FEATURES AND LIMITATIONS OF DIFFERENT OPERATING SYSTEMS. INSTALLATION RECOMMENDATIONS.

DOS family.

This family includes such systems as PTS-DOS, MS-DOS (except version 7.0), PC DOS, Novell DOS.

Supported file systems are: FAT12, FAT16.

All abovementioned systems except PTS-DOS can be installed only on an active primary partition of the first hard disk with FAT system, i.e. on the disk that is referred as C: by DOS (in PTS BootWizard this logical disk might be marked with another letter). PTS-DOS can be installed on any FAT partition of the first hard disk.

Windows 95/98 family.

Supported file systems are: FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 .
FAT32 is supported only by Windows 95 OSR2.x/ 98 /NT 5.0 .

Main part can be installed on any FAT partition, but several system files must be stored in an active primary FAT partition of the first hard disk, i.e. on the logical disk that is referred by Windows 95/98 as C: .

Two or more Windows 95/98/NT 4.0 and above might conflict if their main parts are located in the same partition, i.e. you have specified the same disk to install Windows on. Thus we strongly recommend that you specify different logical disks when installing different Windows versions.

If there is more than one primary FAT partition and an extended partition with a different from FAT system, primary partitions except the first one might be unavailable from Windows 95/98.

PTS BootWizard will see all Windows as installed on the same partition, since PTS BootWizard detects Windows by those very system files that are always stored on the C: disk, though PTS might deem this disk to be different from C: because PTS BootWizard disk numeration differes from the Windows one.

Windows NT 3.51 and above family.

Supported file systems are: FAT12, FAT16, FAT32, NTFS. Windows NT 3.51 supports HPFS as well.

Installation is possible in the following ways:

1) Windows NT is fully installed on FAT or NTFS primary partition of the first hard disk. This partition has to be active while Windows NT are installed. Initially the first primary partition is active. You can make a partition active using FDisk (from PTS-DOS package), Partition Manager etc.

2) Windows NT is installed on any NTFS partition, and OS Loader that boots it is installed on the active FAT or NTFS partition of the first logical disk. After installing Windows NT you can make OS Loader partition inactive.
In this case PTS BootWizard will see Windows NT as installed on the partition where OS Loader NT, and not Windows NT themselves are located.

If you use configuration 2) and Windows NT are installed on a primary partiiton of the first hard disk and NT OS Loader is located in a FAT partition than you can move OS Loader to the partition where Windows NT are located (i.e. get the configuration number 1) ).
To do that you have to move all the files that are listed in the PTS BootWizard system files list for these Windows NT to the Windows NT partition, then add a new section to PTS BootWizard and choose this partition as the one to which this section refers. You will be able to move this files only from Windows NT. For safety reasons it is better not to move but to copy this files, thus leaving it still posiible to boot Windows NT as before.
If you want NT OS Loader to bypass it's menu and load Windows NT at once than you have to comment the Timeout=... line in BOOT.INI file from the root directory of the disk where OS Loader NT is located, i.e. add a semi-colon in the beginning of this line. It can be done from BootWizard text editor.
Two or mowe Windows 95/98/NT 4.0 or higher might conflict if their main parts are all located in one partition, i.e. the same logical disk was specified when they were installed. We strongly recommend that you specify different logical disks when installing different Windows versions.

Linux

Supported file systems are: FAT12, FAT16, EXT2FS and several other.

Can be installed on any partition..

When using Linux together with PTS BootWizard we recommend you to use the LILO booter. When installing Linux you have to specify that LILO is to be installed on partition's bootsector and not to use MBR, since MBR is used by PTS BootWizard. If you have troubles when booting Linux with LILO, copy Linux kernel and LOADLI.EXE to a FAT partition and create an extra DOS configuration that will start LOADLI.EXE

Typical operating systems configurations.

When partitioning your hard disk and installing several operatin systems you have to keep in mind the following limitations:

1) Each hard disk can hold no more than four primary partitions. If an extended partition is used than the maximum number of primary partitions is reduced to three.

2) Any configuration should include at least one FAT12, 16 or 32 partition, be it a primary partition or an extended one, for installing BootWizard on it.

3) If space allows, an extended FAT16 partition can be added to any configuration to install PTS-DOS on it.

4) Maximum FAT16 partitionm size for most operating systems is less then 2Gb. PTS-DOS and Windows NT can handle 2 Gb partitions.

5) In any of belowmentioned configurations aside from the listed partitions you can have any amount of extended partitions with any file system.

6) In any of below-mentioned configurations other distributions of the operating systems between the partitions then those listed are possible.

Windows 95/98 + DOS

  1.      primary   FAT16(32)   Windows 95/98, DOS(if FAT16)
  2.      extended  FAT16(32)   PTS-DOS(if FAT16)
One primary and any number of extended FAT16 or FAT32 partitions are used. Primary partition hosts Windows 95/98 and maybe any DOS if it is a FAT16 partition. You can install PTS-DOS on an extended FAT16 partition.

Windows 95/98 Rus + Windows 95/98 Eng

   1.     primary   FAT16(32)  Windows 95/98 Rus,
                                 syst files Windows 95/98 Eng
   2.     extended  FAT16(32)  Windows 95/98 Eng
Both systems will be seen as installed on drive C: (see the Windows 95/98 paragraph).

Windows NT + DOS

1)
   1.     primary   NTFS       Windows NT
   2.     extended  FAT16      PTS-DOS

2)
   1.     primary   FAT16      DOS, NT OS Loader
   2.     extended  NTFS       Windows NT

3)
   1.     primary   FAT16      DOS, Windows NT
   2.     extended  any

4)
   1. Act primary   FAT16      DOS
   2.     primary   NTFS       Windows NT
First primary partition must be active so that DOS will be able to boot (see the Windows NT paragraph) .

Windows 95/98 + Windows NT + DOS

1)
   1.     primary   FAT16      DOS, Windows 95/98, NT OS Loader
   2.     extended  NTFS       Windows NT

2)
   1.     primary   FAT16      Windows 95/98, NT OS Loader
   2.     extended  NTFS       Windows NT
   3.     extended  FAT16      PTS-DOS

3)
   1. Act primary   FAT16(32)  Windows 95/98
   2.     primary   NTFS       Windows NT
   3.     extended  FAT16      PTS-DOS
First primary partition must be active so that Winndows 95/98 will be able to boot (see the Windows NT paragraph) .

Windows NT Rus + Windows NT Eng + DOS

1)
   1.     primary   FAT16      DOS, Windows NT Rus, NT OS Loader Rus,Eng
   2.     extended  NTFS       Windows NT Eng
   3.     extended  FAT16      PTS-DOS

2)
   1.     primary   NTFS       Windows NT Rus
   2.     primary   NTFS       Windows NT Eng
   3.     extended  FAT16      PTS-DOS

Windows NT 3.51 + Windows NT 4.0 + DOS

1)
   1.     primary   FAT16      DOS, Windows NT 3.51, NT OS Loader 4.0
   2.     extended  NTFS       Windows NT 4.0
   3.     extended  FAT16      PTS-DOS

2)
   1.     primary   NTFS       Windows NT Rus
   2.     primary   NTFS       Windows NT Eng
   3.     extended  FAT16      PTS-DOS
(See Windows NT paragraph)
One FAT partition is necessary for PTS BootWizard.

Linux + Windows 95/98 + DOS

1)
   1.     primary   FAT16(32)  DOS(if FAT16), Windows 95/98
   2.     extended  EXT2FS     Linux
   3.     extended  FAT16      PTS-DOS

2)
   1. Act primary   FAT16(32)  DOS(if FAT16), Windows 95/98
   2.     primary   EXT2FS     Linux
   3.     extended  FAT16      PTS-DOS

Linux + Windows NT + DOS

1)
   1.     primary   FAT16      DOS, Windows NT
   2.     extended  EXT2FS     Linux
   3.     extended  FAT16      PTS-DOS

2)
   1.     primary   FAT16      DOS, NT OS Loader
   2.     extended  EXT2FS     Linux
   3.     extended  NTFS       Windows NT

3)
   1. Act primary   FAT16      DOS
   2.     primary   EXT2FS     Linux
   3.     primary   NTFS       Windows NT

4)
   1.     primary   NTFS       Windows NT
   2.     primary   EXT2FS     Linux
   3.     extended  FAT16      PTS-DOS
One FAT partition is necessary for PTS BootWizard.

Linux + Windows NT + Windows 95/98 + DOS

1)
   1.     primary   FAT16      DOS, Windows 95/98, NT OS Loader
   2.     extended  EXT2FS     Linux
   3.     extended  NTFS       Windows NT
   4.     extended  FAT16      PTS-DOS

2)
   1. Act primary   FAT16(32)  DOS(if FAT16), Windows 95/98
   2.     primary   EXT2FS     Linux
   3.     primary   NTFS       Windows NT
(See Windows NT paragraph)

3)
   1. Act primary   FAT16(32)  DOS(if FAT16), Windows 95/98
   2.     primary   EXT2FS     Linux
   3.     primary   NTFS       Windows NT
   4.     extended  FAT16      PTS-DOS
(See Windows NT paragraph)


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