DR-DOS and Windows 95, how? \ VOGONS

DR-DOS and Windows 95, how?

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First post, by AM_PM

AM_PM Offline

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Joined: 2025-10-24, 18:34

To remind us: Windows 95 does not officially run on MS-DOS 6 and earlier (or other DOS), and setup isn't possible. Unlike Windows 3.x, 95 only runs on and boots with its combined MS-DOS 7.

Well during the Caldera vs Microsoft lawsuit, Caldera proved that Win 95 could actually run on DR-DOS as well, using a "tiny 600 B" TSR program that made some changes. They apparently planned to release the TSR but I see no record it ever happened. More details here: https://web.archive.org/web/19990825060833/ht … 02-caldera.html.

All these years later and it's still an interesting topic, there doesn't seem to have been much experimentation on getting 95 to run on DR-DOS. Would love to hear some thoughts!

Reply 1 of 1, by igully

Posted on Today, 03:32

igully Offline

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Joined: 2024-09-07, 19:26

IMHO, the real deal breaker is integration, and Microsoft exploited this extremely well to this day to keep market share hostage. When you got to buy Win95 you already got DOS included. The same happened with Internet Explorer vs Netscape or MS-Office vs Lotus. Pragmatism beats technically superior products for most users.

I am on the bizarre group: my DOS is weird and uniquely modified solution: I use DR-DOS 7.05 kernel and MS-DOS 6.22 command interpreter in order to have more conventional memory available on an 8088 cpu. My kinky taste requires me to manually modify these components for them to coexist. And I harvested an ecosystem where I can genuinely get more advantage of this unholy marriage. You wont get many idiots like me doing this sort of things. But still happy doing it.

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