall file smaller. 

Instead of deleting these info, you may more simply "separate" them and make an (optional) addendum to the "main" file out of them.

This way you will have the info (rarely as they might be needed) available while keeping the size of the most used/useful main file smaller.

 

Wonko

[wendy]

Much of the information is still available in the msdos 6.22 help in any case. 

 

The thing is that by the time you load QBASIC and the help file, you start to run out of real-memory, so it's better to trim the fat off the file.  DAGSPACE (ie d??space), like all compression, has fallen out of use pretty much as soon as large hard drives came into use.  So it's not really relevant at this stage.  It wasn't the flavour of the month when it was in in any case. 

[wendy]

This is an interesting find, but the MSFT doco appears wrong. 

 

The cdroms used are image files of original MSFT masters, rather than home grown patch files, as is the usual fare.   The machine is a VPC 2004 machine running under Windows 19:0 (2k).

 

I found this MSDOS7 thingie on installing Windows 2000 sp4 over Windows 98se.  It seems to be a unmodified version of DOS from 98se.  The files are identical with Windows 98se files.   There's no magic 'ver = 7.00' thingie here, but yes, it does.  tfc finds no difference between these files and those i captured from the win98cd, except that it has 'defrag.exe'.

 

A similar process of Win2000 sp0 over Windows 98fe yields the same result: binary copies of files from the Windows 9x directory.

 

There's a boot.dos file in the root directory, that if added to the end of boot.ini, will indeed give the required options.  It looks like c:\=MS-DOS.  Open up a windows cmd prompt, change to the root directory, and type boot.dos >> boot.ini, to add it to the menu.

 

This works in the german version too.  I set up a version of the german windows 98, and installed the german windows 2k on top of it, and golly gee these files appear again.  As with the english, the upper-case files are in the root directory, and ye still have to do type boot.dos >> boot.ini to make it work.

 

[.]             [..]            ansi.sys        attrib.exe      AUTOEXEC.UPG
chkdsk.exe      choice.com      command.com     CONFIG.SYS      CONFIG.UPG
country.sys     debug.exe       defrag.exe      deltree.exe     diskcopy.com
display.sys     doskey.com      edit.com        edit.hlp        ega.cpi
emm386.exe      extract.exe     fc.exe          fdisk.exe       find.exe
format.com      himem.sys       ifshlp.sys      IO.SYS          keyb.com
keyboard.sys    keybrd2.sys     label.exe       mem.exe         mode.com
more.com        move.exe        mscdex.exe      MSDOS.SYS       nlsfunc.exe
scandisk.exe    scandisk.ini    smartdrv.exe    sort.exe        subst.exe
sys.com         xcopy.exe       xcopy32.exe     xcopy32.mod
      1,825,501 bytes in 47 files and 2 dirs    1,925,120 bytes allocated

 

Most of this is MS-DOS stuff.  The ring-in is 'defrag.exe', which gives an error-message to the end of 'This program requires microsoft windows', when run in the vanilla dos.  So it's up to deletion.  Of the rest, for better testing, i have done 'copy xcopy32.mod xcopy.exe', because that's what it is. 

 

Beside defrag.exe, the other files up for replacement is edit.com/.hlp/.ini.  "Edit" is a real editor, so this one comes out as msed.

 

MSDOS.SYS looks like this

 

[Paths]
WinDir=C:\MSDOS7
WinBootDir=C:\MSDOS7
[Options]
LOGO=0
BootGUI=0

 

 

Neither attempts have yielded START (a win32 program), being copied, but do copy XCOPY32.EXE, which is not in the MSFT list.  Still, it's an interesting result.  EDLIN from Windows 2000 does not runs under this DOS.  Loadfix does, though. 

[wendy]

I have a couple of DOS boxen running now, including the MSDOS7 thing.  It gets more interesting.

 

XCOPY and COMMAND.COM have some sort of cruel-code in them which limits the features unless Windows is loaded.  If you run the win98 xcopy under a DOS when Windows is loaded, it behaves entirely differently to when Windows isn't.  These features are not coming from the underlying OS, because the same results are to be found under Windows NT. 

 

xcopy32.mod is just xcopy.exe, renamed.  the xcopy*.exe just run xcopy32.mod as an exe file.  very interesting.

 

Also, if you run xcopy under forcedos, it behaves like it's just DOS.  so that limits what we need to seek for.

 

There's probably a way to remove the cruel-code.  Time will tell.

 

Windows 9x command.com runs benny.bat correctly.  This is Benny Pederson's discovery that Errorlevel suffers one of the Y2K bugs (specifically, you can use digits of the form ASC$(48+d), for values larger than ten.  This gives years like 19;3 for 2003, ie  this basic code:  "19"& ASC$(48 + year div 10) & ASC(48+year mod 10).

 

The mnenotic for this is 'Hex'.  For upper case, use H, for lower case, use x.

 

 

@ECHO OFF
::  Benny Penderson, "Hex-Hax" of the year of the Lord, 19:0 .
choice /n /cABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ Choose drive:
:  FINDCD
FOR %%D IN (A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z) DO IF ERRORLEVEL H%%D SET DRIVE=%%D
ECHO You chose drive %DRIVE%
FOR %%D IN (a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z) DO IF ERRORLEVEL x%%D SET DRIVE=%%D
ECHO You chose drive %DRIVE%

[wendy]

For those listening to this message, i have been adding edits to the two previous messages, mostly regarding Offer's finding of MSDOS7. 

 

MSDOS7 is created in the german version too.  I suppose most languages will do it, but german and french are the limits of my NLS.    DEFRAG is actually a windows program, its inclusion here is a mistery.

 

The german version doesn't seem to find the STDIO interface easily when run in English environments, but does so in german ones.  Might be a pointer change.  I had the same problem when i ran the P632 utilities (DOS from OS/2 for the PPC), on an x86, and some other cross-dos things.

 

XCOPY32.MOD is actually what was in Win95, xcopy32.exe.  You can "copy xcopy32.mod xcopy.exe" to test different interfaces to the same proggie.  XCOPY has some creul-code stopping useful features in plain dos.

 

Just for a lark, i am going to see if it is mayly to create a german version of help.hlp, using similar sources (MSDOSDRV.TXT,  NTCMDS.HLP from Windows 3.51 or 4.0, and a few other places).  Most of this is 'cut and paste' stuff, so it's not really going to rely on my lack of writing german. 

 

A german version of 'SHORTCUT.EXE' for NT has been prepared.  To make this, you need to grab a copy of shortcut.exe from the Windows 95 cd-rom (which is localised), and the NT resource kit supplement 2 (4 doesn't include it)., which has the NT version.  Then copy the language resources from the german 95 version to the english nt version (in resource hacker).  The strings table, and the version table needs to be changed.

 

Resources 63 and 64 are responsible for the '/?' message.  This is a list of lines, with an initial number like '1016'.  The actual number of lines might vary from language to language, depending on how the /? is formatted.  The english one has 17 lines (1001 to 1017), but the german one needs only 16.  You need to arrange the lines so that the lines run in sequence from 1001 to 10xx.  If there is a missing number, that's where the print ends. 

 

       1017,     "  -l logfile   record error messages in specified file\n"   [english]

eg   1016,     "  -l Logdatei    Rekord Fehlermeldungen in spezifizierter Datei.\n"   [deutsch]

 

The -L option is not in the Win95 version, so this is the only line that needs to be translated.  This translation is a comunity-overset between Google and myself.  Google thought 'record-error-messages' was the noun, but i knew record was the verb, and 'error-messages' was the noun.  I'm not sure over logdatei (Eng: logfile), google suggested protokolledatei or something. 

 

Still, it's a good mangle.

[wendy]

I'm thinking of adding a section of miscellenious files in there, like, what files like winoa.386 and ega.sys and cv.com do.  They're in DOS distros but no one talks about them!

[wendy]

Currently, i have been working on som undocumented stuff for DOS and Win9x.  These will eventually make their way to the help file.

 

DOS=SINGLE,  LOGO  have been sorted, there is still a WinME msdos,sys option to be glarked.

[wendy]

http://www.betaarchi...=401645#p401645

 

This is where the discussion on DOS 7.x is being carried out.

 

Using DOS=SINGLE is not a good idea.  What happens is that apart from Windows offering to reboot the system, WIN.COM is loaded in part of memory, and then a second COMMAND.COM on top of this. 

 

If you want a true DOS vs DOS + Windows, the better option is to carry out some of Weinger's ideas (WINBOOTDIR=.)  and then use LOGO.SYS to load Windows.  The BOOTGUI=0 setting is used to prevent io.sys from running win.com at the end of autoexec.bat.

 

Still, i am rewriting SYSCOPY.COM, so you can copy eg autoexec.dos -> somename.ba_ and config.dos to somename.sy_ and restore these as well.  We use command.com to do touching, so it can be done entirely without any utility.

[wendy]

We now have Win95 booting, and using different logos for DOS and Windows boots. 

 

The default setup is

 

1.  MSDOS.SYS
[Paths]
Winbootdir=c:\msdos7
Windir=c:\msdos7
 
[Options]
BootGUI=0
 
2.  CONFIG.SYS
device=c:\msdos7\w95logo.sys   ;  displays \logo.w95   
 
3.  AUTOEXEC.BAT
setmdir /r:c:\fenster     ;   resets 'windir'  and gets rid of messages on boot
 

 

The plan is to triple-boot Win95, Win98 and DOS on the same VM

[0ffer]

@wendy

Remove winbootdir environment variable from io.sys to triple-boot Win95, Win98 and DOS
77 69 6E 62 6F 6F 74 64 69 72 ==>> 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

[wendy]

We have something better.

 

First, i got denocaro's 'ver710.sys' to work under dos 7.10.  You need this if you want to launch Windows apps from the DOS command line.

 

Second you get setmdir.exe out of NET8.CAB. Use this to set winir.

 

winbootdir points to the DOS directory.  It's used by IO.SYS to create the default config.sys.  I set this to c:\msdos7

 

windir is used by windows to find the machine registry (system.dat)

 

The binary files are held relative to win.com, but only if win.com is the real thing.

 

On a diskless system, you point winbootdir to a:\,   windir to the user's home directory, and load win.com from the app directory.

[wendy]

The current testing for MSDOS7 (7.10.2400, from 4.10.2222), and MSDOS6 (6.30, from 6.22), is to minimise the installed files to a single floppy disk for each.  A third DOS PCDOS5 = IBM DOS 5.00 unmodified), is used on the second drive.

 

The basic layout consists of two hard drives #1 and #2, and two virtual pc consoles.

 

PCDOS5 boots of #1, but can see the partitions and files on #2.  It also has access to the host through fshare.exe.  It is used to look through #2 when it's not booted.

 

#2 is set to dual-boot MSDOS7 and MSDOS6, by using the bootmanager in io.sys.  It is set up from the msdos7 boot disk, and then msdos6 is installed in the same boot session.  This creates a dual boot, available from the first reboot.  The #2 system can not see the #1 drive.

 

There are some interesting observations here.

 

1.  You can indeed use a full-blown msdos.sys on the floppy, and have IO.SYS search for an automatic path.  Setting winbootdir=a:\msdos7 and sorting files to the 'windows' and 'command' directories will work.  This means that to replace the dos in some existing setup is to overwrite the dos there. 

 

2. If you use jo.sys, do not set dualboot=1 on the floppy.  Instead copy a different msdos.sys to the hard drive.  This version of dos renames io.sys to jo.sys, and if it boots, and sees jo.sys, it will rename io.sys to io.dos, and jo.sys to io.sys.  When this io.sys runs, it will ask you whether you want to run from the floppy or the hard drive.

 

3. When dos is installed, you need to reset the path and other environments to point to the hard drive, so that the floppy disk can be released.  After that, you copy the files for msdos6, with io.sys, msdos.sys and command.com renamed to *.dos.  If you use an autoexec and config, these also become .dos.  Then this DOS is ready to run as a 'start previous dos'.

 

4. I currently have the IBM OEM version of Windows 3.11 installed on both #1 and #2.  In both cases, it is faster to copy the files as a zip file, and unzip the files locally, than it is to install from a cdrom or by fshare.  Under msdos 6.30, Windows runs quite nicely in enhanced mode, for both PCDOS and MSDOS6.  It's just MSDOS7 that does not like it.

 

5.  We now address the issues of do the 'extra' dos files, such as prepboot and oformat, actually run under dos 7.1, or do we need to remove the version check.  Windows 8 xcopy will not even display its help under a dos below 7.x, even when the dosver check is removed.  But it does show the help etc in 7.1 when the version check is removed.  The extended features under Windows are not available under plain dos, though.  But it seems to need win9x, it does not show them under win31. 

[wendy]

An update to this file is in the works.  The plan is to cover PC-DOS features as well.

 

BASIC - covers versions of basic from ROMBASIC to GWBASIC, as well as IBM BASIC/BASICA.  Examples include standard HELLO World proggie and a command to determine who compiled it.

 

ERRORLEVEL includes BENNY.BAT

 

EXPAND  reworked to include all DOS and Windows versions.

 

MSD  - now has a version table from 1.00 to 2.14.  MS-DOS 6.30 uses 2.12 (renumbered 3.01).

 

I'm still thinking of ditching the D??SPACE and MEMMAKER stuff.

 

Still stuff to add about UNLOCK and LFNBK 

 

[wendy]

COMP. EXE2BIN, and GRAFTABL copied from Windows NT4 help file.  This is pretty much the DOS help files, except for FASTOPEN.

 

MSD has a list of known versions.

 

2020;02.20 is the selected file-release date.  Actual time might vary.

 

JO bug entered in the file.

[wendy]

The new DOS 7 Help file is out.  See the OP, DOS7HELP.ZIP

 

I've changed the focus to assist people who enjoy playing with DOS 5 and later, both PC-DOS and MS-DOS.

 

Here are some changes

Versions

 

2020.03.27

   Added new:     APPEND, ASSIGN, JOIN, MIRROR, PRINTER.SYS,

   fixed:         links in readme section

   removed:       SELECT

2020.02.20

   Added new:     Basic, Comp, Exe2bin, Graftabl, Versions, PC-DOS

   Added text to: Expand, Errorlevel, MSD

2012.02.13

   Added new:     XCOPY32, Environment, Root directory

   Added text to  SYS, XCOPY

2008.07.25

   Added new:     ABOUT, SELECT

   Added text to  MSDOS.SYS, LOCK, UNLOCK

Here are some new topics.

 <What's New in MS-DOS 7> <MS-DOS and Win9x>       <File Versions>

 <Long File Names>        <MS-DOS and WinNT>       <PC-DOS and IBMDOS>

 <Fat32 - more files>     <Files in the Root>      <About>

 <Multi-Booting>          <Other MS-DOS Files>

[wendy]

I've updated this yet again, to get around some errors.  It is the link as in the OP, the 'dos7help'.  It now includes a fully patched QBASIC and edit files to match.

 

If you rename the help file to edit.hlp, you can copy text from the help file into your batch or config file or anything else.

 

Edit.hlp is embedded in help.hlp as well.

 

<CONFIG.SYS commands>    <What's New in MS-DOS 7> <MS-DOS and Win9x>
<MSDOS.SYS commands>     <Long File Names>        <MS-DOS and WinNT>
<Batch commands>         <Files in the Root>      <MS-DOS 6.3>
<Device drivers>         <Other MS-DOS Files>     <MS-DOS 7.1>
<Environment Settings>   <Fat32 - more files>     <File Versions>
<Multi-config>           <Multi-Booting>          <PC-DOS and IBMDOS>
<International Commands> <WinBoot>                <About>

 

The about topic gives author and source credits