Is there a way to make WinME boot in DOS with the hard drive? I know I can use a floppy boot disk, but I want the option to do it from a boot menu, like on my 98 machine. I know M$ supposedly removed DOS, but the floppy boot technique kind of disproves that. There has to be a way around it.
search winmag.com, I believe they have the thing you’re looking for there. I think Fred Langa or one of those writers covered it.
Sure, use the Boot disk.
Umm, I got the “boot menu” once when I really needed it. I think I had to hit F8 at some critical point during the boot-up process. I also seem to remember that in Win95 there was something you could put in CONFIG.SYS that would bring up a boot menu, but I forget how that worked. I couldn’t find anything about the procedure in my Dell’s documentation, nor on their support web site. Grr!
It’s amazing how such things aren’t documented any more. Just the other day I was trying to find out the command line parameters for IE5. You know what? I couldn’t find it anywhere – not in the IE5 help, nor on the net. I did find the parameters for IE4, though, so that told me what I needed to know.
If they keep “dumbing down” things this way, we’re going to all end up like Mac users, with no clue of what happens underneath the interface.
sorry to disappoint you, no ‘real mode’ dos in Windows me. there is a dos box under accessories on the start menu. config.sys and autoexec.bat are simulated for old dos apps that expect them to be there. the only way to get to a true dos mode is with a boot disk a la windows 98 startup disk. or try www.bootdisk.com
I’ve been using Windows Me for about a month now, and have been wondering same thing myself that whole time. I went over to the Microsoft support articles, and found this.
“Restart Computer in MS-DOS Mode” Option Is Not Available in the Shutdown Dialog Box
It pretty much sums it up.
Ah, so did they FINALLY remove DOS from the OS? This is something that Microsoft has been talking about since the release of Win95…it took them long enough.
Not exactly, monkeylucifer. Win ME still rests entirely on DOS underpinnings, it’s just that MS has made real mode inaccessible to the user.
See, it’s a feature. Sort of like making a “maintenance free” automobile by welding the hood shut.