# Is there a difference in DOS functionality between WinXP Home and Professional?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-difference-in-dos-functionality-between-winxp-home-and-professional/343741>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 9, 2006, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-difference-in-dos-functionality-between-winxp-home-and-professional/343741 "2006-02-09T21:22:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![NinetyWt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/cc9497/32.png) [@NinetyWt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NinetyWt)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2006, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-difference-in-dos-functionality-between-winxp-home-and-professional/343741/21 "2006-02-12T09:46:08Z")

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> [@Athena](#):
>
> A pox on windows because it doesn’t always support programs that must be 10+ years old? Sheesh, a pox on people who can’t be bothered to upgrade their software! Just how long do you expect the newest technology to be backwards compatible?

Many of these are engineering programs I wrote, myself, in FORTRAN. Windows does not seem to know WTF I am talking about. Upgrade your software yourself, sister.

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**Author:** ![yoyodyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a9a28c/32.png) [@yoyodyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yoyodyne)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2006, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-difference-in-dos-functionality-between-winxp-home-and-professional/343741/22 "2006-02-12T21:02:45Z")

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> [@NinetyWt](#):
>
> Many of these are engineering programs I wrote, myself, in FORTRAN. Windows does not seem to know WTF I am talking about. Upgrade your software yourself, sister.

You could use the newly free [VMware Server](http://www.vmware.com/products/server/) to create a DOS (or [FreeDOS](http://www.freedos.org/)) virtual machine to use with the free [VMware Player](http://www.vmware.com/products/player/).

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**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2006, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-difference-in-dos-functionality-between-winxp-home-and-professional/343741/23 "2006-02-12T21:35:00Z")

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I asked my son, the NT programmer the original question. Answer: no. He said that essentially any DOS program that attempts to interact directly with the hardware will not work. Any other should work, although I wouldn’t bet my life on that. NT (which includes Win 2000, WinXP, and any forthcoming version, but not Win 98 or earlier or that loser version whose name I have forgotten that came out in 2000) does not permit applications to interact directly with hardware and uses something called Hardware Abstraction Layer as the only permitted way.

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**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2006, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-difference-in-dos-functionality-between-winxp-home-and-professional/343741/24 "2006-02-12T21:57:16Z")

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> [@Mangetout](#):
>
> It’s a lost cause, believe me; anything I say on the subject is met with him launching a command window, pointing at the C:\ prompt and saying “see? it’s just DOS underneath - SEE?”

Delete the program that launches that window (cmd.exe), observe Windows operating normally in spite of its absence, and then see what he says.

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