The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group
Two useful solutions
David Foster

Running dual boot with Win95 and Windows 3.11

I note a question in Random Access in PC Update, March 96, on dual booting with Windows 95. The question is "How can you add Windows 3.1 to a system already running Windows 95?" Readers may like to know how to do this. There are two ways you can load Windows 95:

If you have not yet loaded Win95
  • The simplest way is to use a new directory for Win95 when you install it the first time. (eg C:\WIN95). Also, when installing Win95, choose the recommended option, to save your old MS-DOS and Windows system files by answering Yes in the Save System Files dialog box.
  • Win95 will change the content of your DOS directory, but the original files will be saved to another directory during installation in Step 1 above.
  • After installing Win95, copy the DOS files back to the original location (eg C:\DOS) because Win95 will have changed and deleted some files.
  • You will have to install all the Windows applications that you want to use under Win95, which is a disadvantage of this method but is no big problem.
You can now boot under the former DOS version and use Windows 3.1 simply by pressing the F8 key during the two seconds that your computer says "Starting Windows 95" during boot up. Then start Windows 3.1 by selecting your original Windows 3.1 directory and running WIN.EXE.

The other way:

The second way to set up dual boot applies when you have not retained (or did not have installed) the old MS-DOS and Windows files at the time you first installed Win95. You will need a full copy of the original DOS files from your DOS directory. If you have not kept a backup, you will have to reinstall them from your original setup disks:
  • Use a boot disk from your previous DOS version (5.0 or later) and make a copy of it.
  • On the copy, remove the attributes from the system files and from COMMAND.COM
    ATTRIB -H -R -S *.*
    will do the job.
  • Rename the system files:
     IO.SYS to IO.DOS
    MSDOS.SYS to MSDOS.DOS
    CONFIG.SYS to CONFIG.DOS
  • Rename COMMAND.COM to COMMAND.DOS
  • Rename AUTOEXEC.BAT to AUTOEXEC.DOS
  • Copy all five of the files renamed in Step 3 above to the boot directory of your computer.
  • Restore the attributes of the IO.DOS, and MS.DOS files.
    ATTRIB +S +H +R IO.DOS
    ATTRIB +S +H +R MSDOS.DOS
  • You will also have to edit the MSDOS.SYS file to restore the dual boot feature of Win95 as follows:
Remove the attributes of MSDOS.SYS (ATTRIB -S -H -R MSDOS.SYS) and make a copy of the file in case you make a mess of editing it! (COPY MSDOS.SYS MSDOS.BAK will do the job). Use the DOS editor (or any text editor) to add a line to the MSDOS.SYS file just under the heading [Options] that you will see in the file. The additional line should be:
BootMulti=1

Now restore the attributes (ATTRIB +S +H +R MSDOS.SYS). You can now reboot and if you press the F8 key within the two seconds that "Starting Windows 95" is showing; your computer will boot in the former DOS mode.

Since Win95 will have replaced your Windows 3.1 files you must reinstall them. Reinstall Windows 3.1 in a different directory to Win95 (e.g. WIN3.1), using your original installation disks.

To use Windows 3.1 instead of Win95 just use the F8 key during boot up and start Windows 3.1 in the usual way from its new directory. You can set up your AUTOEXEC.BAT file to start it up straight away if you want to.

A somewhat mysterious feature of the dual boot system is that when you boot under DOS the CONFIG.DOS and AUTOEXEC.DOS files that you set up above appear as CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. You can edit them and set up your DOS configuration quite separately from the configuration that runs under Win95 even though you seem to be editing the same file! When you boot under Win95 you will find the files are then still there as CONFIG.DOS and AUTOEXEC.DOS. The CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files under the Win95 boot are the ones as you set them up for Win95 in the first place!

 Norton Utilities solves partition table problem

Following up on the excellent article by George Skarbek in PC Update, March 1996 on installing a second IDE drive [ http://www.melbpc.org.au/pcupdate/9603/9603article7.htm ], I had an experience that may interest anyone having a problem setting up a new boot drive.

My experience was with a new drive that I wanted to use as the boot (C:) drive. Although I transferred the system files to it by formatting it as a system drive, it would not boot!

After much frustration, I found the answer in my invaluable Norton Utilities manual.

There is a "field" in the partition table of the drive called Boot and, on the new drive I had purchased, it had an entry NO in it under this field. To be used as a boot drive, the entry must be YES.

Most of us do not like to play around with the partition table but Norton Utilities for Windows 95 Disk Editor makes it easy. If you have this invaluable utility, follow the instructions on page A-19 after making sure that the Read Only option is not checked in the Tools/Configuration menu of Norton Disk Editor.

If you do not have Norton Utilities, you can make the change with any disk editor that can access the partition table of the drive. However, if you don't know what you are doing, get help from someone who does! Editing the boot table is only for those who have the skill to do it. You could, of course, buy a copy of Norton Utilities and do it the easy way.

Reprinted from the May 1996 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia

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