Conference noted::windows95

I believe it's Windows 95 OSR2

	Vincent

    
    
      What is included in OSR2? Can you patch to get to this level?
    
    

OSR2 is supplied only to PC manufacturers for factory installation on a new
PC.  There is no upgrade to this from "regular" Windows 95.  The main thing
in OSR2 is FAT32 support, which is why a 95.0a boot floppy won't understand
a FAT32 disk.

				Steve

    Wait till June or so when Win-97 update will be available. new FAT32
    and all the rest will be part of it. Otherwise, you can get there from
    here...
    
    Mark

    re .3:
    
    Not only is there no upgrade (in terms of being able to buy one in the
    shop) - the OSR2 release won't install on a machine with Windows 95
    already on it.
    
    As I get it as part of the developers libraray, I was a bit p***ed off
    finding out there's no way I can either upgrade (or sidegrade) my test
    machine(s) that already have Windows 95 on them (and a few versions of
    NT).
    

    RE: -last few.
    
    MS has stated many, many places that the tools to migrate are still
    being finished and it makes no sense to even attempt to let folks start
    playing with FAT structures until they are 100% sure the conversion is
    rock-solid. This is different than any other application error I can
    think of... if it fails, you have a blank hard disk, all your data is
    gone.
    
    I wouldn't be too upset at MS, I'd just wait till they have it in the
    summer and use it then.
    
    OS/R2 was and is intended to run on brand-new machines with NOTHING to
    convert or upgrade in place. I think they made a VERY WISE decsision to
    do it this way. If it had bugs, then there would be nothing to lose...
    
    Mark

re .last:
IMHO, it would have been even WISER for MS to not release this thing 
at all until it's really finished, including the upgrade part...
They could have made it available to MSDN only for testing.

	Vincent

For some reason, the base noter deleted their note...

			Steve

In december I bought a new pc with Win95 preloaded. I presently have no
complaint on the o/s but whenever I put in the WIN95 cd that came with the
system it always reports that the version of software on the disk is older
that what is on the cd. The cd then asks if you want to upgrade. If you say no,
it exits and the contents are unavailable. If you say yes, it tries to do the
upgrade but fails and says something like you need to do an upgrade.

Going by memory, I believe the o/s on the hard disk is 4.00.950a. I don't
know how to read the verion on the cd but from reading this note, I suspect it
is 4.00.950b and thus, the system cant be upgraded to version b. So what good is
the cd to me?

Ed

    >  <<< Note 2781.8 by QUARK::LIONEL "Free advice is worth every cent">>>
    
    > For some reason, the base noter deleted their note...
    
    No, they tried to convert the note from Base_note_16 to Base_note_32,
    and poof!
    
    gone.

>                ...and it makes no sense to even attempt to let folks start
>    playing with FAT structures until they are 100% sure the conversion is
>    rock-solid. This is different than any other application error I can
>    think of... if it fails, you have a blank hard disk, all your data is
>    gone.

This is not much different from releasing Doublespace with DOS 6.0 - I lost
(most of) two disks with this great piece of software and then decided to ban it
from my PC. I bought a second disk instead which was certainly the better way to
go.

Hans.

PS: Ora, if you multi-boot your PC I guess OSR2 won't be very useful for you
anyway... FAT32 can only be used from OSR2 and not a single other OS... :-(

>PS: Ora, if you multi-boot your PC I guess OSR2 won't be very useful for you
>anyway... FAT32 can only be used from OSR2 and not a single other OS... :-(
    
    My home PC isn't multiboot anyway... and partition <512MB are forced to
    FAT16 so the boot partition will usually be FAt16. ALso, I believe I
    read somewhere that Win95 in DOS mode (e.g. the start disk) does FAT32.
    
    NT V5.0 also does...
    

>    NT V5.0 also does...

Hmmm... isn't "will do" more appropriate here ?

Hans. ;-)

    depending on whether you're running the beta or not...   :-)
    
    [I'm not]

Hearsay alert

I dont know if this is true or not.  But I read somewhere (PC World??) that if
you want to upgrade to OSR2 rename all occurances of WIN.COM.  The author said
the OSR2 used the presence of the file WIN.COM to determine if this is a new
install or not.  If it finds a WIN.COM its an upgrade and it bails.  

I dont have OSR2 so I dont know if this is true or not, and I am using
drivespace3 so I dont want it for a while.

Alan

    RTFM... the release notes specifically say you can't upgrade to OSR2,
    it's meant for new installations.
    

Though one may be able to find a way to trick the OSR2 install 
program to do an upgrade rather than a new install, I'm not sure that 
I'd want to.  OSR2 is very different in a lot of subtle ways, and 
it's all too possible that you'd fry something real good.

Question:
Is FAT32 per physical disk, or per system. ?? I mean to say, Can you have
one physical disk FAT32 and another FAT16, or not ??.

	JT:

A friend of mine just went through this.  OSR2 refused to install to a
clean partition, claiming that it already had an OS on it.  Further
analysis revealed that the partition had been formatted /S.

Seems like the appropriate action is to wipe the boot blocks.  Rather ugly,
I'd say.

let me make myself clear, when I refer (in .19) to a physical disk I mean
the chunk of hardware you spent your money on, and can return to the
supplier if it fails..
I cannot carry my C: drive without also carrying the E: partition on the
same drive as well. 
Previous discussion here and elsewhere has left me with the belief that
FAT32 (as shipped with OSR2) requires a single partition covering the entire
physical disk. Whether such a restriction on partitioning remains in the
future depends on what the spec for FAT32 allows. If partitions are allowed
then code will appear to create them...

	JT:

    At least the documentation says (and it makes sense) that it is per
    partition. (After all, you can also have FAT16 and NTFS on the same
    disk).
    
    Of course you can create more than one partition on the same disk.
    

FAT32 is per-partition.

			Steve

    There is a nice article in the Windows Sources mag that just arrived.
    It explains how to get your own copy of OSR2, and how to do the
    upgrade. The super-condensed summary is
    
    1. have a good backup...
    2. be able to run your CD from DOS
    3. kill all WIN.COMs
    4. hide startup folder
    

And did they mention how to get the legal kit to do the upgrade? or did
they just tell how to do the upgrade?

Bruce

One "legal" way is to buy an MSDN Professional (formerly Level II) subscription.
A less-legal way is to buy one at a local PC show.

			Steve