Re: win3.1 attempts :)

[Stas Sergeev <stsp@aknet.ru>]

Hello.

Ryan Underwood wrote:
> So, armed with a fresh copy of DOSEMU 1.1.5.7 and quite happy with
>  the changelog entry referring to windows, I set out to create a 
> fresh win3.1 setup on my machine to help with hacking WINE.
With a 16-bit windows? Probably not very usefull.

> For each of these, I took the gdi.exe, user,exe, krnl386.exe, and 
> mouse.drv from OS/2's windows, compressed them (-> .ex_), and 
> replaced the original files with the OS/2 versions
Interesting idea indeed, but I think you'll end
up mentioning that the installation is not
possible at all.

> The installation is straightforward for the first part.  When it 
> actually goes to copy some files, you must have a disk in the A: 
> drive for some reason, or you will get an A.R.F error on screen, 
> and be unable to continue the session (close dosemu).
I observed this either.
Happens also in a text-mode Win setup (setup.exe on
an installed instance) when you replace some components
that requires a file copying (but in a text mode you
at least can abort it), like changung a video driver
for example. So it might be a windows bug -
why should it touch the floppy for no good reason?
But probably it is also a bug in dosemu somewhere,
esp. if disabling the (real) floppy in cmos setup
and then installing windows from a real DOS doesn't
have that problem (haven't tried yet).

> The initial file copy completes, then crashes to dos instead of 
> starting windows.
That's the point where you have to give up. The
problem is that it (most likely) simply runs win.com,
which is trying dosx.exe or win386.exe - both
without any success.
Replacing win.com with winos2.com won't help either,
as it seems to be testing the OS/2 presence, and if
not found, also starts dosx.exe or win386.exe.
But you can probably write your own loader and replace
the win.com with it. Then it will probably work right.
That loader must do no more than just executing
"system\os2k386.exe", so it might be easy to try out.

> Windows can be started manually in the same way as before.
That's the wrong way, please use the winemu.bat instead,
or, even better, write your own .com loader (see above).

> The initial configuration is ok, it asks for a disk this time (I 
> point it to the dir on the hdd), and eventually it GPF at the same 
> segment but a different offset this time after the files are 
> copied.
That should probably be debugged out, although there
was no intention to support the windows installation
process, so not yet. If the idea about a hand-made
loader will work, then it is probably worth fixing
either and have a complete support for the installation
process.

> So, I hope this feedback helps somehow, please let me know if you 
> have any more questions.
Yes, let's aim for the already installed windows at
first to update the existing part of the docs.
The installation process should be a different piece
of docs I think.

> I would like to be able to fully install WFW3.11 under dosemu
That might be possible, but will probably require
a significant amount of work...