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Installing Win NT 4.0 Workstation and Dual booting Win NT 4.0 Workstation and Win 95 B

From Steve Gunderson on Sun, 11 Jul 1999

Hi Answer Guy,

I have several (shotgun approach) questions which I would like to present you with. If you could shed some light on any or all of them, I would appreciate it.

1. While running the NT 4.0 install discs, I get the following error:
   Stop: C0000221, unknown hard error\systemboot\system32\NTDLL.dll.
   I have Win95 B installed and am attempting a dual boot. I have an extended partion (220 Meg FAT 32) ready for NTFS. Will the install work if I reformat w/o Win95?

I think a Linux installation would work much better.

[ For one thing, ZipSlack (http://www.slackware.com/zipslack/) would fit in 100 MB. -- Heather ]

2. How would I create a Dual boot for Win NT 4.0 Workstation and Win 95 B.

I don't know. However, there is a pretty good series of Linux Documentation Project HOWTOs on various multi-boot configurations like:

• Linux+DOS+Win95+OS2 mini-HOWTO, by Mike Harlan

  How to use Linux and DOS and OS/2 and Win95 together.

  http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Linux+DOS+Win95+OS2.html

• Linux+NT-Loader mini-HOWTO, by Bernd Reichert

  How to use Linux and the Windows NT boot loader together.

  http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Linux+NT-Loader.html

• Linux+Win95 mini-HOWTO, by Jonathan Katz

  How to use Linux and Windows95 together.

  http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Linux+Win95.html

• Loadlin+Win95 mini-HOWTO, by Chris Fischer

  How to use Linux and Windows95 together, using LOADLIN.

  http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/HOWTO/mini/Loadlin+Win95.html

3. Is there a utility that will let me Multi boot from two separate hard drives? Both have Win 95 installed and I want to install NT 4.0 workstation on one of them, possibly by itself.

Thank you in advance for your help.
Steve Gunderson

You could look at a commercial package called "Partition Magic"

I've personally never used it, but I know it supports Linux pretty well.

You see, I've gotten out of the habit of installing Microsoft based operating systems on my computers. I've never tried to run two MS operating systems on a single system. (Actually my old box, antares used to have a triple boot MS-DOS 5.0, OS/2 2.0, and Linux --- but that was a long time ago --- and MS had disowned OS/2 by then anyway).

I suppose you could install Linux and run NT and '95 inside of VMware (http://www.vmware.com). I know it will run both of them. Heck you can run both of them concurrently if you have the RAM. You can have each running full screen or in windows (under the X Windowing System, XFree86). I think you can even switch from full screen to windows on the fly.

VMware is a commercial package. It appears that work on WINE (*) (a re-implementation of the MS Windows APIs and base programs and utilities) is continuing.

• (http://www.winehq.com) It also appears that the author of Bochs, Kevin Lawton, is also working on a Freemware ("free VMware" clone?).

• (Daemon News 199907: Questions and Answers on Bochs with Kevin Lawton http://www.daemonnews.org/199907/bochs.html)

Bochs, of course, is a package which emulates an entire PC CPU and chipset. It is distributed in source form, can be compiled and run on most Unix platforms (and there is a port to MS Win32) and can run MS Windows, or Linux or most any other PC operating system.

Please note that I'm the LINUX GAZETTE Answer Guy. I volunteer time, writing and research to answer Linux questions. (I also work at a company that provides commercial support for Linux, though that's a more recent development).

Because Linux follows UNIX conventions this also entails answering many UNIX questions. Because most of the systems out there, running Linux or otherwise, are PCs I also answer quite a few generic questions about PCs.

I volunteer my time in this endeavor because:

1. It's fun.
2. Linux is free. I benefit from it and providing support is a way for me to contribute back to the community (since I'm not much of a programmer).
3. It often forces me to learn more about Linux and the other software that I use.
4. It gains me some small degree of recognition.

I don't support NT or other forms of MS Windows because:

1. they aren't fun to me.
2. Microsoft doesn't pay me to and doesn't give me, or anyone I know, anything for free, and isn't a participant in my "community."
3. I don't want to know any more about MS Windows.
   I professionally supported MS-DOS and Win 3.x products for a few years, and I never liked MS Windows. The superficial changes to the MS Windows UI in '95 and '98 are no improvement to me, and the underlying structural foundation "feels" like a desparate attempt to shore up the hull of a sinking ship by welding more and more slag over it. (One of the few things I learned from the brief stints of welding that I've done: You can't make a sloppy weld stronger by adding more metal over the seams).
4. recognition as an MS Windows expert will get you a cup of coffee in some places (so long as you toss in a couple of bucks). Of course, it might get you tossed out of a few other places (*).

• ( For an amusing article on this topic: osOpinion: http://www.osopinion.com/Opinions/JoycePark/JoycePark1.html Joyce provides a poignant story of her travails with NT followed by a cheery account of her experiences running Linux. It can be sort of translated to "and then they shaved my legs with a cheese grater; after I recovered the alternative was, by comparison, like a luxurious bubble bath").

To get answers about NT, perhaps you should go to the vendor that sold you their software. Wasn't "technical support" supposed to be one of the added values of buying commercial software?

Copyright © 1999, James T. Dennis
Published in The Linux Gazette Issue 44 August 1999

HTML transformation by Heather Stern of Starshine Techinical Services, http://www.starshine.org/

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