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Pastimes : Dream Machine ( Build your own PC ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: wily who wrote (8149)	7/19/1999 9:55:00 AM
From: Spots	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 14778

Well, the two ways of getting a DOS prompt do different things. The dos prompt icon is a .pif file which is a kind of shortcut used for DOS mode programs. In fact, if you create a shortcut to a DOS program (like PKZIP, say), Windows will create a pif. A pif stores environmental info for DOS mode programs. The DOS prompt is a pif for COMMAND.COM, the DOS command interpretor. However, DOS apps run from a pif run in a virtual machine in the Windows environment. They do not have the same access to the real machine facilities that a DOS instance booted from scratch would have. You can't flash the bios, for instance, nor run many adapter-level diagnostics, such as SCSI-card tests. The log-off and boot to a DOS prompt option actually shuts down the Win98 GUI and gives you a real booted DOS prompt which DOES have full access to the real machine. In fact, Win 98 (and Win 95) boot first to DOS which then starts the GUI, just like Win 3.1. This DOS is just hanging around in the background, waiting for the Windows GUI to terminate. Bill's problem seems to be something hanging in the GUI shutdown, but I have no idea what. Spots