Windows – Using Win32 in DOS

bootms-doswin32windows-98

Is there a way that I can start the Win32 environment or run Win32 programs from DOS without starting the Windows GUI?

I'm using a Windows 98 PC that is booted into DOS mode from a floppy disk.

EDIT:

I want to run command line programs. Some of these are Digital Mars C and .NET Framework.

Best Answer

No Microsoft-supported way to do it

Windows GUI cannot be separated from the kernel and runtime libraries that support Win32 programs (in Windows 98).

You can get Windows without the GUI only using Server Core install mode in Windows Server 2008.

3rd party Win32 emulation for DOS

There is a software that emulates Win32 API and allows Windows console programs to be run under DOS. For example, HX DOS Extender homepage says:

HX DOS-Extender is a free DOS extender with built-in Win32 PE file format support. Usually the purpose of a DOS extender is to make protected-mode features available for DOS applications. HX fully supports this goal, but goes some steps further. A Win32 API emulation layer is part of HX which allows many Win32 console applications to run in DOS.

Digital Mars C++ is specifically supported by HX DOS Extender, however .NET is integrated deeply into Windows. I doubt you'll be able to run .NET software on an emulator.

Warning, possible malware in HX DOS Extender download!

Apparently there is something fishy with downloads available on HX DOS Extender web site. Virustotal report looks really suspicious to me, most antiviruses report some kind of malware inside.

Related Solutions

CPU running at full capacity when boot to DOS

DOS (at least any MS-DOS) doesn't idle the CPU with the x86 HLT instruction like most modern operating systems when it is not doing anything.

Not sure of the specific MS-DOS function that waits for a keypress, but that would probably be where the the CPU is effectively "spinlocking" in a loop when it is doing nothing, under MS-DOS. It is still fetching instructions and running, just not being productive.

Looks like newer versions of FreeDOS will do this, though.

You may find this helpful.

Windows – Securely erase empty disk space on a Win 3.1 / DOS 6.22 system with builtin tools

A simple way to accomplish this, is to copy the Windows directory over and over, just making additional copies of it, until you run out of space. Delete the copies you just created. Then do it again as many times as you feel necessary (passes).

This is effectively overwriting all free space on the disk.

UPDATED:

Here is a batch file to automate the process. I tested it on an old version of FreeDOS running in a VMware guest. I think it should work on DOS 5 and newer.

Put this file at the root of your C: drive (ie: C:\CLEAN.BAT) and run it from there.

Each time it is run, it will "overwrite" once. Then you must delete all the files in the C:\TMP directory to free up the space (C:\TMP>DEL *.*). (I didn't want the batch file to delete any files on its own, just in case.)

You can run it as many times as you feel is necessary. Each time you run it is a single overwrite, so you might want to run it a couple or three times to be safe.

CLEAN.BAT

@ECHO OFF

IF "%1"=="" GOTO :INIT

:PARSE
  SET ARG1=%1
  SET ARG2=%2
  SET ARG3=%3
  SET ARG4=%4

  IF NOT "%4"=="" GOTO :LAST
  IF NOT "%3"=="" GOTO :LOOP4
  IF NOT "%2"=="" GOTO :LOOP3
  IF NOT "%1"=="" GOTO :LOOP2

:INIT
  C:
  CD\
  IF NOT EXIST "C:\TMP\" MKDIR C:\TMP >NUL
  CHDIR C:\TMP

  COPY C:\WINDOWS\SETUP.EXE SETUP.EXE >NUL
  COPY SETUP.EXE+SETUP.EXE FILE.0 >NUL

:LOOP1
  FOR %%E IN (A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0) DO CALL C:\CLEAN.BAT %%E
  GOTO :END

:LOOP2
  FOR %%F IN (A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0) DO CALL C:\CLEAN.BAT %ARG1% %%F
  GOTO :END

:LOOP3
  FOR %%G IN (A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0) DO CALL C:\CLEAN.BAT %ARG1% %ARG2% %%G
  GOTO :END

:LOOP4
  FOR %%H IN (A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0) DO CALL C:\CLEAN.BAT %ARG1% %ARG2% %ARG3% %%H
  GOTO :END

:LAST
  COPY FILE.0 F%ARG1%%ARG2%%ARG3%%ARG4%.0
  IF NOT "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="0" EXIT
  GOTO :END

:END

The SETUP.EXE file in my Windows 3.1 directory is just under 500KB. To speed the process up a bit, I copy it (twice) to a new file and use it, so the process will effectively wipe all but about 950KB of the drive. You can pick a smaller file to get more granular, but you may run into issues with having too many files in a single directory.

Also, FreeDOS doesn't change the errorlevel when a copy operation fails. MSDOS has always been good about the errorlevel responses, so you shouldn't run in to that. If it does start saying it failed to copy the temporary file because of disk space, you can safely stop (Ctrl+C) the process.