I have just done a completely clean install on a newly formatted hard drive using DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 for Workgroups. Everything went OK during the installation of both DOS and Windows, but when I type win, it loads the Windows Splash Screen and then it just sits there with the splash screen. No Program Manager ever appears. I tried deleting Windows and reinstalling it, but it still does the same thing, no Windows ever appear. I have heard of this happening to others but I don't know how they got round it.

Did you load EMM386.exe and something in CONFIG.SYS? If it still doesn't work, then try upgrade to DOS 7.10: http://newdos.yginfo.net/msdos71.htm

try what Wengier said if that dosnt work its posible that one of the disks could be damaged

Hi Mr. Wengier! I hate to tell you this, but I had tried to install DOS 7.10 several times... but it always got as far as disc 2 and then it failed to load COMMAND.COM, whereupon the system halted with the message "Invalid COMMAND.COM". Is this due to the conflict between the existing COMMAND.COM in the original DOS 6.22 and the updated COMMAND.COM in DOS 7.10? I have a couple more PCs still waiting to get an operating system, (one as a clean install and another as an upgrade from DOS 6.20) and I'm still keen to try DOS 7.10. Can you advise me further? I'll let you know how it goes! Tommy.

Tommy, You'd better start your system from the DOS 7.10 Installation Disk 1 (or any other normal DOS 7.10 boot disk) to install DOS 7.10 directly, not from the DOS 6.22 boot disk, because then A:\COMMAND.COM will NOT match during the installation (although you can simply skip that message).

Tommy, I need to say this: You can start your system from the hard drive which has DOS 6.x installed already, then insert the DOS 7.10 Installation Disk, go to A: and type SETUP to install DOS 7.10; you can also start your system from ANY DOS 7.10 boot disk (including MS-DOS 7.10 Installation Disk 1) to install DOS 7.10. But you'd better NOT start your system from a DOS 6.x boot disk, and change the floppy disk from Drive A: to DOS 7.10 Installation Disk 1 to install it. Why? Because when you started DOS 6.x from A:\, the environment variable COMSPEC is set to A:\COMMAND.COM automatically. But once the floppy disk in the drive is changed from DOS 6.x boot disk to the DOS 7.10 disk, then the new A:\COMMAND.COM (DOS 7.x's) will NOT match the original A:\COMMAND.COM (DOS 6.x's) ANY MORE. That's why the error message appears after you made that mistake!

I have just added the following NOTE to the MS-DOS 7.10 download page to make sure no one will make the same mistake in the future any more: "To start to install MS-DOS 7.10, you can just boot your system from MS-DOS 7.10 Installation Disk 1 or MS-DOS 7.10 Installation CD (because they are both bootable if you have made the disks/burn the CD correctly), and then the installation will begin automatically! You may also boot your system from any other MS-DOS 7.10 boot disk (NOT a MS-DOS 6.x boot disk), or boot from the hard drive (i.e. from Drive C:) which has any version of DOS (e.g. MS-DOS 6.x) installed already, and then go to Drive A: and type SETUP to start the MS-DOS 7.10 installation."