Under the hood of Windows 2000: The MS-DOS 7 that hides beneath 

It depends. When having DOS or Win9x preinstalled, and installing Windows 2000 alongside it (clean parallel install/multiboot setup), the previous version stays, so you can flip between the two. The scenario described here as in the case of an Upgrade from 9x to 2000, win9x will be completely replaced, and only the DOS part is left behind. In this case, there‘s no flipping forth and back between Win9x and 2000, as the previous Windows version is gone.

Im pretty sure that you could bot do that. They were 100% different. W2k was a revamped Win NT - not at all the same thing as the Win9x versions which were dos based altbough with significant changes.

I learned long ago upgrades are a waste of time! Fresh every time

​@markshade8398 have you seen the vídeo??

@@Tiago-Martins yes.... And I worked in IT back then.... Rolling out W95 and W2000 to more than 2000 machines... There was not an acceptable way to lay W2000 on top of W9x because the 9x were all some form of modified DOS platform and W2000 was the next version of W-NT and it was as different from DOS as UNIX was..... Just 100% different.

@@markshade8398 but you can do it, can t you?

Interesting. Would be very cool to hear some stories from your times there 🙃

plus it Long Filename support!

And fat32 support if I remember right

@@kathrynradonich3982 I think any DOS version included with Windows 95's later revisions, uh.. like B or C? should support FAT32. Though I do believe the initial release(or was it just the floppy version? I forget) only supported FAT16.

@@Raletia From 95 OSR2 onward. LFN you can get from a TSR, which was sort of what the console does when not in real mode. Same for USB Mass Storage devices. FreeDOS does it "all in one", but also does "too much sometimes". Hard to get the best of all worlds. Anyway, for real funsies try WfWG3.11 with Calmira shell, it's a real kicker.

@@Raletia RTM windows 95 did only support FAT16 it wasn't until windows 95 B that fat32 support came along

Those probably ran some version of ROM DOS

@@kbhasi Maybe. And here's a another ofd thing about these boards. The MK3 to my knowledge has a 3Dfx voodoo except it's embedded into the board. Everything since MK6 has been COTS motherboards for desktop PCs with the OS being Linux

On XP it's actually DOS 8.0, but debranded.

If memory serves me well, on 95 ver would return v7.0 for the initial release

It certainly was added during the Beta. This is also prooven, as it is fully functional at least as of Release Candidate 1 of Windows 2000. Remnants of that upgrade functionality still remained (even though not fully functional) in the Windows 2000 final release.

Ack. You’re referring to the base utilities from (originally) MS-DOS 5, that were included with the Windows NT DOS VDM.

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR Interesting they gave the utils from DOS 5 and not 6.22, why do you think that is?

Microsoft wanted you to buy Windows by the time 6.22 came along. That's why certain DOS 5 features, the most remembered being the MS-DOS Shell, were removed.@@IrisGalaxis

@@IrisGalaxis Maybe (just speculating) because DOS 6 was a legal mess for Microsoft. If I recall correctly, they got sued for the DoubleSpace compression for patent infringement of what Stacker was using. They probably locked down the code afterwards, and using any code from DOS 6 probably required MS legal to review it before release. DOS 5 had none of those encumbrances, and most of the utilities probably had little to no change from 5 to 6, so using the DOS 5 code probably avoided red tape.

Glad you liked it! :)

Thx :)

(Distant voice seemingly coming from nowhere) „you‘re welcome“

So it is, character-based input is still the way to go in many areas. The GUI is just the hood. But the console is the actual engine :-)

I've never been a fan of the CLI, lol. Sure it's great for batch files and scripting, but relies too much on a person's memory and ability to decipher the /? Help instructions to providenthe right command arguments and such. I went into support because I hated programming (assembler and basic procedural C programming was ok, but anything complex or dealing with opening or saving files, and I was long once you went beyond pseudo code, but give me some algebra, calculus, or physics, and I'm good lol). I can fumble my way around a GUI I've never seen before and teach clients how to use apps I've never seen or heard before in a matter of minutes, but could spend hours (less now with Copilot and Chat GPT thankfully) trying to figure out a PowerShell or cmd command to do something. Sometimes it's frustrating in Azure to have to open an admin PS terminal, look up how to connect to Azure, look up the documentation related to the function I want to enable, install the right PS module, then figure out the command(s) to run, just to do something that would literally be a checkbox or toggle switch in the WebUI. Just give me a crowded GUI with dozens of commands with dozens of arguments, dropdowns and browse buttons to select the files or drives, or whatever the command and options are manipulating, and toolntips for each item to help me figure out what each one does over a CLI any day. My memory is good for knowing what I need to do, but not for what each terminal command does and the arguments I need for it, but a GUIngives you so much info easily accessible and dynamic. Heck a generative interactive AI that can do the same as a CLI would be fine too.

@@technerd9655 see I have a love-hate relationship with CLIs. I like them because if you use them enough you will gain a muscle memory of the commands and even be able to stack them together in a one-liner. This is much faster and easier to understand as GUIs are too cluttering and detracting for many uses, or just plainly badly made like web UIs for appliances like routers and NAS devices. HOWEVER, that being said its a pain in the backside to get to that point of familiarity with the CLI, especially if its something proprietary. The other sticky point is typos, hot damn the amount to times I have swarn like a sailor at a computer because of a miss spelling. In short, I hate fafing around with menus and checkboxes to configure something. Give me a .conf file and nano any day or just a set of commands with good documentation and I will fine the CLI option easier every time.

Good hint, that makes sense now.

To an extent, I agree. Windows 2000 was not only a pretty stable system but it provided a platform for the future development of so many parts of the successive versions, from XP right up to the current versions, both desktop and server versions. Mind you, I was impressed with Windows 7 which was pretty much the last version that I was satisfied with, especially with all the spyware that infested W8, W10 and W11 and their server counterparts.

Windows 2000 & Windows 7 for me it was!

Happy to hear you liked it!

Wait what!?

@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR yeah. There was a trick to get it to work, but we did it on our old government computers fairly regularly. Then again im old and my memory slips.. SQUIRREL! Lol

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR yoh can also install the pnpisa.inf file off the NT4.0 cd, and it will give you pnp detect capability. Dirty little tricks

Now you're triggering me ... I think I'll have to look into this. Didn't now about this myself.

I actually did, though the outcome is the same as described in the video.

There's actually not much difference between the two under the hood. The main difference with 98 Second Edition is improvements and bug fixes to the USB subsystem.

I was wondering this myself because the timestamps of the files in the MSDOS7 directory in the KB article were those from the first edition of 98.

Indeed, that's when you did a parallel or multi-boot install, i.e. by *not* choosing the _upgrade_ option. In that case, you'd end up with both installed side-by-side.

To give another perspective here, check out my other video, ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-He5uRdl8chY.html, which goes a bit into the history of Windows Me. When Windows 2000 was released, there was no Windows Me nowhere in sight. Microsoft did work at the time at a consumer operating system, which was codenamed Neptune, but all based on NT 5/Windows 2000. It was only some time into the project, that Microsoft decided to scrap "Neptune" and develop Windows Me. At that point, Windows 2000 was long released already. For certain, it's a left-over of some sorts. They had something in mind adding this hidden DOS functionality during the upgrade process. The fact that's it disfunctional in the final release points pretty clearly into a left-over thing.

Glad you enjoyed it!

I always preferred clean installs, but for friends and friends of friends back then it was sometimes the only way to inherit the preinstalled software of questionable origins …

"Millenium", with a single n, doesn't refer to 1000 years. It refers to 1000 ...holes.

I did, yes. There's no MS-DOS in Windows 2000. There is only the default MS-DOS 5 derived DOS subset used for the NTVDM, as was expected. But the MS-DOS 7 mentioned here definitely came from the previous Windows version during the upgrade.

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR thanks! An interesting forensics on your part here. I used PC DOS around the 6.x era and OS/2 until NT4 myself. Keep these cool videos coming please:)

@@jrherita no worries, they will!

I didn't try it myself, no idea. Maybe worthwile giving it a shot?

@Bunker278 Be my guest, there's a few SGI related videos on this channel.

Halfway through the episode, when I'm re-running the same procedure again over pre-releases, betas and Release Candidates, the base OS was always english, as you can't cross-upgrade between language versions. But doesn't change the effect described here. The functionality is only working when using RC3 for the upgrade. Even English Win98 to Win2k final release leaves it over non-functional.

Correction: looks like that option was introduced to NT systems with XP and removed from Windows 10: an MS-DOS image for that purpose was stored in diskcopy.dll

This was an illusion though. To really have your computer for yourself, you need to have a free software operating system. I run Linux for that reason.

@@realGBx64Yeah, well, I need to get work done, not entertain myself entertaining an OS whose guides never quite apply to whichever flavour, mood, and whim of a distribution and tool I happen to encounter at any given moment.

@@realGBx64Yeah, well, I need to get work done, not waste time getting an OS to do its job while trying to read guides that never quite apply.

@@Anvilshock tell me you haven’t used linux in 20 years without telling me

@@realGBx64Never said I haven't. Otherwise how could I have reported back with the disappointment as stated?

Yes, with MS-DOS 7 that's still possible. The also noted MS-DOS 8 (Windows Me's underlay) is a different thing. There, heaving patching is needed, and still, MS-DOS 8 can't run Windows 3.1 in 386 enhanced mode (only standard mode does).

It worked fine with WinME, only required a quick patch to boot into DOS. Some missing stuff could be taken from DOS 6.22.

You're not a "real tech guy" if you think it's possible. NT is not DOS-based. 9x is. If you want a DOS installation to use alongside NT you can always install one, but it would not be related to NT in any way.

The closest you could get to such an operating mode using a present day Windows in "CLI only" mode, would be Windows Server Core, which just boots into a CLI.

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR Isn't that just running cmd.exe instead of explorer.exe? This effect can be accomplished with some registry tweaking even on client Windows.

The channel @TheRasteri has a video doing just that "Chain of Fools 2017 - Every windows version upgraded through"

@@LostieTrekieTechie ​ That video was 1 to 10, which was everything in 2017. Unfortunately, the sequence hits a dead end there, with no official way to go from a 32-bit Widows 10 to 64-bit Windows 11. However, there's a (really long) video, "Upgrading From Windows 1.0 To Windows 11 On Real Hardware", where this is circumvented by taking a detour from 32-bit Windows 7 to a beta version of a 64-bit Windows 8, then upgrading to the standard release of 64-bit Win8 and continuing from there.

Yeah, that's as well an old dinosaur. Though by somewhen in 2023 I remember reading that Microsoft announced it to be finally removed from Windows 11. And I think they already removed WordPad it in the default install since 23H2.

Ja, aber es geht eigentlich noch von der Geschwindigkeit her. DOS und Win9x sind nicht so anspruchsvoll, dass das gross ins Gewicht fällt. Die Installationsdurchgänge dauern trotzdem nur wenige Minuten. Bewusst ist die Entscheidung für Turtle Mode allerdings nichts. Ich lasse die Emulation auf einem Mac laufen, und VirtualBox ist mit Sonoma und dem mac Hypervisor (noch) nicht kompatibel. Daher gibt's da im Moment keine Hardware Acceleration.

Yes, Windows 2000 has both the native command processor (CMD, not DOS compatible), and the DOS Prompt (technically, this is the NTVDM aka NT Virtual DOS Machine). The latter provides a heavily modified MS-DOS 5 subset, including it's own verison of IO.SYS (called NTIO.SYS), to add a good level of DOS compatibility.

+msbackup and +msav, memmaker, etc. It‘s quiet a lot missing as when compared to the last feature complete version of MS-DOS. I‘ve been researching on the rumored MS-DOS 6.25 (and also 6.23 and 6.24) a while ago to get hold of then. Though all what I‘ve found, is just that: rumors. It‘s been discussed in a few forums over the past twenty years, but noone actually has proof for the existence of those. As far as I‘m concerned, I believe if these DOS versions actually had existed, then they would have been leaked and surfacing already a long time ago.

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR don't worry msbackup works well msav IS not needed but defrag 😭🤬

I don't know what MS could have made for the military but Russian PTS-DOS 32 (by PhysTechSoft*) is FAT32 compatible and "military certified" and it's available in English. *Paragon Software also sold some earlier versions of PTS-DOS

@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR Silly Idea, but what if you upgraded from Dos 6.22 (with or without Win 3.x) to Win9x; then upgraded that to windows 2000?

No idea, I didn't investigate into XP, wether it had a similar behaviour in the upgrade installer.

He did, later in the video.

Well, not necessarily. True, the "DOS" that came with Windows 95, just called itself "Windows 95" anyway via the "ver" command, and was indeed MS-DOS 7. But if you were upgrading from an older MS-DOS onto Windows 95, the old DOS version would be retained as well, and made available for booting into via the "boot previous verison of MS-DOS" option in the boot menu. Maybe you had it configured like that back then.

It is possible that is the explanation. We got the computer in 1996. When i was 8 years old. It was looking very dos-like. Black screen white text. We didn't understand what was going on with that, at the time. At that point: we didn't have much experience with computers. So we got help "fixing it". Fixing it: may have been installing windows over dos. As far at i remember. When you went into the windows 95 start menu. One of the fist options(lowest on the menu) got you into dos. Maybe it was on the dialog box you would get when turning of the computer(or maybe not). When booting into dos there were a couple of lines of text saying something like: Microsoft Dos 6.22... And some copyright info or something like that @@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

Yeah, the Windows Me bootdisk wasn't actually that bad, as it included many device drivers to facilitate a recovery. However, from a pure MS-DOS point of view, the crippled format.com and sys.com commands coming with Windows Me were really a setback, as you couldn't create your own boot disk from scratch. This topic will actually be furtherly explorer in the upcoming video.

Had a few of those, bit only rarely captured on camera

But very intentionally created remnants, because the upgrade as shown explicitely goes by extracting the MS-DOS core out from Win9x/WinMe during the upgrade to Windows 2000. It's true Windows 2000 is NT-based. The "DOS-like" interface you're referring to is called the NTVDM, and uses a subset of MS-DOS 5. While the Virtual DOS Machine doesn't really boot into a fully featured MS-DOS, it still starts a heavily modified DOS subsystem, that even includes IO.SYS (on NT, it's actually called NTIO.SYS), besides COMMAND.COM and many familiar DOS utilities.

I meant "DOS-like" not in reference to the interface, rather the commands that can be used by said interface. And that traces of MS DOS being even in Windows 11 wouldn't surprise me.

@@The_Temple Windows 11 is only available as a 64-bit release, and thus Microsoft had officially removed the 16-bit WoW and NTVDM subsystems. One may never exclude some bits may be buried here and there, but I think it (DOS and remants of it) are finally largely gone.

yeah, likely trace elements in the underlying code by now - doubt ever 100% eliminated unless Microsoft would genuinely 'clean the slate' and start an entirely new code-line for a future OS (but, will that ever happen? doubt it)@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTOR

Nope, Windows Me was a Win95/98 descendant (subject to next weeks video). Windows 2000 was NT based, totally different thing.

@DhavidSetiawanKilluaDhavid Well, you can upgrade Windows ME to Windows 2000, even WME came after W2K.

No, it‘s all about Windows 2000 retaining DOS after a Win9x/Me upgrade.

​@@THEPHINTAGECOLLECTORWatched the video, weird compatibility quirk.

Oh look, I think i found Mr. Know-It-All in the comments just now!

Another unqualified comment. The entire story of the video is, how Windows 2000 retains MS-DOS 7 by extracting it out from Win9x when doing a Win9x-to-Win2k upgrade, and how that behaviour seems to be a dropped feature from the Win2k beta. Your comment just prooves you‘ve not been watching it and missed the entire point of the story. Furthermore, Windows Me was never to become Windows 2000. Windows 2000 used to be NT 5, before getting renamed to Windows 2000. Windows Me was never an original plan, and never was it planned to be called Win2k anyway! If anything, Windows Neptune was supposed to be the next version after Win98 SE, though it was cancelled. Thus Microsoft shifted in Windows Me, as also Whistler (later be known as XP) would only come the year after. Some of this is told in this video as well, again leading to the conclusion you‘ve not been watching it. That‘s totally ok, as nobody is forcing you do, though it leaves the impression you‘re here only for flaming around. That would be ok, if you were at least having your facts straight, which you clearly don‘t. So I politely suggest you go elsewhere wasting somebody else‘s time. Thank you!

I know right? I too saw the thumbnail and immediately called bullshit - it's an msdos shell but, it does NOT run as the underlying core or kernel of the Windows os

@@solidstate0 thank you for your statement. I could also have named the video „Why is there a hidden MS-DOS 7 in Windows 2000?“ People would as well yell at me that Windows 2000 is NT and in no way running on DOS. But see, that was never claimed! All what is claimed is that a hidden MS-DOS 7 is found on the hard drive besides Windows 2000. And this claim is fully correct and accurate, both factually as well from a technical perspective. There *is* a hidden MSDOS7 folder after a Win9x upgrade to Win2k. It is even technically hidden using the *hidden* file system attributes. The video explored just that, why it‘s there, under which circumstances, and why it isn’t fully working in the Win2k final release but only the Win2k Release Candidate 3. I can‘t help it if people jump from „hidden MS-DOS“ to „it‘s running on MS-DOS“. That‘s neither what the thumbnail, nor the title, nor the video description says. -TPC

If I wanted to make a FreeDOS video, then I would have done a FreeDOS video. But I wanted to make exactly *this* video. I'm sorry to hear you're dissatisfied, but I can't help it, nobody forced you to watch it. Still, I'll happily consider doing something on FreeDOS if there's enough interest into the topic.

Karen read the title of your video and is upset that the video was exactly what was promised 😆😆😆. I get it, Karen gotta Karen