I've read almost this whole thread because I'm also trying to come up with a solution for my machine. Currently, when I need pure DOS, I just go to Shut Down and tick the box to reboot into DOS. If I needed DOS almost exclusively, I'd probably just edit the MSDOS.SYS file as mentioned earlier. Not sure how to do that yet. I think you can still get into Windows by typing Win that way, but correct me if I'm wrong.

My question is though, why is it such a big deal to just boot into 95/98 first, then tick the option to reboot into DOS? Is it because Windows still leaves some of its leftover crap in memory or something?

Syntho wrote on 2024-07-31, 08:43:

I've read almost this whole thread because I'm also trying to come up with a solution for my machine. Currently, when I need pure DOS, I just go to Shut Down and tick the box to reboot into DOS. If I needed DOS almost exclusively, I'd probably just edit the MSDOS.SYS file as mentioned earlier. Not sure how to do that yet. I think you can still get into Windows by typing Win that way, but correct me if I'm wrong.

My question is though, why is it such a big deal to just boot into 95/98 first, then tick the option to reboot into DOS? Is it because Windows still leaves some of its leftover crap in memory or something?

Just the time it takes to boot into windows, shutdown windows, boot into dos. memory should be clean.
Personally, I use a shortcut on the desktop but think the shutdown menu works the same where if you turn the PC off it'll keep booting into dos unless you type exit?
I find this convenient enough.

Thanks for the info. I just did a lot of reading on it. I think I'm going to go with a multi configuration machine, since I'd use DOS more than Windows and I'd rather boot into that than to Windows first. My only question now is about conflicting drivers and TSRs, etc. If I boot into DOS and have my config.sys and autoexec.bat files loaded up with everything I need for a DOS machine, what happens when I type Win and boot into Windows? Would there be some sort of conflict where things are loaded in memory already that Windows would load once again? I'm thinking I may need to restart at that point and select Windows from my boot menu, but not sure.

Dos uses:
Msdos.dos (sys)
Io.dos (sys)
Command.dos (com)
config.dos (sys)
autoexec.dos (bat)

9x (NOT ME) uses
Msdos.sys
Io.sys
Command.com
config.sys
autoexec.bat

IIRC the only thing that might need configuring is one line in the 9x msdos.sys (BootMulti=1
option to show "Old MSDOS")
Otherwise, you can simply copy 6.22 and others onto the drive with the renames and it will work.
The renaming happens automatically during the boot process.

Switching will always require a reboot because 9x won't load on 6.22.

more info: https://www.mdgx.com/msdos.htm

Syntho wrote on 2024-08-02, 12:26:

Thanks for the info. I just did a lot of reading on it. I think I'm going to go with a multi configuration machine, since I'd use DOS more than Windows and I'd rather boot into that than to Windows first. My only question now is about conflicting drivers and TSRs, etc. If I boot into DOS and have my config.sys and autoexec.bat files loaded up with everything I need for a DOS machine, what happens when I type Win and boot into Windows? Would there be some sort of conflict where things are loaded in memory already that Windows would load once again? I'm thinking I may need to restart at that point and select Windows from my boot menu, but not sure.

Do you have to use 6.22? If not, you don't need to go through that hassle. DOS 7.x that comes with windows 95/98 works just fine. You can use a boot menu and have separate configs for booting into DOS and Windows.

eddman wrote on 2024-08-02, 14:03:

Do you have to use 6.22? If not, you don't need to go through that hassle. DOS 7.x that comes with windows 95/98 works just fine. You can use a boot menu and have separate configs for booting into DOS and Windows.

That's actually what I'm doing. I was just wondering if when I boot into 7.1 first, if something in my autoexec.bat or config.sys will load something that will conflict with Windows if I choose to load it via Win. For example, the HIMEM.SYS or EMM386 files, or a mouse driver, etc. Windows takes care of all of that on its own, so I wonder what the effect would be of having those things loaded in memory, then to have Windows load its own crap. Unless it does't work that way.

Personally, for booting into windows, I try to manually load as little as possible in autoexec.bat, and none in config.sys.

For example, I customize EMM386 for the DOS boot option (include different memory ranges and move the EMS table), so I'd rather not have that be loaded for windows. Generally the less you mess with what's loaded into windows the better. I don't know for certain what will cause issues, so better to stay on the safe side. More experienced members here would probably know some examples.

I've used Phil's boot menu as a template but have changed quite a few things.