Hello. I have installed MS-DOS on my computer as a second operating system. I installed it for the purpose of playing old DOS games. The version of this DOS is 7.1, and I installed it by creating an emergency startup floppy disk in Windows 98 (first edition, not SE), and then I used that disk to install DOS on a 2 GB fat32 partition that I created for this purpose on my first HD. It's been cool playing old games like Master of Orion and Dinopark Tycoon. However, I recently decided I should take this one step further and install Windows 3.1 so I can play old 3.1 games like Myst and Megarace (although Myst can be played from Windows XP, it requires some doing). I know that Windows 3.1 was primarily installed on DOS 5.0-6.22, but is it possible to install it on DOS 7.1? I've heard that the DOS 7.1 from Windows 95 OSR2 has some command embedded in I0.SYS which prevents booting of other versions of Windows, but I do not know if this is true of the DOS 7.1 in Windows 98. I think it'd be cool to have Windows 3.1 on top of DOS 7.1 because then I could utilize my Fat32 partitions while in Win 3.1, as opposed to just Fat16. Is installing Windows 3.1 on top of DOS 7.1 possible?

download "3xstart.exe" from
http://oldfiles.org.uk/powerload/download/3xStart.exe
it is a self extracting zipfile created using winzip
unzip the contents to a temporary directory ( this will have to be done under windows )
it contains a file named W3xstart.exe
boot into your dos 7.1, get into the directory containing the extracted files, type "w3xstart" ( no quotes ) and press enter. the program will look for your io.sys and make necessary modifications, and then will display a message saying it has done so.
now reboot
your dos will now be ready to run windows 3.x

i wanna be a hacker

an after thought. to be on the safe side it would be better to reformat your dos 7.1 drive as fat16, reinstall dos the way you did previously, run w3xstart and then install windows 3.x ( i understand you have win98 in a different partition )
dont forget to read the readme that comes with the download

i wanna be a hacker

It's not necessary to change to FAT16 - Win31 won't care, as it's dependant on the DOS installed

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Thanks, I may just download that 3startx.exe, if I ever actually get a copy of Win 3.1. I wasn't planning on getting it until I was sure there was a way for it to work with DOS 7.1. Abdul, I don't have Win98, I instead have XP. I also have a second hard drive with a 5 GB Fat32 partition for DOS (Win 3.1 in the future). I probably won't wind up getting Win 3.1 until I'm required to get Windows Vista (as Vista has no Win 3.1 or DOS compatibility whatsoever), as I don't want to have to part with older games. When that time comes, I'll follow all of the advice you guys gave. Thanks!

I didn't quite clarify what I meant about that 5 GB partition. I meant that I use it for extra DOS (and Win 3.1 in the future) filestorage, not the OSes themselves. DOS itself is on a 2 GB partition.

Just for the heck of it, I just got done doing an install of the hacked-up "Weingar" DOS thing, and the "Winstart" file wasn't the problem in my case. In my case, THIS

http://www-3.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/document.do?lndocid=MMER-3XRMZG

was the solution, and it WORKS!!

Hmmm... I've heard of Weingar's Dos 7.1, but I also know that it's a hacked version of DOS. Doesn't that technically mean it's illegal, or did Microsoft give the OK? And where might I find the download?

And, on second thought, what about this 3startx.exe thing? Since it modifies the IO.SYS, is it illegal? I thought that you weren't really supposed to modify official Microsoft utilities.

i suppose since io.sys is not present in any installation package ( it is created during setup ) it is okay to hack it

i wanna be a hacker

you can get wengiers dos at
http://www.cn-dos.net/msdos71/

i wanna be a hacker

the Weingier thing is absolutely a hacked version of Microshafted, and is absolutely illegal.

I only did this as an experiment, and later, I'm going to take a LICENSED version of '98 that I have and see if I can extract enoough "stuff" to duplicate.

The reason, is that I still have some old utility programs0---such as radio two way programming---that need DOS, and since XP can't see a FAT16 partition, that means I've gotta figure a way to run DOS on a FAT32 partition.

The Wiengeir thing was JUST AN EXPERIMENT and IS ILLEGAL

I really don't understand why Microsh hasn't gone after this guy.

"XP can't see a FAT16 partition" CRAP

XP SUPPORTS FAT12 AND FAT16 AND FAT32 AND NTFS AND NTFS3 AND NTFS3.1

If you use PST-DOS2000 you can create a 4GB FAT16 partition like NT4 can create.

franki, that's pretty swell information. Apparrently you know something some of the rest of us don't.

name what do you mean by that comment ??

Fat 12 is used by floppies..

"Microsoft Windows XP supports the following three file systems for fixed disks:
• FAT16
• FAT32
• NTFS
We recommend that you use NTFS with Windows XP because of its advanced performance, security, and reliability features. This article describes how to convert a FAT16 volume or a FAT32 volume to NTFS."

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307881/en-us