FreeDOS is fine, but last I looked it does take a small amount of tweaking to have all the tools and utilities in place for maimum compatibility. Key items include HIMEMX, JEMMEX/JEMM386, EMM386 (MS or PCDOS version), CD-ROM drivers, network drivers, and sound drivers. PC-DOS 7.1 is also very useful, but it requires quite a bit of manual work to put everything in place.

I've had virtually zero trouble with FreeDOS since I set up a boot menu that lets me choose between its native memory managers (JEMMEX, UMBPCI) and ones from MS-DOS 7 (HIMEM.SYS/EMM386) on demand. 98% of the compatibility issues people seem to have with it are due to the memory managers (which work rather well, just differently than MS's.) FreeDOS's FAT32 implementation is rock solid.

Yup. I'd even go so far as to say that HIMEMX is at all levels superior to MS-DOS HIMEM, but EMM386 is sometimes required (because of port trapping, for example).

Come to think of it, the weird copy protection scheme used by Lemmings 2 tries to access the boot record and will fail on a FAT32 partition. But that's pretty much the only case I can recall about a game being picky about the filesystem being used. (And in that case it's probably best just to use a crack.)

Some of Creative's stuff also objects if they detect a version of DOS greater than 6, or if they find the "winbootdir" environment variable set (see Patched CTCM/CTCU to remove Windows detection ). But those checks are easy to bypass.

dr_st wrote:

Yeah, kind of obscure. I believe all my DOS systems always handled century rollover properly, and none of them was PC DOS 2000.

I assume that was more of a problem with early 486es and lower machines (w/ RTCs which stored only two digits for the year ?).
I remember that in the night from 99 to 2000 my 286 went back to 1900 (or was it 1980 ?).
So I guess this feature was primarily intended to avoid data corruption or crashing machinery.
Looking back, someone could think the whole Y2K thing was just some hysteria, because nothing really happened.
But who knows ? Maybe all of that Y2K fuss was a good thing and affected systems were thus taken down in time.

gdjacobs wrote:

Yup. I'd even go so far as to say that HIMEMX is at all levels superior to MS-DOS HIMEM, but EMM386 is sometimes required (because of port trapping, for example).

I also agree with that. DOS 6.2x is rock solid, but also dated. Its himem.sys doesn't know about Fast A20 yet, for example.
That feature was added in IBM PC-DOS 7.0 for the first time, I believe (and probably in other recent DOSes, too.)
Anyway, that feature isn't crucial either. And maybe can be supported by borrowing Himem.sys versions from other DOSes.
https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/kbd/A20.html
http://wiki.osdev.org/A20_Line

PC-DOS 7.1 is a thing, but it's not available in any form you can use. It was only packaged with IBM or IBM licensed utilities, and as such you will have to isolate it and package it yourself.

If your really hell bent, use a Windows 98 boot disk with large disk support. But you will still get the previously mentioned issues.

Seems there are quite a few complaints about FreeDOS being incomplete.. I'm pretty certain there are unofficial installation media or images out there with all memory manager options pre-installed?

Ampera wrote:

PC-DOS 7.1 is a thing, but it's not available in any form you can use. It was only packaged with IBM or IBM licensed utilities, and as such you will have to isolate it and package it yourself.

Fair enough. What about PTS-DOS then ? It was very speedy (+286, 100% asm!) and later versions supported FAT32, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTS-DOS

Jo22 wrote:

Fair enough. What about PTS-DOS then ? It was very speedy (+286, 100% asm!) and later versions supported FAT32, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTS-DOS

I had been planning to perform compatibility testing for a while but sidelined the project for other, more pressing matters. I've always wanted to know how PTS-DOS stacks up when it comes to gaming.

PTS-DOS seems interesting... it seems the last versions is "PTS-DOS 32" , 2000 version seems to be older with added network support/tools but missing FAT-32 support... is this correct?

PhilsComputerLab wrote:

Windows 98 SE and MS-DOS mode is what I like to use 😀

On older machines, like a 386, I prefer to just use 6.22.

I haven't had time to test but does 98SE DOS work on a 386? Anyone try 286 or IBM PC / XT?

keropi wrote:

It's not a good idea to run tools that don't expect FAT32/LFNs on a FAT32 system.... you can grab scandisk from 98SE for your error repairs and a 3rd party utility to defrag if needed.
I've been using DOS from 98SE in standalone-mode for 10+ years now, haven't found programs other than the ones mentioned above to have issues. If you go FAT32 then you just have to stop using them, no matter what DOS/OS you have installed.

Which programs did you have programs running in 98SE DOS? I didn't see any list.

Ampera wrote:

There is a fairly good reason most DOSes don't have FAT32. […]
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There is a fairly good reason most DOSes don't have FAT32.

Any machine that needs more than 2GB in HDD space is going to be more than fully capable of running Windows 9x. You will be breaking several programs regardless, and will have a hard time overall.

My personal favorite is PC-DOS 2000. It's an amazing version of DOS with all the trimmings, a beautiful text editor, and every single command you need. It's also Y2K compatible, if one should give a damn.

For FAT32, I would give DR-DOS a shot as it's the only organic DOS with FAT-32 support. FreeDOS is fine, but it's a new creation and IMO not worthy of a proper retro system. I don't trust the CDU MS-DOS 7.1 compilation that is floating around, and there have been compatibility issues outside the regular FAT-32 stuff. It also isn't an organic from the time DOS.

DR-DOS -- organic? What do you mean by this... ?

Jo22 wrote:

I agree with that. Also, older databases or disk utilities (like Compress) can't handle FAT32. Windows 3.x may also fall into th […]
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Ampera wrote:

There is a fairly good reason most DOSes don't have FAT32.

I agree with that. Also, older databases or disk utilities (like Compress) can't handle FAT32.
Windows 3.x may also fall into this category. I don't know for sure, but I think I read something about
problems with the (Windows) directory index beeing damaged under some circumstances (if it is located on a FAT32 volume).

Ampera wrote:

I don't trust the CDU MS-DOS 7.1 compilation that is floating around, and there have been compatibility issues outside the regular FAT-32 stuff. It also isn't an organic from the time DOS.

If DOS 4.x (non-multitasking version) wasn't so incompatible, someone could have written a device driver for it to
retro-fit it for FAT32 (it had and installable fileystem feature).

DOS 4.0 Menu GUI was horrible. It used memory that certain games needed the max conventional memory.

You are better off booting to 95/98 if you had to deal with any rearranging of files/folders. Just memorize all the DOS commands you should be fine navigating around. That's how it was done back in the day. It also helped you learn to type faster. Not something too many Windows / MAC OS Gui users tend to be good at these days. 😀

95DosBox wrote:

keropi wrote:

It's not a good idea to run tools that don't expect FAT32/LFNs on a FAT32 system.... you can grab scandisk from 98SE for your error repairs and a 3rd party utility to defrag if needed.
I've been using DOS from 98SE in standalone-mode for 10+ years now, haven't found programs other than the ones mentioned above to have issues. If you go FAT32 then you just have to stop using them, no matter what DOS/OS you have installed.

Which programs did you have programs running in 98SE DOS? I didn't see any list.

what do you mean?

95DosBox wrote:

I haven't had time to test but does 98SE DOS work on a 386? Anyone try 286 or IBM PC / XT?

There is no reason to expect that it would not work, except perhaps on a machine with exceptionally low RAM.

95DosBox wrote:

DR-DOS -- organic? What do you mean by this... ?

I presume "organic" is meant in the sense of being a legitimate commercial product as opposed to being part of something else or otherwise assembled from other components.

I have found very recently that 98SE DOS does not work on a 286 pc.
I know: strange. Why not? No idea. It just hangs on boot , 1 sec after reading from HDD/FDD. I even setup a 98SE DOS HDD on a 386DX (works fine there) and transplanted the HDD to the 286. No boot, no error no nothing.

Jorpho wrote:

There is no reason to expect that it would not work, except perhaps on a machine with exceptionally low RAM. […]
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95DosBox wrote:

I haven't had time to test but does 98SE DOS work on a 386? Anyone try 286 or IBM PC / XT?

There is no reason to expect that it would not work, except perhaps on a machine with exceptionally low RAM.

95DosBox wrote:

DR-DOS -- organic? What do you mean by this... ?

I presume "organic" is meant in the sense of being a legitimate commercial product as opposed to being part of something else or otherwise assembled from other components.

DR-DOS FAT32 support is best in the form of DR-DOS 7.01 WIP. DR-DOS 7.04+ are OEM versions, some of which do support FAT32, but they're essentially in the same boat as PC-DOS 7.1. DR-DOS 8.0+ came about after a change of developers from Caldera to Devicelogics, and both 8.0 and 8.1 have subsequently been withdrawn. I'm not sure why they pulled 8.0, but they included a bunch of code from FreeDOS in 8.1 without respecting licenses, so that version had to be fixed or be canceled.

keropi wrote:

I have found very recently that 98SE DOS does not work on a 286 pc.
I know: strange. Why not? No idea. It just hangs on boot , 1 sec after reading from HDD/FDD. I even setup a 98SE DOS HDD on a 386DX (works fine there) and transplanted the HDD to the 286. No boot, no error no nothing.

Interesting thanks for testing. I might do one myself if I can unearth a 286. Place is a mess. I know Dos 2.1 used to my favorite DOS on the much older lower memory systems. Those might not work on modern computers.

You can free up more memory in 7 then 6.22

http://www.mdgx.com/mem6.htm
http://www.mdgx.com/mem7.htm

Plus FAT32, plus handy GUI for system management. I'm sure the others are just as good if not better, but don't feel authentic to me

gdjacobs wrote:

Jo22 wrote:

Fair enough. What about PTS-DOS then ? It was very speedy (+286, 100% asm!) and later versions supported FAT32, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTS-DOS

I had been planning to perform compatibility testing for a while but sidelined the project for other, more pressing matters. I've always wanted to know how PTS-DOS stacks up when it comes to gaming.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTS-DOS
In 1995, some programmers left PhysTechSoft and founded Paragon Software Group. They took source code with them and released their own version named PTS-DOS v6.51CD. According to official PhysTechSoft announcements, these programmers violated both copyright laws and Russian military laws,[2] as PTS-DOS was developed in close relationship with Russia's military and thus may be subject to military secrets law. PTS-DOS is certified by the Russian Ministry of Defense.

Interesting I didn't know the Russians made their own DOS version. I will have to investigate its performance down the road. I wonder if there are any backdoors or other enhancements to appreciate. 😊 Kremlin Military Grade DOS. They must have used these for the nukes. Paragon GPT Loader another descendant.

keropi wrote:

I have found very recently that 98SE DOS does not work on a 286 pc.
I know: strange. Why not? No idea. It just hangs on boot , 1 sec after reading from HDD/FDD. I even setup a 98SE DOS HDD on a 386DX (works fine there) and transplanted the HDD to the 286. No boot, no error no nothing.

There are 386-specific instructions used in DOS 7.x so it can never boot on 286 or 8088 even if you don't use EMM386 or anything like that.

This may be related to FAT32 support. Someone could check if the original DOS 7.0 (without FAT32) works.

Azarien wrote:

This may be related to FAT32 support. Someone could check if the original DOS 7.0 (without FAT32) works.

It didn't work the last time I checked. This was back in '96 or so, when my father used the orginal retail release of Win95 (4.00.950; no bloody A, B, C, or D).
I was curious, and tried to boot the start-up disk I created on his 386 machine on my 286.
I think it said something like "This version of DOS requires a 386 processor" or something along these lines.
Anyway, it would be cool if someone could try again and confirm this. 😎