New DOS shell for Windows coming

[Jason Gurtz]

then too, there's XP Pro, XP Home, and oem XP;
each with their own set of problems!

Not really. XP home is just a subset of XP Pro.

the other factor is how do you fix XP (NTFS
file system) if Windows won't start in safe mode?

You should investigate "Bart PE boot CD" for working on failed systems
with NTFS partitions. DOS based OS's(Win98) on boot disks have no hope of
reading NTFS. Also see sysinternals.com and may want to check out the
acronis utils.

~Jason

--

 

[Tony Hill]

thank you (Franc&Tony) for that. i just moved to xp and
2k (from '98/2 PCs) and it "only" took me 3/xp tries.
(3 with xp sp2, 1 with 2k sp4)

Hmm.. was that doing clean installs or upgrades? I've never really
had any trouble doing clean-installs of WinXP (or any OS for that
matter), but upgrades are VERY hit and miss.

JHFC, the "simple" registry has become
NOT so simple with xp!

i DID learn some new stuff about the registry
for *all* of the windows versions (98&up).

i'm not holding my breath on Longhorn

Anyone holding their breath for Longhorn will suffocate LONG before it
even hits store shelves, me thinks..

yes, 98se has and contines
to be (!) a real option

too many focus on the BSOD
and not on the essence

My experience with Win9x is that BSODs WERE the essence of it!
Actually, to be fair, I very rarely blue-screened Win9x, maybe only
once ever 10-20 crashes. Unfortunately the damn thing would become so
horribly unstable, with applications crashing and locking up, that I
would have to reboot on a VERY regular basis. I could rarely get a
day's worth of work done without being forced to reboot when using
Win9x, and it was not at all abnormal for me to have to reboot 4 or 5
times in a day. And despite popular belief, this had NOTHING to do
with hardware or drivers, it happened on EVERY PC I used.

i'll grant that a real issue
with current mobos is that they
are flakey with their software
support of an old OS like 98se
(AMD especially, Intel less so;
at least in my limited experience)

I wouldn't know. I installed Win2K back in March of 2000 and have had
absolutely no desire to look back. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but my
experience with Win9x was abysmal to say the least. As soon as I
tried stretching the legs of the system the least little bit (ie
running three whole applications at the same time! :> ) the system
would start causing all kinds of troubles. Applications would cease
getting processor cycles, the various sections of memory would get
filled up, explorer would crash, or any number of other possible
problems. The only common denominator was that the OS was totally
incapable of recovering from such situations.

fwiw, i like command line.

i'm a mainframe guy (ibm '67) with
nix (Sun/cmd line and later gui)
experience since '89

I like command lines for some things because, as mentioned above, they
can be very useful to accomplish some tasks. GUIs can also be very
useful for accomplishing other tasks. Different tools for different
jobs.

 

[Franc Zabkar]

But Frank, we've already explained that we think the RPN interface is
better. B e t t e r.

You and Robert are welcome to think what you like and how you like. I
have used both UIs and find no significant benefit in RPN. In any
case, I never intended to argue about the relative merits of one over
the other, except to state the obvious, namely that one is intuitive
whereas the other is not. I n t u i t i v e.


- Franc Zabkar

 

[Franc Zabkar]

Perhaps you should read what I wrote again, about the TI keyboards
going bad. This is not the same thing as having inferior tactical
feedback or a lower prestige value.

Fair enough.


- Franc Zabkar

 

[Franc Zabkar]

Idiot. The HPs ran circles around the TIs without cheat-sheets. Only a
true idiot would defend the TIs of the '70s. Yes, I understand that you
fit the mold perfectly.

What do you mean by "cheat-sheets"?


- Franc Zabkar

 

[willbill]

Not really. XP home is just a subset of XP Pro.

really?

it may be a subset, but whatever MS
did in pruning XP Home down added
additional loopholes. i mean
i saw at least one error writeup on
the MS Knowledgebase that appeared to
be specific to only XP Home and not Pro

You should investigate "Bart PE boot CD" for working on failed systems
with NTFS partitions. DOS based OS's(Win98) on boot disks have no hope of
reading NTFS. Also see sysinternals.com and may want to check out the
acronis utils.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

are the Acronis utils part of Acronis True Image 8.0?
or are they a separate package by some other name?


bill

 

[Robert Redelmeier]

In any case, I never intended to argue about the relative merits
of one over the other, except to state the obvious, namely that
one is intuitive whereas the other is not. I n t u i t i v e.

It depends on how you think -- or don't.
I find RPN intuitive. I find Algebraic literalist.

-- Robert

 

[willbill]

Hmm.. was that doing clean installs or upgrades?

correct. i loaded XP Pro, then ran the sp2 upgrade

I've never really
had any trouble doing clean-installs of WinXP (or any OS for that
matter), but upgrades are VERY hit and miss.

i had/have 98SE on the machine but nothing
from 98 was taken into the XP install.
HD#1 (250GB) has c: d: and e: (all fat32);
f: is the dvd/cd, g: is the last partition
on HD#1 and is NTFS. mobo is Tyan 2875
with an AMD Opty 142. HD#2 is a raid1 array

My experience with Win9x is that BSODs WERE the essence of it!


Actually, to be fair, I very rarely blue-screened Win9x, maybe only
once ever 10-20 crashes. Unfortunately the damn thing would become so
horribly unstable, with applications crashing and locking up, that I
would have to reboot on a VERY regular basis. I could rarely get a
day's worth of work done without being forced to reboot when using
Win9x, and it was not at all abnormal for me to have to reboot 4 or 5
times in a day. And despite popular belief, this had NOTHING to do
with hardware or drivers, it happened on EVERY PC I used.

geez tony, you're never gonna touch any of my PCs.

fwiw, i likely caused my 1st xp install failure
(it didn't fail during the install, only later
when i was loading 3rd party s/w). i wasn't very far
into it, so it was an easy decision to start from
scratch again. (i booted from my system commander cd
and ran their partition commander (a freebie included
on the cd) to delete the NTFS g: partition), and the
3 files on the c: root, and then installed xp again

the 2nd xp failure was painful coz i'd put a lot of
time into installing 3rd party software

after the 3rd install, the key things i've done
differently are: i only loaded the Intel Ethernet
drivers (and not the software; from the Tyan cd),
i didn't load any video board drivers (from
the MSI cd), i didn't load any modem drivers
(from the US Robotics cd)

I wouldn't know. I installed Win2K back in March of 2000 and have had
absolutely no desire to look back.

i 1st loaded 2000 in early '01 and was similarly impressed.
now that it's got sp4 i'm even more impressed

bill

 

[George Macdonald]

you are right in that the registry itself
doesn't seem to have changed that much

The way it's stored, the file names and where files are stored has changed
considerably though - in that sense it *is* more complicated.

my frustration is showing; i got carried away.
sorry

otoh, my 2nd failed try with XP (error 633 when
atempting to use my extermanl modem with the
dialer) was likely due to flakey s/w installation
screwing up the XP registry. not sure if it was
trying a newer modem driver (US Robotics v.92)
or a failed installed of MSI video capture drivers
(for a VIVO board). when i went to the MS
knowledgebase, i was amazed at all of the screwy
stuff that can mess up the registry (with 95 thru
XP and 2003)

then too, there's XP Pro, XP Home, and oem XP;
each with their own set of problems!

the other factor is how do you fix XP (NTFS
file system) if Windows won't start in safe mode?
i've easily been able to do that with 98SE by
booting into DOS (98SE DOS), and restoring the
registry from backups i do in the autoexec.bat
(today, yesterday, this week, last week; using a DOS
do once program). then too, 98 keeps reg backups
for the last 5 days in the sysbckup directory

There are recent versions of the principal system files stored in the
%SystemRoot%\repair folder but their use/recovery is less simple than
Win9x... and the user registries are stored in the "Documents and Settings"
folder structure. Besides the Restore Points, it is also a good idea to
use the built-in Backup utility to do a backup of the "System State"
regularly... preferably to a folder/file in a separate partition (Note:
partitions are still a good idea for other reasons too).

I've never had to do a serious repair on WinXP yet so I have no experience
but if you can't boot from the hard disk to any maintenance mode, the only
option is to boot from the WinXP CD-ROM and choose Repair. There are also
various utilities kicking around as well as loads of Web sites with
"advice" so.... Google. The ability to boot *and* login to a Win2K/XP
system is definitely much more fragile than the old DOS-based systems and
recovery is always a PITA - it's really very scarey.

I'll add here that I rarely did backups with Win98SE - once a year or so,
using a version of Seagate Backup which came with a CD-R/RW drive. With
WinXP, it didn't take me long to figure I needed to backup more often. I'd
recommend that you disburse $30. (at NewEgg) for Backup MyPC or get one of
the packages you might want which includes it, like Roxio Easy Media
Creator. I generally get about 1.6:1 compression ratio on my mix of files
which includes many .ZIPs... so about 6GB per DVD+R but "differential
backups" take only a few minutes and very little space.

KB 307545 (How to recover from a corrupted registry
that prevents Windows XP from starting) may get
me some insight into the NTFS problem (i've not
read thru it yet)

one other note is that my current compressed 98SE
reg backups (rb00x.cab) are 1.5 MB. in XP Pro a
backup of the "system files" gives a file (compressed?)
that is 443 MB in size!

that size difference suggests to me that XP
has more complexity; meaning it isn't all bloat

That 443MB is a "System State" which includes "boot" files (many program
and .dll files) and the COM+ Class Registry as well as system and all user
registries and a bunch of .log files. I haven't found a way to actually
see the file names from WinXP's Backup utility but Backup MyPC does show
them.

fwiw, in XP i now keep a written log of my installs,
registry backups, and backups of my boot drive
(to other hard drives (using 2003 DOS Ghost) that
i only plug in when i do boot drive backups)

i mean i hate it when a drive dies, or the system
goes belly up

Yep and with the price of HDDs so low and RAID being on nearly every mbrd
now, I'm seriously considering a mirror setup for home. I have a Promise
hot-swap mirror setup on our Win2K office server and it's worked great - no
HDD failures yet but when I manage to F/U the system during err, "upgrades"
I can always go back.

 

[Jason Gurtz]

are the Acronis utils part of Acronis True Image 8.0?
or are they a separate package by some other name?

I think they are all separate products tho now they may have some sort of
bundle. Besides the things from sysinternals I really don't need much in
the way of utils. who's locking maybe.

~Jason

--

 

[Jason Gurtz]

There are recent versions of the principal system files stored in the
%SystemRoot%\repair folder but their use/recovery is less simple than
Win9x...

All good points...

I've never had to do a serious repair on WinXP yet so I have no experience
but if you can't boot from the hard disk to any maintenance mode, the only
option is to boot from the WinXP CD-ROM and choose Repair.

Bart PE is your friend. Also, the Recovery Console that can be optionally
(G.O.K. why it's optional!) installed can be a huge help if it's just some
missing or corrupted system files, or bad drivers. chkdsk and friends all
run in there and U can copy files around and configure services.

It's also a good idea to learn how to make an NT Boot disk. This is
useful for when the ntldr or boot block is slightly hosed but the rest of
the system is A-OK. After booting, then you can then use fixboot or
fixmbr (last ditch, may be dangerous) utilities

The ability to boot *and* login to a Win2K/XP
system is definitely much more fragile than the old DOS-based systems and
recovery is always a PITA - it's really very scarey.

Yea, this is true. Then again, the more times you have to recover the
less of a PITA it is because you can remember what you learned before.
Any broken system is scary, esp. when there's no backup!

~Jason

--

 

[George Macdonald]

All good points...


Bart PE is your friend. Also, the Recovery Console that can be optionally
(G.O.K. why it's optional!) installed can be a huge help if it's just some
missing or corrupted system files, or bad drivers. chkdsk and friends all
run in there and U can copy files around and configure services.

I guess they figure running it from the CD is err, "suitable" - they tend
to treat the average user -- i.e. anybody who hasn't taken the M$ CSE
course -- as a moron. There are also a bunch of utilities which you only
find out are downloadable *after* you need them. Now it appears they're
going to do a proper CLI but it would not surprise me if they limit its use
to people who are "qualified".

I'll take a look at Bart PE - thanks.

It's also a good idea to learn how to make an NT Boot disk. This is
useful for when the ntldr or boot block is slightly hosed but the rest of
the system is A-OK. After booting, then you can then use fixboot or
fixmbr (last ditch, may be dangerous) utilities


Yea, this is true. Then again, the more times you have to recover the
less of a PITA it is because you can remember what you learned before.
Any broken system is scary, esp. when there's no backup!

Oh I've had quite a few tangles with Win2K Server and there always seems to
be some twist I haven't seen before or I've forgotten from the last time.
This was a system which was upgraded from WinNT Server and the contortions
I've gone through with it over its evolution from legacy workgroup server
to Active Directory Domain Controller have about driven me nuts. IOW I'm
quite familiar with the cold sweat that breaks out when you've been up all
night and you still have a broken server at 7a.m.

 

[willbill]

There are recent versions of the principal system files stored in the
%SystemRoot%\repair folder but their use/recovery is less simple than
Win9x...

agreed on it being less simple

and the user registries are stored in the "Documents and Settings"
folder structure. Besides the Restore Points, it is also a good idea to
use the built-in Backup utility to do a backup of the "System State"
regularly... preferably to a folder/file in a separate partition (Note:
partitions are still a good idea for other reasons too).

I've never had to do a serious repair on WinXP yet so I have no experience
but if you can't boot from the hard disk to any maintenance mode, the only
option is to boot from the WinXP CD-ROM and choose Repair. There are also
various utilities kicking around as well as loads of Web sites with
"advice" so.... Google. The ability to boot *and* login to a Win2K/XP
system is definitely much more fragile than the old DOS-based systems and
recovery is always a PITA - it's really very scarey.

I'll add here that I rarely did backups with Win98SE - once a year or so,
using a version of Seagate Backup which came with a CD-R/RW drive.

i've used a DOS zip from the Unix community (Info Zip
over PKZip coz PKZip ran out of memory when it got
to 700 or 800 files) to compress my c: partition
(along with a DOS long file name saver); that and my
registry backups have literally saved my butt on
3 occassions that i can recall

With
WinXP, it didn't take me long to figure I needed to backup more often. I'd
recommend that you disburse $30. (at NewEgg) for Backup MyPC or get one of
the packages you might want which includes it, like Roxio Easy Media
Creator. I generally get about 1.6:1 compression ratio on my mix of files
which includes many .ZIPs... so about 6GB per DVD+R but "differential
backups" take only a few minutes and very little space.

any reason you use +R discs? i mean, is +R
more reliable for data?

That 443MB is a "System State" which includes "boot" files (many program
and .dll files) and the COM+ Class Registry as well as system and all user
registries and a bunch of .log files. I haven't found a way to actually
see the file names from WinXP's Backup utility but Backup MyPC does show
them.

at this point i simply do it and
hope the registry is in there and hope
(and pray) that if there's a problem
i'll be able to get to it and actually
do something useful with it.

Yep and with the price of HDDs so low

the low price made me rethink zipping my c:
partition to simply buying two backup boot HDD

with about 15 GB of data on the 4 partitions of HDD#1
my last disk-to-disk DOS Ghost backup of my boot
drive took 7 minutes.

i've used both W.D. JB (160GB PATA) and
Hitachi DeskStar (250GB PATA, 3 platter and
also the new 2 platter). The Hitachi's
are noticably faster for the backup. i mean
roughly 60 percent faster (i swapped out the
WD's for my sister's machine so the comparison
is very recent)

i have a three connecter 18" round cable with
only the boot drive on it. i have the cable
positioned so that i only have to move it
a tiny bit to get the middle connecter
just over the bottom lip of the case
where i can plug in the backup HD and
do the backup. when i get the 250GB disk
more full, i may have to put a fan on the
backup disk to keep its temp down, but so
far it's no worries

Win98SE-DOS boots just fine when the extra
disk is plugged in (even though it has
an active boot partition on it!)

and RAID being on nearly every mbrd
now, I'm seriously considering a mirror setup for home.

i've got a Silicon Image 3114 raid chip, and my HDD#2
is a raid1 (mirror). like you, i'm so far impressed

I have a Promise
hot-swap mirror setup on our Win2K office server and it's worked great - no
HDD failures yet but when I manage to F/U the system during err, "upgrades"
I can always go back.

afaik, a good case with well placed
large ball bearning fans (80mm and up)
are the ticket to keeping HDD failures
to a minimum

bill

 

[George Macdonald]

George Macdonald wrote:


any reason you use +R discs? i mean, is +R
more reliable for data?

Well I'm not sure I trust RW anything and +R is supposed to be a better
recording technology than -R.

at this point i simply do it and
hope the registry is in there and hope
(and pray) that if there's a problem
i'll be able to get to it and actually
do something useful with it.

I just realized that there's an option on the NTBackup, from the Advanced
button, on the dialog you get when you click Start Backup, where you can
select to not include "System Protected Files", which reduces the size of
the backup by ~200MB... they say.

 

[Jason Gurtz]

I guess they figure running it from the CD is err, "suitable" - they tend
to treat the average user -- i.e. anybody who hasn't taken the M$ CSE
course -- as a moron. There are also a bunch of utilities which you only
find out are downloadable *after* you need them. Now it appears they're
going to do a proper CLI but it would not surprise me if they limit its use
to people who are "qualified".

Right now, you just have to supply an email and address in order to
download it and use it. OTOH, the bash shell has been available for years
via the cygwin project. Then there's 4NT.

My only complaint with the new shell so far is that the command syntax is
*extreamly* verbose. Thankfully they've remembered to implement aliases!

~Jason

--

 

[Nate Edel]

Well I'm not sure I trust RW anything and +R is supposed to be a better
recording technology than -R.

Actually, -RW/+RW is phase change material, and in theory will last longer
on the shelf once written than write-once disks.

I've had better luck with reading +RW in conventional DVD-ROM drives than
-RW, but -R and +R have both had basically no difference in compatibility
from what I can see - never had any trouble with reading either in data
DVD-ROM drives, and relatively little problem with either on video DVDs.

 

[keith]

Actually, -RW/+RW is phase change material, and in theory will last longer
on the shelf once written than write-once disks.

I'm interested in why you say this. Regions that are forever broken seem
to me to be more stable.

I've had better luck with reading +RW in conventional DVD-ROM drives
than -RW, but -R and +R have both had basically no difference in
compatibility from what I can see - never had any trouble with reading
either in data DVD-ROM drives, and relatively little problem with either
on video DVDs.

Dunno. I have a buchh of both and use +Rs becasue they work better with my
old crap. I'll keep the -Rs for digital things. Is there a solid reason
for this, no. ...just a *little* experience. I don't see a reason to buy
more -R media though.

 

[George Macdonald]

Actually, -RW/+RW is phase change material, and in theory will last longer
on the shelf once written than write-once disks.

I'm not sure there's anything intrinsically better there - a phase change
material which is changed by application of light energy is just as likely
to drift around with age, whether by temp cycling or incidental light. By
it's nature there is less "contrast" between the two states of the
medium... +RW has always been considered a flakey medium. Some "experts"
will not use it for archival purposes.

I've had better luck with reading +RW in conventional DVD-ROM drives than
-RW, but -R and +R have both had basically no difference in compatibility
from what I can see - never had any trouble with reading either in data
DVD-ROM drives, and relatively little problem with either on video DVDs.

+R is a better technology. It can also, in most recorders, be set during
record to appear to a reader as a plain read-only DVD if there is any
question of reader compatibility.

 

[willbill]

The way it's stored, the file names and where files are stored has changed
considerably though - in that sense it *is* more complicated.

XP is clearly a *lot* more complex

and therefore when things go wrong
they are more screwy and often off
the chart (even when compared to 98SE)

There are recent versions of the principal system files stored in the
%SystemRoot%\repair folder but their use/recovery is less simple than
Win9x... and the user registries are stored in the "Documents and Settings"
folder structure. Besides the Restore Points, it is also a good idea to
use the built-in Backup utility to do a backup of the "System State"
regularly... preferably to a folder/file in a separate partition (Note:
partitions are still a good idea for other reasons too).

I've never had to do a serious repair on WinXP yet

my hunch is that when it happens (to you)
it's gonna be your worst nightmare ever.
sorry to say that, but as you can tell,
i'm less than impressed with XP Pro/SP2

if anything, i'm way more impressed with
Win 2000/SP4

so I have no experience
but if you can't boot from the hard disk to any maintenance mode, the only
option is to boot from the WinXP CD-ROM and choose Repair. There are also
various utilities kicking around as well as loads of Web sites with
"advice" so.... Google. The ability to boot *and* login to a Win2K/XP
system is definitely much more fragile than the old DOS-based systems and
recovery is always a PITA - it's really very scarey.

I'll add here that I rarely did backups with Win98SE - once a year or so,
using a version of Seagate Backup which came with a CD-R/RW drive. With
WinXP, it didn't take me long to figure I needed to backup more often. I'd
recommend that you disburse $30. (at NewEgg) for Backup MyPC or get one of
the packages you might want which includes it, like Roxio Easy Media
Creator. I generally get about 1.6:1 compression ratio on my mix of files
which includes many .ZIPs... so about 6GB per DVD+R but "differential
backups" take only a few minutes and very little space.

i'm at the point were googling may take
some really advanced insight, so kindly
be kind and give me a clue if you can:
when i boot XP with my external mocem
turned off the damn thing won't work
no matter what i do and no matter what
i do in trying to "start" a service
that isn't started.

with Win2k i was able to figure it out
without too much of a nose bleed

with "wonderful" Win XP Pro there's no
clue that i've been able to find

the only solution that works is to
turn my external modem *on* and
restart ****ing Win XP from scratch!

trust me, i have insight on computers
in general (my life profession) and
also with screwy/flakey PC computers

i used to think Linux was screwy/flakey,
but XP now appears to me to be the worst.

any clue on how i could "restart" (?) a modem
service (without restarting ****ing XP with
the external modem turned on) will be
very very appreciated!

tia, bill

 

[George Macdonald]

XP is clearly a *lot* more complex

and therefore when things go wrong
they are more screwy and often off
the chart (even when compared to 98SE)

Yes, I got on quite well with Win98SE -- even managed a couple of
mbrd/chipset swaps without a reinstall -- though latterly things got worse
as new software came along. A silent install (WTF - why do they do this ?)
of IE 5.5SP2 along with some application software I bought was one event
which increased general flakeyness - still wondering if that was
intentional by M$ to sink Mozilla, which is my preferred browser. Then
Adobe Acrobat 5.1 caused lock-ups regularly on exiting the damned thing -
in the end I was glad to get away from it.

my hunch is that when it happens (to you)
it's gonna be your worst nightmare ever.
sorry to say that, but as you can tell,
i'm less than impressed with XP Pro/SP2

That's one of the reasons I do backups more regularly. Backup MyPC has,
err, claims to have, a disaster recovery procedure where you can recover a
complete system. Even then a few days of loss could mean important e-mails
lost.

if anything, i'm way more impressed with
Win 2000/SP4

The lack of a free download of the Pro Resource Kit is a major annoyance
there. Tools are mentioned in the M$ KB which are only available in that
kit. My experiences with Win2K Server have not been that good - I just
found out the other day that a Restore of System State does not appear to
properly restore "junctions".

i'm at the point were googling may take
some really advanced insight, so kindly
be kind and give me a clue if you can:
when i boot XP with my external mocem
turned off the damn thing won't work
no matter what i do and no matter what
i do in trying to "start" a service
that isn't started.

You mean the modem doesn't work or WinXP doesn't boot properly? I assume
the former. Is it a RS232 modem on a COM port?

with Win2k i was able to figure it out
without too much of a nose bleed

with "wonderful" Win XP Pro there's no
clue that i've been able to find

the only solution that works is to
turn my external modem *on* and
restart ****ing Win XP from scratch!

It's been a while since I used a serial port modem but does the modem
appear in Device Manager when you start WinXP with it powered off? Have
you tried a Scan For Hardware Changes from the Action menu of Device
Manager? Was it found through Plug 'n' Play with Win98SE and/or Win2K?

trust me, i have insight on computers
in general (my life profession) and
also with screwy/flakey PC computers

i used to think Linux was screwy/flakey,
but XP now appears to me to be the worst.

any clue on how i could "restart" (?) a modem
service (without restarting ****ing XP with
the external modem turned on) will be
very very appreciated!

Does the modem service show in Services, but in "stopped" state, when you
startup with it powered off?