Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (20201)	6/24/1998 11:02:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 24154

Don't hold me to this one, but I believe DOS and Win95 became inseparable under OSR2, not the original Win95. It was what the customers wanted! (even though the customers couldn't buy OSR2, unless they were the OEMs Microsoft is so famous for listening too). I saw something about this recently, but my refs went with the disk. Re the Caldera suit, coming to trial soon in a courtroom (relatively) near you, I think the ref said that there was an arbitrary check inserted in Windows 3.1 that disabled it (Windows 3.1) in the presence of DR-DOS, or something other than MS-DOS, it had worked ok before that. Cheers, Dan.

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (20201)	6/24/1998 12:04:00 PM
From: Bearded One	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

One cannot run Windows 95 without DOS installed. However the links between Windows 95 and DOS are "loose" in the sense that, as Caldera recently proved, one can easily substitute another version of DOS for Microsoft's version. That is, DOS wasn't significantly altered for Windows 95 so that it couldn't run on its own. I see how a loose integration of Windows 95 and DOS seemingly helps Microsoft in that it loosens the Appeal's court definition of integrated. However, it also seems that Caldera has presented evidence that Microsoft misstated or lied about the relationship between DOS and Windows 95 when negotiating the consent decree with the DOJ back in 1994. The ability to substitute a new DOS for the one shipped with Windows 95 is a new revelation, one that convinced judge to allow Caldera to expand their lawsuit to include Windows 95. Caldera's claim was that Windows 3.1 was simply a shell over DOS and that Microsoft's shipping of Windows 3.1 and DOS together was not integration, but rather (illegal?) tying. The court decision allowed Caldera to make the claim that Windows 95 is also simply a graphical addition to DOS. Microsoft's stance in that lawsuit seems to be, believe it or not, that Windows 95 is highly integrated with DOS. So, in my non-lawyerly opinion, Microsoft seems to have to tread a thin line about Windows 95 and DOS being well integrated in the Caldera lawsuit, but not being well integrated in the DOJ lawsuit. Opinions? Anyone with info about Caldera? Also, what would happen to the DOJ lawsuit if Caldera shows in court that Microsoft lied to the DOJ in 1994?

To: Gerald R. Lampton who wrote (20201)	6/24/1998 9:23:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

>>>I was under the impression the Windows 95 interface could not be separated from DOS and that it was not possible to run just the DOS portion without the interface, or to run some other version of DOS under Windows 95. I think the easier it is to separate them, the more that helps Microsoft. Remember that, in interpreting the Consent Decree, the court took it as a given that Windows 95 was the model of what is an "integrated product." <<<< I suggest clicking on the start button, selecting shutdown, and selecting 'Restart the computer in MS-DOS mode' for some insight. FWIW, in this mode you can run old dos games and you must use old dos drivers, many of which are older than Win95. Dan notes things have changed, DR-DOS used to work under windows, as did memory managers other than their own (often better) but lately they have been able to turn off that capability AFAIK. If it walks like a DOS, and it quacks like a DOS... On the other hand, win 3 really depended on DOS for system access. Once win95 has launched, though, it seems to use 32 bit processor and memory features directly. I tend to think of DOS and Win95 as almost totally foreign systems that can launch and partially wrapper each other, at least in appearance, this capability relies more on the multimodal capabilities and backwards compatibility of Intel processors than anything else. I don't have any idea which side these presumptions, if they turned out to be facts, would help. Cheers, Chaz