MTM2.com

This topic has come up in a number of places, and I wanted to set aside a spot specifically for it.

>> P.S. XP is a 9x/NT hybrid. (quoted from another post)

>>Ugh? The way I understood it, XP is exclusively NT - it just has compatibilty modes that mimic 9x (but not DOS). I thought WinME was the hybrid. (Feel free to refute me - I need more learnin').

WinME was the prototype for xp. Also known as MS Win Money Edition. There was never any intention to carry ME beyond it's first incarnation. Win MarketTest Edition let MS know that they could sell watered down versions of a single OS and thereby gain more of the market share without giving anything extra away. It was hybrid only in the sense there were fuller versions and deprived versions. The question of a 'good' version never entered the picture.

For some reason, ms seems to prefer NTFS over FAT32. So they are moving toward that. This contributes to an NT mythos. The disk operating structure and the operating system kernel are separate entities. Before xp, win9x handled FAT32 and winNT handled NTFS exclusively. Now, XP will read and write both disk formats. It does not, however, read unix or the lower manifestations of the FAT system.

XP runs all command prompt programs and utilities from previous versions of win9x. I expect NT programs would work equally well.

http://users.mnsi.net/~anything/xpDOS.html

All operating systems must have command prompt access and functionality. XP is no exception. I might guess that some of this confusion over 'no dos' comes from many sources. First, many of the traditional dos programs are not included with xp. They are still there, just under a different name, and in different locations. The second image in that link shows that good ol' copy, as one example, is alive and well and living deep inside xp. MS had to choose between two sets of command programs. They've opted for the NT set, but that does not mean dos as we know it is gone, nor that the command prompt (which we associate with dos) is a thing of the past. It's gotten a face lift. Little else.

>>Incidentally, I had a guy email me about problems with BINedit on XP. He was using the old version, which worked in compatibility mode but still crashed after a while. I steered him in the direction of the one wot Rich fixed for us...

Modes are an interesting concept. One that I wouldn't mind knowing more about. But anyway, technically, win9x also did not run in a dos mode either. I discovered this when I set the swap file to a ram disk. Bingo, instance revision of windows memory management. And the only reason I stuck with 98 over 95. There was simply something called dos compatibility mode and windows protected mode. I guess we have to be careful of our terminology when we speak of compatibility. See the bottom pic on that link. There are several modes to choose from. That pic would imply that all previous OS modes are no longer with us, but that's an assumption I'm not going to make.

If xp has refined, haha, there's a word for ms, if it's changed the modes with which it works in order to accommodate 9x and NT, I don't think you'll get an argument from me. However, I will add that I've not had to play with modes one little bit. AND, the only program that I've had that will not install on xp, who's kernel is by and large nt, or, at least, it's identified as nt, was the acrobat writer, which seems to check the kernel before installing. Other than that, everything runs as if it were still 9x. And I suspect the writer would have run if it didn't abort itself - xp did not stop it.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the biggest difference between NT and 9x, and subsequently XP is memory management. As long as an operating system can read disk allocation systems, and as long as it can provide a program with what it expects in terms of memory demands, there should be no reason to suppose one couldn't accommodate and run any program, regardless of platform. I realize that's a tall order for a single OS, but xp goes a long way to support that claim.

XP seems to be an ambitious project that tries to capitalize on the best of each OS that came before it. To win a larger share of the market, ms had to do something to bridge the gap between nt and 9x. I don't expect they'll try as hard to maintain os compatibilities once xp becomes established as the main os (as they plan it to become). Just like evo2 lost compatibility for everything before it, MS will concern themselves with compatibility only as long as they imagine users might look someplace else. But we all know MS works to eliminate those other places. Once they're comfortable they've done that, 9x and NT and probably xp by that time, will be gone...

One final word. Recall, win2000 (aka NT 4½) was supposed to be the super duper os of the future. But all those 9x users would have nothing to do with it because all their old programs wouldn't run on it. MS are not benevolent philanthropists. They do things because sometimes they have to.

>>... and he said that one worked much better, although (if I read the message correctly) it still crashed from time to time.

MS trademark. It will probably never leave us.

Good story, Phineus. Guess maybe I will be learning something new this day.

>> For some reason, ms seems to prefer NTFS over FAT32.

Some reason indeed. The File Allocation Tables system is old technology, devised when memory was measured in KB. The problem with FAT is that it does not perform very well when dealing with large amounts of memory or disk space, at all. At all. It simply wasn't devised for such quantities. The original FAT was 16-bit; with Win95 we (eventually) got 32-bit FAT. I've heard that Win95 has real problems if you ask it to manage a single partition that is 2GB or larger.
NT File System was designed to overcome these performance issues. Speed is everything, and so is stability. I've seen a comparison of the common memory/file systems on different platforms. NTFS and the Mac file system are about even, but FAT is way behind. While it can handle relatively small loads (by today's standards), it totally drops off once you start throwing a decent amount of memory space at it.

>> Now, XP will read and write both disk formats.

...mainly for compatibility. If you upgrade from a previous installation of Windows, you're basically stuck with whatever file system it used before then. So if you upgrade from Win98, you'd have to install WinXP to use FAT.
If you're installing XP fresh, it's highly recommended to tell it to use NTFS. But whatever file system you choose, you're stuck with it unless you wipe the data off and do a clean install. You can't convert FAT to NTFS or vice versa.

>> ...does not mean dos as we know it is gone, nor that the command prompt (which we associate with dos) is a thing of the past.

Well, whaddya know. All along I thought DOS was gone entirely.
Anyway, the difference between Win9x and XP is that with 9x, DOS was an integral part of the operating system. No matter how much they tried to hide it, the truth was that the (supposed) 32-bit OS was at it's heart, 16-bit. NT (and hence 2000 and XP) was designed as totally 32-bit, which meant it wasn't reliant on DOS.

>> If I had to guess, I'd say that the biggest difference between NT and 9x, and subsequently XP is memory management.

Yeah that, and the 32-bit thing. Supposedly, the NT-based OS's should be more stable than 9x, which had a 16-bit engine trying to make sense of the 32-bit environment, and that certainly appears to hold true. Which leads me to the old 'what is Windows 95?' joke...

What is Windows 95?
Windows 95 is a:
32 bit extension and graphical shell for a
16 bit patch to an
8 bit operating system, originally coded for a
4 bit processor, written by a
2 bit company, that can't stand
1 bit of competition.

lol...2-bit company? you're generous...I don't think that highly of them...

I need to take my time to read everything

Disclaimer : don't quote me on anything ;-)

My intent here was to clear up a few details about what would and what would not run on windows xp as it pertains to mtm2. It was not really intended to initiate a debate about the history of microsoft nor philosophies about the effectiveness of programming structures. However, I did a search and here's a couple links I've found with a note or two of comments added. Take 'em for what they're worth.

A History of DOS. Most of the time-lines I've found on the net are in this format. None of them talk about 'bit' size/rate. Probably for good reason. The average reader cares not about bit sizes, and between eight and sixteen there was a magical twelve bit version of dos too. I have not found anything on the net to support this, and tho I know I've read it, I cannot find the source. Credibility is always an issue, especially on the internet. And, in discussions like this I find 'hearsay' inadequate because there is just no way to prove which are the more correct statements, and like most things, there are usually varying degrees of gray between the absolutes of right and wrong. For example, the two gig hdd limit was a bios issue as far as I understood it, not 'directly' an operating system problem. Or, bench marking is a rigged game since the measuring critieria are hidden in the testing software and do not always apply uniformly across all platforms in all environments. I take the 16/32 bit distinction with a grain of salt because backward compatibility is seldom an issue and the rest is usually just efficiency. If we look hard enough we can probably find a concrete answer about the two gig limit. I've seen that kind of info often. But you'll not likely find much about bench marking. There's too much at stake for that to be disclosed. As for bit sizes, I'll wait for the error free system before I buy into arguments about which are better. Until that time, all such talk is so much sales pitch. And I don't buy it (I refer to ms, not d2s).

Graphed Time Line. A nice graphical flow chart for windows history. The problem here is that there's much more detail for the later developments as opposed to earlier work. No matter for us tho. MS's inbreeding of the past year or two is enough to confuse anybody. The only thing I'll add is that the command line has never been eliminated from any operating system. There is no reason why it would or should be. I'll even go out on a limb and say all gui's ride 'on top of' a command line. Makes no difference how it's disguised. But the debate is old and each side has it's advocates. My position does not stem from either of these but from the fact computers use a machine language, the most direct access to which is the keyboard. It doesn't really matter if you see a command prompt or type into a text box. What takes place under all that is basically the same thing.

MS Commericial History. No real technical value, but interesting.

P.S. > You can't convert FAT to NTFS or vice versa.

Yes, you can. Just like the FAT32 converter that shipped with win98, XP will format in both configurations and it will convert from F32 to NTFS without data loss.

P.P.S. > One more detail about the DOS be gone belief...

From windows help.

>>MS-DOS commands no longer available on Windows XP 64-Bit Edition
>>The following 16-bit MS-DOS subsystem commands are not available on Windows XP 64-Bit Edition.

As I mentioned above, many dos commands are no longer available. This does not mean those functions are no longer available, nor will other 16 bit applications not run - they will. Also note, that xp is a 64-bit OS.



[This message has been edited by Phineus (edited 07-03-2002).]

OK I understood most of that....

But until Programs will nolonger run on win 98, I'm keeping it....

I've got a combination figured out that has crashed 1nce in the last 5 months....

Cant beat it with a yard stick....

i dont know. im running XP and the only problem i have is running tracked2. sometimes it just doesnt want to work proper, or even at all. using an NT version of binedit, everything else is great.
with 98, i had to reformat every couple of months b/c things would just go wonky, and nothin would work.only reformatted this one twice so far in 3 months.once when i got XP and once agian a week later.

>> with 98, i had to reformat every couple of months b/c things would just go wonky

Goodness me. I'm on Win95 and I've never reformatted this machine, ever since we got it in 1996 with the OS and some third-party software preinstalled (and we know how dodgy those sorts of setups can be!). Although we came close to reformatting once (when DirectX 2 did nasty things to the display), we've never actually gone the whole way.

Goodness knows it probably needs it - Internet Explorer is partially crippled, such that sometimes it doesn't work properly; the registry is full of outdated and obsolete program references that have long been uninstalled; and I'd swear that my HD space has shrunk by like 50%, such is the impact of 6 years of continuously accumulated crud (most of it in the Windows directory!).

But no, not yet. It's always seemed relatively stable to me - sure, programs sometimes crash, and we get the occasional Blue Screen Of Death, but that only happens once every few months at most. Once we've got the new computer (hopefully in no more than a few weeks from now), and transferred the stuff I want to keep (such as MTM2 projects), then maybe we'll wipe it and start it fresh. But until then, it will stay as is. 6 years of accumulated stuff is a lot, and I'd just lose too much stuff...

Do you have just 1 partition? If yes, that ***** . Do you have a cd-writer? If no... and i am right in both cases (let's just say that) then it really ***** . I was once in a situation like this... and boy i never formated until i got a new HDD and moved the stuff from the old one to the new one.

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The humans think it is a poison of the blood that makes us what we are.
Fools, the blood only feeds the bodies we live in. To create a vampire,
one must steal a soul from the abyss to reanimate the corpse.

No partitions, no cd-writer... yep, it really ***** (hey, you started it). I do actually have two harddrives though - C: (with Windows on it) is 1.6GB and D: is 1.9GB. So there's some room to move in terms of swapping things around, both for formatting this machine and reinstalling Windows, and for transferring data from the older to the newer. The problem is I'm down to less than 200MB total free space between both drives, and at current the stuff I'd want to keep (and the stuff I can remove) is spread between the two, so it will take a lot of uninstalling apps to make space and juggling files to pull this off... which I don't have the time for right now, but will in the next few weeks...

[This message has been edited by Drive2Survive (edited 22-05-2002).]