README for Bootswitcher v2.10
-----------------------------

1st of all:
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# ==========================================================================#
| IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THE PROGRAMS, EVEN IF YOUR HARDDISK WILL CRASH, |
| THAT IS YOUR PROBLEM! THE USE OF SOFTWARE WHICH DIRECTLY MANIPULATES THE  |
| HARD DISK DATA IS ALWAYS DANGEROUS. YOU USE THIS SOFTWARE ABSOLUTELY ON   |
| YOUR OWN RISK!                                                            |
# ==========================================================================#

... And now some informations about the programs:
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This archive contains the toolbox bootswitcher "boot.exe" with the
related programs "prep.exe" and "bootsec.exe".

The programs are "dual language". If you have installed country.sys for
Germany, Switzerland or Austria you will get German output, in all other
countries you will get English texts.

This bootswitcher system allows the mulitple boot of different real mode
and i286 operating systems from one hard disk drive C:.

Example:

You can use (on one hard disk drive C:)
        PC DOS 7
        MS DOS 7 (named Windows '95)
        DR DOS 3.41
        OS/2 v1.3
plus (with the OS/2 bootmanager) on another drive letter: OS/2 2.x/3.0x
(I don't use Win NT, so don't ask me anything about it).

As developer you can test then your software with different operating
systems on the same machine (Isn't that great?).

But: You cannot boot different versions of an operating system of one vendor
(no MS-DOS 6 + Win'95) and you cannot use PC DOS in addition to DR DOS
(they use the same names for the system files). You can also not use 
PC DOS 7 in addition to older versions of MS DOS, because they need to have 
the system files at the beginning of the hard disk. You are restricted to 
one OS which needs the files at the beginning of the hard disk space (MS-DOS 
until 6.x, PC-DOS all versions) and to another (or more) operating systems 
which don't have this restriction (MS DOS 7 (Win '95), DR DOS, OS/2 1.2x/1.3).

The program is shipped with all source codes (Turbo Pascal 6.0 - 7.0).
It is written as DOS command line tool. You will get a small help screen
with the command line parameters /? or /H.

CONDITIONS OF USE:
------------------
You can use the programs and sources free of charge - no license fee, no
registration ... But: it is neither freeware, public domain nor shareware.
It's copyrighted!

You may use these programs either for private or commerical use, you may
distribute them freely (you may not earn money with them!) but you may not
sell them (i.e. distribute them for any (even less(!) fee).

You also may modify the sources for your own private or commercial use 
but not for selling it afterwards as your own software.

I believe this is a _very_ fair license ageement!

I wrote this small piece of software some years ago for my own purposes,
published it in the magazine where i was and am editor and changed it now 
(again for my own purposes as boot switcher for PC DOS 7 and Win'95) and 
do not like it, if other people earn money with my work!


These programs have one massive restriction:
--------------------------------------------

They cannot work with a real 32-bit operating system. OS/2 2.x/3.x and Win NT
are virtual operationg systems which have "inner rings" where a normal 
application has no access to. 

You can install "prep" under OS/2, all data will be written correctly. But you 
cannot switch back from OS/2 to DOS because OS/2 does not allow WRITING (!) 
access to the hard disk (!) boot sector.

If you have installed OS/2 on the same boot drive as your DOS, don't use
this program. Use the OS/2 boot switcher (boot.com) instead or (better)
install OS/2 and the boot manager on another partition or hard disk drive.


This program shows some signicant design bugs in Windows '95:
-------------------------------------------------------------

If you have PC DOS 7 and MS DOS 7 (named Win'95) on your system with this
boot switcher installed, you can crash the system when you boot
IO.SYS/(MSDOS.SYS) with wrong command interpreter.

Win'95 starts any PC DOS commandline tool because both OS have the internal
number 7 and the system hangs up.

You can start win.com of Win'95 even from the PC-DOS commandline (but it will
not work(!)). You can even start the MS-DOS io.sys and then the command 
interpreter of PC DOS (but you will not see the Win'95 logo).

I tested this with the Beta 499 (June) of Win'95. Perhaps it will be changed
in the final version.

The big deal of Win'95 is that can use it together with PC DOS 7 on the same
hard disk. The installation of Win'95 does not erase the system files of
PC DOS.

So you should install first the PC DOS and afterwards the Win'95 system.

I installed Win'95 on PC DOS before installing the boot switcher. PC DOS 7
erases MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS! So I needed a PC DOS 7 bootsector. For this
reason I used the sys command of PC DOS after booting from floppy.

You can do this. But you must boot from floppy again. Then you have to make
an unerase of the MsDOS system files (restore MSDOS.SYS and IO.SYS) and then
copy the command.com of Win'95 back from the Win95 directory to the root 
(Win 95 installs a shell=c:\command.com in the config.sys).


Warning:
--------

You must have a shell-command in the config.sys (better is for both systems)
but _in_any_case_ for PC-DOS:
SHELL=C:\PCDOS\COMMAND.COM /E:environsize /P
(or whereever your IBM DOS command.com is on the hard disk)

and (recommended):
SHELL=C:\WIN95\COMMAND.COM /E:environsize /P
(or whereever your MsDOS 7 command.com is on the hard disk)

edit the config.sys file and afterwards call "prep" for the prepaation of
the hard disk.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you have further questions please send me a mail to
CompuServe ID 72662,2052 (Joerg Braun)
or from Internet to 72662.12052@compuserve.com
I will answer you question (if I can).
