Help!!!!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kenn Garner
  • Start date Start date
K

Kenn Garner

My laptop for work is dying and needs to be replaced. I know enough about
computer to be dangerous I really need some help solving some issues before
I buy anything.
We use these computer to program customers radio's as well as office, etc,
My problem is as follows:
1) we use some programs that need windows, some XP we are told for new ones
coming.
2) We still have dos software we have to use that does not even run well
under windows 95 or 98 unless you reboot to a dos prompt.
3) I also have some demo programs that require windows 2000 or NT

The other shops say they are buying laptops and dual partitioning on for XP
and the other FAT 16 and installing windows 3.11 on it for the DOS programs
but I am lost on how to do this. I also have to address needing windows 2000
on the laptop. I am not sure about the different FAT system and what to do
or how to do it.

Can anyone help me out?


--
Kenn Garner
Western Communications
300 N. Main
Butler, Mo. 64730
Voice (660) 679-4184
FAX (660) 679-6446
660-679-4184
 
Get a laptop with as big a hard drive as you can afford. Learn about
"boot managers". (Google is a good place to start.)

My inclination would be to install a boot manager that allows you to
install each OS in a different bootable partition and hides any OS
partition not booted for use during a given session.

In this way, no OS would be able to accidentally corrupt another when in
use. DOS/Win3.1 for example, when booted would be on C:, would not see
or even know the other system partitions exist, and would be able to use
only FAT16 partitions. W2k when booted would be on C: (the booted
partition would always be C:), and would be ignorant of the other
bootable partitions, and so on.

You'd have to plan this with some care, but doing it is not very
difficult when you've decided exactly how you want to configure the
systems and their apps and data. You'd want, I think, to make an effort
to simplify by determining, before you start, exactly which apps will
run for sure under which OS's - if, for example, you discover that XP
will run all your W2k apps including those demos, you might be able to
eliminate W2k from the mix. And so on.
 
Sorry I'd take a completely different approach. I would install only XP and
trust that to run my old software. It will certainly handle DOS programs much
better than 95 or 98 would have. If I had issues then I would setup a Citrix
server and run that software remotely over Citrix. why hobble the laptop when
a Citrix server should be able to do the trick nicely?
 
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