Vista repair help please.
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SAAB:
Of course you are correct for prior to v5.5 dos.
With the advent of ATAPI there are no specific drivers for cdroms as they are done over the IDE interface to the ATAPI specification (unless they are SCSI or specialised).
Therefore MSCDEX was the only TSR required to be loaded in a DOS environment and no .sys driver was required.
p.s. For devicehigh and for loadhigh to work you had to have himem.sys configured as your first load item in config.sys to allocate the memoryspace between 512 and 640 for its window to take effect before the drivers for the non DMA devices in those times.
Spoon PPRuNerist & Mad Inistrator
Of course you are correct for prior to v5.5 dos.
With the advent of ATAPI there are no specific drivers for cdroms as they are done over the IDE interface to the ATAPI specification (unless they are SCSI or specialised).
Therefore MSCDEX was the only TSR required to be loaded in a DOS environment and no .sys driver was required.
With the advent of ATAPI there are no specific drivers for cdroms as they are done over the IDE interface to the ATAPI specification (unless they are SCSI or specialised).
Therefore MSCDEX was the only TSR required to be loaded in a DOS environment and no .sys driver was required.
I see where you are coming from, however:
The device driver had to be loaded in Config.sys in every version of MS-DOS up to 6.22.
There was no MS-DOS 5.5 (it went 5.0 to 6.0, then 6.20, then 6.22).
MS DOS 7 was the 16-bit "underpinning" of Windows 95A. DOS 7.10 (that underpinned Win 95 B and above) was the first version of "DOS" to do away with the requirement to install the device driver.
And you are right about himem, but I only put in the lines specific to the CD drive in the example!
SD
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Final (I think) news. Both DOS and Knoppix have me into the drive.Totally clueless as to what to do to remove SP2 via either! Still will not boot fully into anything near a Vista setup. 'Loads files' and then freezes. I can see a format/reinstall waving at me.......................that is assuming mbr, power supply, drone drone drone........................
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Saab,
Interesting about the Dos v5.5 - even looking on wikipedia it says it does not exist yet I am sure the tulip dealership I used to work for had it - maybe it's me getting old (it was 15+ years ago) or was a tulip specific thing so I concede your point there.
BOAC:
Have you looked through How to uninstall Windows Vista service packs as a troubleshooting step as it gives advice on unistalling a vista SP from a command prompt (Scroll down to method 3) . I think it requires you to have booted into vista in the first place but it may be worth playing with some of the advice on that before trashing and starting again.
Interesting about the Dos v5.5 - even looking on wikipedia it says it does not exist yet I am sure the tulip dealership I used to work for had it - maybe it's me getting old (it was 15+ years ago) or was a tulip specific thing so I concede your point there.
BOAC:
Have you looked through How to uninstall Windows Vista service packs as a troubleshooting step as it gives advice on unistalling a vista SP from a command prompt (Scroll down to method 3) . I think it requires you to have booted into vista in the first place but it may be worth playing with some of the advice on that before trashing and starting again.
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Yes, Jof - thanks - I have reviewed that page many times, and I cannot see how to action it without the Windows environment to produce the 'elevated' command prompt?
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There is no elevated command prompt within DOS - DOS is unaware of security so it is like you are running with adminastrative privileges.
With a DOS prompt you should be able to right royally screw things up with no protection from the OS.
With a DOS prompt you should be able to right royally screw things up with no protection from the OS.
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Ummm...
Have a peek in C
Windows (using Knoppix) to see if you can see the archive of the files replaced in the last update - or an earlier one.
I think it "hides" them, but I suspect Knoppix would ignore the "hidden" flag.
You may then be able to copy the relevant files back to their home locations, thereby overwriting the "new" ones from the update.
In Win XP, they would have names like $SPuninstxxyyzz. Inside there, you may find something called spuninst.exe (won't run under Knoppix), or you may find a load of files (which you can copy around).
My XP installation got very cluttered with these, till I decided I wasn't going to roll back that far, and deleted all but the last couple.
Don't know if Vista does things the same way. I'm pretty sure the Win 7 RC doesn't.
Have a peek in C
Windows (using Knoppix) to see if you can see the archive of the files replaced in the last update - or an earlier one.I think it "hides" them, but I suspect Knoppix would ignore the "hidden" flag.
You may then be able to copy the relevant files back to their home locations, thereby overwriting the "new" ones from the update.
In Win XP, they would have names like $SPuninstxxyyzz. Inside there, you may find something called spuninst.exe (won't run under Knoppix), or you may find a load of files (which you can copy around).
My XP installation got very cluttered with these, till I decided I wasn't going to roll back that far, and deleted all but the last couple.
Don't know if Vista does things the same way. I'm pretty sure the Win 7 RC doesn't.
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Just to help with what keef wrote:-
DIR /AH will do a directory listing of hidden files.
DIR /AS will do a directory listing of system files.
DIR by itself will not list hidden/system files or directories without the above switches.
Unfortunately DIR is mutually exclusive in showing hidden/system files or not showing them so if you do DIR /AH it will show only hidden files not all other files as well.
Should you frequent using the dos prompt you may wish to set the DIR environment variable DIRCMD so that your directory listing is always familiar and sorted.
EG I use:
SET DIRCMD=/O:GEN
Which sorts the directory listing to G (directories) then E (Extension) and then N (Name).
DIR /AH will do a directory listing of hidden files.
DIR /AS will do a directory listing of system files.
DIR by itself will not list hidden/system files or directories without the above switches.
Unfortunately DIR is mutually exclusive in showing hidden/system files or not showing them so if you do DIR /AH it will show only hidden files not all other files as well.
Should you frequent using the dos prompt you may wish to set the DIR environment variable DIRCMD so that your directory listing is always familiar and sorted.
EG I use:
SET DIRCMD=/O:GEN
Which sorts the directory listing to G (directories) then E (Extension) and then N (Name).
Spoon PPRuNerist & Mad Inistrator
Unfortunately DIR is mutually exclusive in showing hidden/system files or not showing them so if you do DIR /AH it will show only hidden files not all other files as well.
SD
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true - you can concatenate stdout streams.
However concatenating streams where multiple attributes exist e.g. its a hidden system file will result in repeats within the output.
I was trying to keep it a bit simpler btw.
However concatenating streams where multiple attributes exist e.g. its a hidden system file will result in repeats within the output.
I was trying to keep it a bit simpler btw.
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A footnote, although the Vista laptop has long gone ('condemned' by a Computer repair shop....), again thanks for the (ongoing) help I have received from all.
I thought I would let all know about what appears to be an excellent W boot disk which actually runs a mini-XP on a Dos booted system as well! It is called 'Hiron's Boot Disk' and Google will locate it. Easy to make iso and burns easily to CD at 190kb 'ish. I'm waiting now for a few USB sticks to appear here 'cos Hiron also offers boot from USB stick...................................
I could not see it in the 'sticky' so I have added it.
I thought I would let all know about what appears to be an excellent W boot disk which actually runs a mini-XP on a Dos booted system as well! It is called 'Hiron's Boot Disk' and Google will locate it. Easy to make iso and burns easily to CD at 190kb 'ish. I'm waiting now for a few USB sticks to appear here 'cos Hiron also offers boot from USB stick...................................
I could not see it in the 'sticky' so I have added it.
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DOS numbers
Its been quite a few years since I used any partition management programs but I do remember that one I used had a readme or info item about DOS numbering.
Seemingly the DOS number displayed on the screen is for customer information, but the partition program gave info it would find the numbers in the area of 5 for DOS 6.22 and previous.
Seemingly the DOS number displayed on the screen is for customer information, but the partition program gave info it would find the numbers in the area of 5 for DOS 6.22 and previous.
