🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <663488549wnr@sector.demon.co.uk>, "C:WINSOCKKA9QSPOOLMAIL"
<Peter@sector.demon.co.uk> writes
>Does anyone know if it is possible to keep DOS 6.2 and Windows 3.1
>on one disk, and to install Windows 95 on the other. 

Yes, and Yes.  Although it rather depends on what you mean by this.  
There are a couple of ways of achieving it so you could, in effect,
But take backups first.

>could choose to boot-up from either disk.
>I could keep my old Windis setup for accessing Demon safe on one disk 
>while I experiment with Windows 95 software on the other.

I do this, to a small degree, here (although I've not gone back to
Windows in months!).  With DOS installed, install Win95 to a separate
directory on the D: drive.  When you reboot, you can hit F4 (or F8 and
play with the menu) to determine whether you boot up on DOS (and can
then run Win 3.x) or go straight for Win95. In either case, take some
backups before going too far down the road.

>Next question: after booting up would I be able to use the data files 
>on the other disk?

Yes.  But you should have backups just in case.

> Obviously there might be a problem with long 
>filenames if I access a Windows 95 file from Windows 3.1, but are there 
>other problems?

You can get the short file name, no problem, but you risk loosing the
LFN altogether doing this.  Hence the need for backups.

Also, DON'T ever ever run Dos SCANDISK on a Win95 volume and expect it
to find and fix 'errors' - running this will corrupt your win95 setup.
Backups are helpful in such circumstances.

>Has anyone tried this? 

As noted above, yes.

>Am I likely to regret it if I try it out?

You may regret not moving to Win95 sooner.  The other thing you may need
to do is to re-install (or tweak) your apps to run under both.  This is
easy, but can be tricky.  Basically, I just create new icons under
Win95, and then copy over the 'missing' dlls into d:\win95\system (you
can also point your path (at the _very_ end) to c:\windows\system which
will tend to cure any other problems.

Hope this helps.


Thomas

-- 
Thomas Lee  (tfl@psp.co.uk)
Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and Certified Trainer
PS Partnership - A Microsoft Solution Provider
Ph: +44 1628 850 077   Fax: +44 1628 850 077