Win 98 has Dos 7.10. Is the dos with ME 8.0? If it is 8.0 what is the difference between 7.10 and 8.0. Thank you

yes win me shipped with dos 8. as far as i know, practically nothing has changed in dos 8, except for io.sys, which was modified to directly load windows, instead of stepping through msdos.sys, config.sys, command.com, autoexec.bat, win.com, vmm32.vxd basically now it skips all that, and goes directly to vmm32.vxd, which is the main windows startup file (win.com is basically a glorified batch file.) other than that, it should be the same as dos 7.10

So all you need to start the computer now is io.sys. the other files arnet needed or they are packed in io.sys. thats crazy. thanks for the reply.

well, the only thing packed into the io.sys is an xms driver (himem.sys), the command.com is packed into vmm32.vxd (if you boot off the boot disk, and change your shell line in the boot disks config.sys to c:\windows\system\vmm32.vxd, it starts as if it was command.com, strange (g) the actuall command.com is still used for the comamnd prompt under windows, but otherwise its uesless. the config.sys and autoexec.bat are packed into the registry (so to speak) only enviroment variales are read from the files at shutdown, and merged into the registry.

If i installed ME and deleted the windows folder would dos be able to boot to a prompt or is the io totally dependant on windows. with 98 you can dump the windows folder and set the BootGui=0. is that possible with ME

well the msdos.sys options don't work in win me, im sure if you edit the io.sys to use command.com instead of vmm32.vxd as the shell, it would work. alternitavly you can use the io.sys from the boot disk, this allows you to boot into real mode. but half the dos tools have been disabled in a way, format /s option was taken out, and sys is usless, it doesn't transfter the os files anymore, only fixes it. (ie sys a: c: doesn't work, the new version you type sys c: and it will repair the disks boot files)

What a piece of trash!