PC Hardware —

System Commands

Many of the familiar MS-DOS prompt commands, system files, and drivers are included in Windows 95. They are found in the Windows\Command directory. The following is a list of commands and related files not included in the basic Windows 95 command set. Some of these commands can be loaded from the Windows 95 CD and are found in the directory Other\Olddos:

  • ASSIGN
  • MIRROR
  • BACKUP
  • MONOUMB.386
  • CHKSTATE.SYS
  • MSAV
  • COMP
  • MSBACKUP
  • DOSSHELL
  • POWER
  • EDLIN
  • PRINT
  • EGA.SYS
  • PRINTER.SYS
  • EXPAND
  • QBASIC
  • FASTHELP
  • RAMDRIVE.SYS
  • FASTOPEN
  • RECOVER
  • GRAFTABL
  • REPLACE
  • GRAPHICS
  • RESTORE
  • HELP
  • ROMDRIVE.SYS
  • INSTUPP.BAT
  • SHARE
  • INTERLNK
  • SIZER
  • INTERSVR
  • SMARTMON
  • JOIN
  • TREE
  • LOADFIX
  • UNDELETE
  • MEMCARD
  • UNFORMAT
  • MEMMAKER
  • VSAFE

BOOTLOG.TXT

As mentioned earlier, this log contains information about the Windows 95 startup process. It is a good troubleshooting tool. The BOOTLOG.TXT file contains the following sections:

  • Loading real-mode drivers
  • Loading VxDs system-critical initialization of VxDs
  • Device initialization of VxDs
  • Successful VxD initialization
NOTE
VxD is a Windows virtual device driver-it replaces the real-mode drivers from MS-DOS. The x is a variable and stands for the type of device-for example, P for printer or D for display.

The following is an example of the first 10 lines of a BOOTLOG.TXT file:

 [000B346F] Loading Device = ATAPICD.SYS
 [000B3482] LoadSuccess = ATAPICD.SYS
 [000B3482] Loading Device = C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
 [000B3484] LoadSuccess = C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS
 [000B3484] Loading Device = C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
 [000B3485] LoadSuccess = C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
 [000B3485] Loading Device = C:\WINDOWS\SETVER.EXE
 [000B3486] LoadSuccess = C:\WINDOWS\SETVER.EXE
 [000B348D] C:\PROGRA~1\MCAFEE\VIRUSS~1\SCANPM.EXE
 [000B348D] starting   [000B34D2] Loading VXD = VMM

Initialization Files

As explained in Tutorial 15, "Software: MS-DOS and Windows 3.x," .INI files were some of the most important files in earlier versions of Windows. In Windows 95, .INI files are not nearly as important as the Registry.

The Windows 3.1 .INI system included WIN.INI, which contained information about the appearance of the Windows environment including keyboard, mouse, and display options. The SYSTEM.INI file contained information related to hardware and device options including memory options, device drivers, and networking and resource-sharing parameters.

WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI are still used by Windows 95 to run older Windows 3.x programs that are not supported by .VXD files. With time, the use of these files will diminish. They are not required by Windows 95; they simply provide backward compatibility.

TIP
If Windows 95 is installed in its own directory and not in the root directory of the hard disk, older versions of MS-DOS can still be run by setting the BootMulti= statement in the [Options] section of the Windows 95 version of MSDOS.SYS. Load the earlier version of MS-DOS by pressing F4 at the "Starting Windows" screen during system startup.