Windows 95, most likely. It plays very well with DOS software running within it
and if it doesn't you can setup a shortcut to exit Win95, run the DOS program
then automatically relaunch windows when you quit the DOS program. Windows 98,
nope, can't do that. If a DOS program doesn't work within 98 and later, you
just don't get to run it - not without a virtual machine.
MS-DOS was finally gone as the underpinnings of Windows with Windows 98. The
"handoff" to Windows gets DOS out of the way completely with Win98.
You can create a DOS 7.1 system without Win98/98SE and run DOS software on it,
even Windows 3.1x. Win98 and later can't be booted to DOS mode or restarted in
DOS mode. If you're up to the task you can create a dual boot DOS 7.1 and
Windows 98 setup to sort of get back to how Win95 operated.
One thing the DOS with Windows 95 brought to the table was removing the need
for COMMAND.COM and MSDOS.SYS to start in specific sectors on a drive. All the
functions of both were merged into COMMAND.COM and MSDOS.SYS was made into an
editable text file that made it easy to change how the computer booted.
With Windows 95 OSR2 aka 95b (and its minor variants 95B and 95c, mostly
referencing the version of Internet Explorer packed in) came FAT32 and the DOS
version updated to work with it. That was also the first Windows to support
USB, with an addon package, and much like PCMCIA with Windows 3.1x and DOS you
needed a separate driver for almost every device, including storage. Very
problematic to have several different thumb drives, each needing its own
driver. There wasn't a USB Mass Storage class driver yet. That didn't come
along until 98, it got better in 98SE and really good in WinMe. The WinMe USB
drivers have been packaged into installers for 98 and 98SE. Can be found on the
MSFN forum. That and other good bits from WinMe plus KernelEX and you can
frankenstein a lean and mean 98SE based OS that can run many programs which
"require" Windows XP.
From: Peter Blodow <[email protected]>
To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2017 2:26 AM
Subject: Re: [Emc-users] Koerner retrofit
Florian, Windows 95 / 98 is MS-DOS with a graphic user interface on top.
There was a boot option to start with DOS and then start Windows
manually afterwards from the command line, calling c:\windows\win.exe.
It was possible to stop Windows, too, get out and return to the normal
DOS surface. Very much like GEM on Commodore computers. When you asked
for the system ID under Windows 95 it answered "DOS 7".
So, it should be possible to run a DOS program under Windows 95, maybe
using some ingenuity.
Peter
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