RE: [amsat-bb] Re: Windows Question

[Ronald Long <rlong3@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 07:30 PM 10/22/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>With WinME you don't have the option to
>"Restart in MS-DOS," and to get there you have to boot with a disk to get 
>to DOS.  If you press the F8 key while booting, without a floppy, you 
>don't get a "Command Prompt only."
>If anyone has a better clue about this I'd appreciate it.
Since so many amsat members use DOS programs, I think this is not off 
topic. Here is one of the items from Fred Langa's site that I mentioned 
before. Hope it helps.
ron w8gus.

The LangaList ( www.langa.com/ )
2000-09-14

4) Restoring DOS Mode to WinME
Today--- the 14th--- is the day Windows Millennium Edition will become 
available at retail--- and as I've said in past issues, I think it's wrong 
for most users due to its many built-in limitations.

One of the most significant limitations is that Microsoft has made it 
difficult to get at pure, vanilla DOS. It's not that WinME doesn't use 
DOS--- it does, just as every other member of the Win9x family does.

Indeed, WinME is just a minor update of Win98SE that's friendlier for 
newbies because it's harder to get at the "guts" of the system, where 
newbies can get themselves into trouble.

But even though WinME is just arriving at retail now, many copies already 
have been shipped on new PCs--- and the hackers have been poking at it for 
some time.

For example, the link at http://www.geocities.com/mfd4life_2000/ will show 
you how you can restore access to real-mode DOS in WinME by patching some 
low-levels files in the OS. Many, many LangaList readers sent me that link 
(thanks!), and many sites are featuring it.

But few point out the downside of the patch: If you hack the OS at a low 
level, you'll make yourself ineligible for tech support for the OS 
itself--- and probably for any software, as well. All the support tech has 
to ask is "did you apply a real mode patch" and if you did, he or she can 
probably legitimately deny you any tech support you'd otherwise be eligible 
for because the OS itself has been modified.

So, patch away if you want to--- but be aware of the possible consequences.







----
Via the amsat-bb mailing list at AMSAT.ORG courtesy of AMSAT-NA.
To unsubscribe, send "unsubscribe amsat-bb" to Majordomo@amsat.org