Dual booting, dual operating systems.

[Guest]

I have a IBM Thinkpad T23 notebook that has XP Pro and Office Pro etc.. pre
installed. No disks or docs. I also have a Sprint PCS phone that came with
a Wireless web Connection kit. What I want to do is use my cell phone to
access the internet from my laptop.
This is what I know:
It can be done. (Sprint says so)
It will only work with Win 95 or 98. (Something to do with FAT)
I need to have both XP Pro and Win95 on my laptop. (Dual operating systems?)
I need to be able to start either one at boot up.(Dual Booting?)

Is there an easy way to do this?
Has anyone ever heard of such a thing?
Is this more trouble than it's worth?

Anyway, if there is someone out there with nothing better to do and can
help, well that would be great.

Thanks,
DaveKay

P.S. I did a search and read other threads but it made my head hurt. Plus
all they wanted to do was rag on each other instead of helping.
Microsoft support wants alot of money

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

If your XP operating system partition is FAT32, then see my web site, www.dougknox.com and go to Win XP Tips

For Win9x/Me: Install 98/Me after XP is Installed.
For Windows 2000: Install Windows 2000 after XP is installed.

If your XP partition is NTFS, then you need to look into a 3rd party boot manager, like BootIt Next Generation, www.bootitng.com

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

If your file system is NTFS then the XOSL boot manager
is a further option you could use. It's free.

Note that if you're a novice to multi-booting, and if you do
not have any Windows installation CDs, then you run the
risk of losing your whole installation. It is quite easy to make
a mistake when installing multi-booting - I would never do it
unless I had a clearly layed out recovery path.

 

[Ron Sommer]

To use XOSL, another partition will be needed for 95 or 98.
A program will be needed to shrink the XP partition to create room for the
other partition, if a partition is not available.
If the partition can't be shrunk with XP installed, then XP will have to be
installed.

If there is a recovery partition and XP needs installing later, the
reinstall may reformat your drive and erase your dual boot.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Indeed. A FAT partition is actually required regardless
of the chosen boot loader, because Win9x demands it.

 

[Guest]

When you state you require FAT under Windows 95 / 98, is this simply a
conclusion you may have reached as the result of having read an error message
displayed when you tried to setup the software for using a cell-phone
internet connection on your PC?

I'm striving to comprehend why anything cell phone related would require FAT
(file allocation table FAT32) capabilities of the Windows 98 or Wiindows 95
O/S (You didn't mention Windows 98 SE or Windows ME (milenium edition) which
also support FAT32).

Windows 98 came out 7 years ago. Plus, if you dual-boot into Windows 95 or
98, even if you can access the Internet with the cell-phone, you won't be
able to access any of the Windows XP folders on their respective NTFS (NT
File System) partitions. Any files you might want to prepare under Windows
XP would have to be transfered onto the HD partition which was formatted as
FAT32 for Windows 95 / 98, then reboot.

You wouldn't even be able to run much of the latest Internet based software.
This doesn't make sense.

 

[Guest]

Thanks guys. It sounds to me it's not worth it. Just my luck I would screw
it up and then have nothing working. I'll just leave well enough alone.
Again, Thanks for the quick responses

Dave K.

 

[Guest]

The following enables the older outdated software to be installed on an NTFS
Windows XP partition even though the program was designed to run on Windows
95 / 98's FAT partitions.

I don't know if you'll read this, but... (regarding FAT32 / FAT16 )

I'm still programming using Borlands' C++ vs. 4.52. Version 4.5 was
published for

Windows 3.1 (anybody remember that version of Windows?)

Versino 4.52 was to support Windows 95 when it first came out.

Regarding FAT32, you can't install vs. 4.52 under Windows XP (NTFS) unless
you know what you're doing. Before running install, you have to right-click
on the Dos install.exe program, select "Properties".

Switch to the "Compatibility" folder.

Specify, "Run this program in compatibility mode for"...

Use the drop down list to specify "Windows 95".