Hi, Shelley.
MOST programs that run in Win9x/ME will work fine in WinXP. MOST of those
that run in MS-DOS will work fine in a "DOS" window in WinXP. But recognize
that the "DOS" window is an emulator of MS-DOS, not true MS-DOS; it cannot
deal directly with the hardware but must access it through the HAL (Hardware
Abstraction Layer).
Unless you plan to use MS-DOS or Win9x/ME on this computer, it's best to use
NTFS all the way. NTFS has several advantages, especially with the
multi-gigabyte HDs that are typical in today's computers. The advantages
are largely in security, both in the sense of secure from unauthorized
access and in secure from hard disk glitches. But if you do plan to install
MS-DOS/Win9x/ME, then the system partition (almost always Drive C
must be
FAT (16 or 32); otherwise the DOS-based systems can't boot. Also, of
course, any volume (primary partition or logical drive) to be used by those
systems must also be FAT, because they can't even SEE an NTFS volume.
As "me" said, FAT16 volumes are limited to 2 GB. Win2K will not format a
volume larger than 32 GB as FAT32, but Win9x/ME will, up to about 127 GB;
after formatting, Win2K will happily use all of that large FAT32 volume.
For details, see this page from the online version of the Win2K Pro Resource
Kit:
File Systems
http://www.microsoft.com/windows200...techinfo/reskit/en-us/prork/prdf_fls_pxjh.asp
RC