All Things Microsoft > Microsoft Software

MS-DOS/9x Kernel Inaccuracy.

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anphanax:
The con, aux, nul, prn, lpt1-lpt3 thing exists in NT as well. If you don't believe me, open cmd.exe and try opening CON in EDIT. It caused the "DOS" window to hang.

It could be that those are just some special named pipes and are kept for compatibility, and for batch files ("nul" is nice when you don't want things to be displayed). I base that belief off of the information I found here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/ipc/base/createnamedpipe.asp

[ July 27, 2004: Message edited by: anphanax ]

Aloone_Jonez:
This behaviour seems to be very inconsistent.

EDIT.EXE
Reading CON causes it to crash, and saving just  causes an error, it doesn't crash.

QBASIC.EXE /EDIT

WMD:
The Windows kernel had "protected mode," but it was the fakest protected mode in existence.  Also, if you loaded 16-bit drivers for anything, the DOS kernel kept control of that stuff - hence, why MS didn't want you to use them in 9x.

mobrien_12:

quote:Originally posted by anphanax:
Windows 9x only used Microsoft DOS as a bootloader.

EDIT:
I didn't make this post to attack anyone in general, or to defend Microsoft Windows. I made this because I believe people saying that MS-DOS and Windows are basically the same thing kernel-wise is factually incorrect, and if anything, that hurts them in an argument against the product.


--- End quote ---


Saying that the kernels are basically the same thing is not the opposite of saying that DOS is only a bootloader.  

The Caldera vs. Microsoft lawsuit (the "DR-DOS" lawsuit) many years ago revealed that, while the two kernels are different, the win95 kernel did make calls to the DOS kernel.

Aloone_Jonez:
That makes sense to me, WinDOS didn't have a DOS kernel but it called the DOS kernel for certain things like file IO. This would explain the behaviour of my old virus scanner.

I wonder if WinDOS will boot from FreeDOS or even DOSEMU under Linux.

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