A nice boot dodge
 

Here's a nice dodge for triple booting Win98 that I haven't found described. I wanted to have a Win98 bootmenu to give me a choice of standard 98 (with the GUI), 98 plain (DOS 7.0) and Linux. It depends on the fact that if 98 finds a win.bat file (even a zerolength one) in the root it'll automatically execute it AFTER autoexec.bat but then WON'T automatically run win.com. Easier than using LILO. I'll put the essential bits from config.sys, autoexec.bat and win.bat down since it's easier than explaining.
----------
CONFIG.SYS

[menu]
menuitem=W98GUI, Win98SE - Full normal
menuitem=W98noGUI, Win98SE - Command line/No GUI
menuitem=Linux, Suse Linux 8.1
menucolor=15,1
menudefault=W98GUI, 10

[W98GUI]

[W98noGUI]

[Linux]

[common]
------------
AUTOEXEC.BAT

@echo off
cls
goto %config%

:W98GUI
rem <snip>
set GUI=YES
goto END

:W98noGUI
rem <snip>
set GUI=NO
goto END

:Linux
rem No need to flush the cache, you're still in real mode
rem.
rem Move up to a real OS and detonate
rem 20 years of monopolistic avarice
c:\linux\loadlin c:\linux\kernels\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdc2 ro

:END
--------
WIN.BAT

@echo off
cls
if %GUI%!==YES! C:\WINDOWS\WIN.COM

Thanks Mac.

A nice bit of timely advice. I'm dual booting 98se/XP and have just fitted another hd so I can install Suse 6.2 and play on a real os again, without having to buy all the expensive software for a second time.

R.