Old Laptop Win 98se or Win Me?

[tvjohn]

WinME still has DOS, it's just hidden from view, which is quite silly.

DOS can be nice for playing older games. It's also much faster to switch to DOS than to boot from a floppy. You would have to make the floppy yourself anyway, so it is a disadvantage, considering your positive "more features out of the box" stance.

And if Windows complains that you can't mess with a file, DOS comes to the rescue. Basically, it's an extra OS that you can use to do maintenance or tweaking of Windows while it's not running, or without having it check what you do. For instance, I don't have IE installed, but there is the odd application that will create the Favorites folder (probably with a hidden desktop.ini) for no reason, and Windows will claim it's a system file that should not be deleted. Open a DOS prompt, and delete it from there, and you're done.

I was wondering why for most people it would be necessary to reinstate real mode, so that's a useful explanation.

I read yesterday that Microsoft wanted boot time reduced, so one of the reasons to "ignore" DOS.

If you regularly need DOS then clearly it's better to have quicker access than a floppy :-)

It would also be important for engineers doing embedded applications where they needed relatively simple access to serial & parallel ports for example.

[tilstad]

Well, there's also the command window in Me, and I haven't yet not been able to do what I wanted in that... as in 2000 and XP. In fact I do run a dos mediaplayer in ME which I launch automaticly through the connand window/quasi dos... and that works fine... I don't have alot of dos apps though. Can't really see the need for it. But anyways... It has been said that dos , real mode dos is in fact enableable in ME anyway...? Anyone know how to do it?

But if thats the case, there isn't really alot of arguments left for not using me...exept for "more buggy" of course.

[tilstad]

Ok, just found it http://www.geocities.com/mfd4life_2000/

It paches and changes a few files so you get real mode dos from the boot. I just did that, and it worked as it said. But then again, it also made the boot slower, which was the reason they removed dos from the boot process in the first place... Oh well, I easily removed everything rather quickly with system restore, so I got the faster ME boot again. :-)

Much rather have the faster boot, and just use the floppy the extremely few times I need dos.

[BenoitRen]

I'm curious, how does hiding DOS make the system boot faster? Is it some calls it doesn't do?

[prx984]

Look up the program PROtab. It creates registry keys that make it appear as if IE is installed, fooling applications that check that. I used it to register version 9.99 of IE on here.

Does this software work on Windows 2000 Professional? I've ripped the IE core out of my install, so just wondering.

[tvjohn]

I'm curious, how does hiding DOS make the system boot faster? Is it some calls it doesn't do?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/269524

[jaclaz]

I'm curious, how does hiding DOS make the system boot faster? Is it some calls it doesn't do?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/269524

Yep, from that keyb:

With real-mode support removed, there is consistent improvement in the length of time it takes a computer to start, without loss of Windows functionality. On tested systems to date, startup time has decreased 4 to 12 seconds when the Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files are removed. The greatest impact is on computers that have heavily populated Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files.

(bolding and underlining is mine)

So, it looks like to prevent users to have too much things in their startup files, they removed the files alltogether, but what is the difference with empty autoexec/config?

And, though the date of the article is

Last Review : January 27, 2007

most probably they took those times on a PII 400 Mhz, and with ATA33 disks, I don't think that with more performing hardware there can be much difference.

jaclaz

[BenoitRen]

Interesting. My config.sys only consists of two lines, so emptying it wouldn't help. My autoexec.bat isn't heavily populated, but I'll try experimenting with it.

[tilstad]

Well, wehen i tried this trick on ME, I only had one single line in config sys, and it was still very much noticably slower.

[BenoitRen]

I renamed autoexec.bat to autoexec.old, and rebooted while using a timer. After that I renamed it back, and timed again.

The difference was barely not one second, my autoexec.bat processes in less than one. My system needs 28 seconds to boot (months earlier, it was 29 seconds). And they say that WinXP broke the 30 second barrier (they cheated, many things are still loading after your desktop appears).

The procedure was starting the timer when my BIOS screen appeared, and stopping it when my desktop appeared.

This is on a Pentium II 233 Mhz CPU with 160 MB of RAM. It could boot faster if I didn't share my printer over the home network.

I'll try config.sys next, since you claim one line makes a noticable difference.

[tilstad]

Well, I didn't meausure it, but I'd say it was about 2-4 seconds perhaps. But I believe there was more to it than just adding a line to the autoexec.bat file.. If you read the howto, 3 files is pached ( not sure what it really does though, add data I guess) plus adding that line to autoexec.bat. So I believe you won't be able to replicate it with just adding a line to your autoexec bat file...

Also the splashscreen vanished. But if they claimed it was between 4-12 seconds, I guess it could have been a lil more. Anyways, the fast boot is one of the things I really love about this machine, as I really hate my 2,1Ghz, 1gb ram xp box slow boot.

Granted, that machine has alot of crap loading though, IIS, dual screens, network cards, etc.

[tilstad]

But wow, 28 second boot? how do you manage that? It was 55 second to desktop, and 1min 10sec for the harddisk to stop load extras, I measured it right now. BUt thats with win 95,right?

It was about the same with 98 on this machine though, not much difference. Seems it waits a while for the network card it seems.

Edited February 4, 2007 by tilstad

[BenoitRen]

So I believe you won't be able to replicate it with just adding a line to your autoexec bat file...

I didn't add a line, I renamed the file so Windows wouldn't load it.

BUt thats with win 95,right

Yes.

But wow, 28 second boot? how do you manage that?

I optimised my boot sequence. It doesn't auto-detect my hard drive, I let it save the paramters. It doesn't look for my floppy drive at start-up (separate from the process of trying to boot from a floppy). On the Windows side with no IE desktop shell, Windows is noticably quicker and more stable (or so I hear, I never had it installed). The install is also IE-free. I think the rest of the performance is because Win95 is smaller and more conservative in its functions. I don't load anything at start-up either, because in my experience that's slower than starting it manually after Windows has booted.

It was about the same with 98 on this machine though, not much difference. Seems it waits a while for the network card it seems.

Yes, if you use DHCP to get an IP, Windows will wait for it before continuing. You will lose at least 5 seconds that way. I made my network card a static IP to prevent this.

Edited February 4, 2007 by BenoitRen

[tvjohn]

But wow, 28 second boot? how do you manage that?

That is impressive, yes ;-)

It doesn't look for my floppy drive at start-up (separate from the process of trying to boot from a floppy). I don't load anything at start-up either, because in my experience that's slower than starting it manually after Windows has booted.

This laptop always show a floppy, even though it will never see one. There seems to be no way to tell the bios there is no floppy :-)

I too prefer to manually start tasks, as not every boot requires the same things.

Yes, if you use DHCP to get an IP, Windows will wait for it before continuing. You will lose at least 5 seconds that way. I made my network card a static IP to prevent this.

That's right. I also wonder why \\ip is faster, or even why it works, when net neighbourhood either fails or returns an error message!

[tvjohn]

Most of the long term forum members may have seen this, but in case it's useful (or controversial ;-) )

http://aumha.org/a/whichwin.php