On Thu, 5 Feb 2004 19:27:26 -0700, "Bruce Chambers"
To the original poster: Before we get into detail, it would help if we
knew your "bigger picture". All we know is, you are running XP and
even though you have much to lose, you want to fall back to Win98.
From that, we guess maybe you:
- are having problems in XP that frustrate you into going Win98
- want to run Win98 instead of XP some times (or as well as)
- want to run a DOS mode instead of XP some times
Once we know what you are after, we can get medieval
There is no way to reboot a WinXP PC into Real Mode DOS unless
you've set up a dual-boot system.
Hold that thought for later...
WinXP, like its predecessors WinNT & Win2K, is a pure 32-bit GUI
OS, and does not include or "ride upon" any version of DOS, as did
Win3.x & Win9x/Me.
Whenever I read that, I have to respond - not only is it a slight to
Win9x, it is also technically inaccurate.
Win9x do not "run on DOS" any more than the NT family do, but they do
share a common path with DOS through the earliest boot up stages, and
you can choose to run DOS mode instead of Win9x.
If you performed an upgrade from Win98/Me, elected to backup the
old system files, and didn't convert the partition to NTFS, then all
you need do is boot into Safe Mode and Start > Control Panel >
Add/Remove Programs. All of these conditions _must_ be met for the
uninstall option to be available.
Even then, it can be a rocky road.
What you can do will be constrained by what you have already done.
As Bruce says, if you had a Win9x installation and upgraded that to
XP, you can take a shot at uninstalling XP as long as your file system
was not converted to NTFS. Else:
1) If you have C: as NTFS
Sorry, you are hosed. There's no conversion back to FATxx, and no DOS
mode nor Win9x can "see" NTFS.
You can use BING to shrink C: and then create an extended partition
with logical volume(s) formatted to FATxx, but you can't boot a Win9x
or DOS mode from there are these OSs still need some footprint on C: -
but you could copy files from XP to the FATxx volumes, re-format C: to
FATxx, install a Win9x there, and read the files you had saved off C:
on the other FATxx volumes.
Or, you can use BING to shrink your NTFS C: and create another FATxx
primary partition, into which a Win9x or DOS mode (or MSDOS, if it's
FAT16) can be installed. You'd have to use a third-party boot manager
such as BING to switch between the two primaries; the NTLDR/Boot.ini
system would not be able to manage this setup.
2) If you have C: as FATxx
You can retro-fix a Win9x DOS mode to the same C: as XP, without
having to fiddle with partitions at all. It's a rather fiddly process
that I've listed often enough in previous posts; I'll do so again if
your reply indicates this is where you want to go.
You cannot easily add a full Win9x to share the same C: as XP, because
there are too many files and folders that overlap (e.g. "Program
Files", even if you avoid the disaster of a shared C:\Windows).
If you want a full Win9x, you'd do better to use a dual-boot strategy.
One way is via BING or similar, as described in (1), where each OS
lives in a separate primary partition and you use the 3rd-party boot
manager to select between the two OSs.
The other way is to use BING to shrink the C: on which XP is
installed, create an extended partition, create one or more logicals
formatted as FATxx, then install the Win9x there. The original C: is
still C:, so it's *crucial* to install the Win9x on D: or higher drive
letter by setting the installation path to D:\WIN98 or whatever. The
two OSs share C: aas their bootup point, with NTLDR / Boot.ini
offering the choice, but the bulk of the Win9x is off C:. Because the
Win9x's IO.SYS and similar have to be on C:, C: cannot be NTFS.
HTH
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