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Do you remember mucking around with Autoexec.bat, Win.ini, and floppy drives, or typing Win from the Windows directory to load Microsoft Windows? Our apologies if you've tucked these memories away in a place you thought they'd never be resurrected, but if you want feel all nostalgic reminiscing on your long journey from DOS to Windows 7, you have to check out this nearly 10 minute YouTube video.
Poser "TheRasteri" attempts to follow an upgrade path through every major version of Windows. To do this, he set up a virtual machine with MS-DOS 5.0 using VMware. The video begins with the narrator explaining that "this is an experiment to test the upgrade facility of Microsoft Windows operating systems" in hopes of "shedding light on how the Windows upgrade process has changed over the years."
Surprsingly enough, the entire upgrade path goes mostly without a hitch, and by the time he got to Windows 7, some legacy applications remained, like Card File, Recorder, Terminal, and Reversi, among others. Pretty impressive that, should you want to, you can upgrade through nearly two decades of Windows OSes.
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EarthBoundMisfit
June 08, 2011 at 12:14am
Windows ME was to have been Windows 98 with improved USB support.
Unfortunately, it also had the same flawed memory stack, so if a program encountered an error while operating, it would give your computer a blue screen of death and reboot.
I remember one company came out with software that would prevent a system crash...only the affected program would die....but the software was a bit pricey.
Personally, i liked Windows ME. After giving it a good registry clean...and tweaked to my specs...it was largely error free for me. Plus it also was the first Windows OS to introduce the System Restore function that is a staple of Windows XP.
Talcum X
March 05, 2011 at 6:36am
Ah, Memories, I started with DOS 2.0 there abouts with my Tandy 1000 SX and have used every iteration of it and windows since. Was never really a fan of Windows untill '95. I was hord core DOS, Windows was just a fancy menu system, nothing more.
I remember my friend got a hold of Windows NT 3.5 and installed it on his machine at the time (only had 8MB of memory I think). Took over 10 minutes to load after install. It drug on for what seemed like forever. But during the age when RAM was $50 a MB, not many home useres even had 8MB. But we both worked in the biz so we got stuff at wholesale prices. Still wasn't cheap though...
PandaMarketer
March 04, 2011 at 4:21pm
I remember that Win 3.11 would hang when installed on a stand-alone machine; that is of course, unless you supplied the /n switch! It baffled my superior pc tech friend. He shruged it off, but I knew I got him for being on the edge!
cepheus42
March 04, 2011 at 3:45am
Good times indeed. I certainly do remember mucking about with Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files for hours to maximize the amount of memory I had for my applications, or to simply get the sound card to work properly. I remember avoiding upgrading to Windows until 3.1 was released, and I remember hearing about the painful upgrades for folks trying to go from 95 to 98, or 2000 to XP. Clearly over time MS fixed those issues, and it was fun to watch upgrade after upgrade, and see the left over artifacts of the original OS's still available in Win 7. Makes me wonder if I can do the same thing in a Windows 7 virtual box.... hmmmmm... where are those old OS disks of mine....
garrettp
March 03, 2011 at 8:23pm
That was awesome. I always wondered if that was possible. I wish I had time like that to kill :(
ShyLinuxGuy
March 03, 2011 at 3:20pm
Upgrades are never really a good idea. It's only for convenience. You're carrying over artifacts from the previous install.
I'm glad MS allowed XP users to do a fresh install as an "upgrade".I would think that upgrading from DOS 5 all the way to Windows 7 would be really bug-infested at the least, but this is really interesting! I wish I had the time and the patience to do that. I've always wondered if this could be done, and I guess this is proof! I have every major version of Windows since 3.1...(the reason I have 3.1 *still* is because I want to show my future children what I used when I was a kid, when they're busy enjoying Windows 14 and Ubuntu 22.10 on their tablets--that and it kind of has a little sentiment to me from the days I was in preschool/kindergarten and played "Carmen San Diego" and "Richard Scarry's Busytown".
Opterongeek
March 03, 2011 at 2:40pm
Watching this video instantly reminded me of an old saying from my Gateway support days. Anyone else ever use it?
My 3 systers [sic] went to com bat
That's how we remembered to create boot floppies for our customers with older 95/98 systems.
Scary.
OliverSudden
March 03, 2011 at 1:29pm
I used to write config.sys and autoexec.bat files from memory using the copy con command.
Good times.
someuid
March 03, 2011 at 12:03pm
I remember the good old days of DOS. DOS 4.0 was my first start. I remember Windows 2.0 in black and white.
I also remember tweaking autoexec.bat and config.sys to get as many drivers and TSRs loaded into high memory and configuring extended memory for either games or programs.
I also remember a distinct lack of blue screens of death. Yeah, DOS wasn't very sophisticated, but at least it didn't crash very often.
This is all very funny because I was just talking to a friend about a favorite DOS game of mine called 688 Attack Sub by SSI.
theriot72
March 03, 2011 at 11:37am
Anybody notice the login name at 4:05 in the video!!!!!! That was great!!!!!
dracx619
March 03, 2011 at 10:53am
this was a trip for me. very interesting seeing the progression of windows over the years. my progression (of ownership at least) was 3.1, 98se, xp, vista, 7
SilverSurferNHS
March 03, 2011 at 11:02am
This was awesome - and i love VMware. Still have it in VM Player to run legacy apps along with XP and my sandbox for 7. Throw in ME to that list and we've had the same progression. I don't even rember the hardware that was in that 3.1 box, but it weighed a ton.
What a trip.
maleficarus™
March 03, 2011 at 2:06pm
ME was 98 3rd edition anyways. It was no worse then 98 was. People love to pick on ME but there is no real merit for it...
SilverSurferNHS
March 03, 2011 at 10:58am
ME was a flop, and most people wouldn't consider it a major contribution to the life span of windows. I personally had the most blue screens and crashes with ME than any other windows os, second only to vista.
OliverSudden
March 03, 2011 at 1:36pm
@ Deviate...Consider these two questions:
1) what did Microsoft have riding on ME?
Remember that ME, a successor to Windows 98, was the non-NT-based kernel OS. Windows 2000, a big success in the enterprise world (where MS makes most of it's money), was clearly the future.
2) what did Microsoft have riding on Vista? When all other baskets were egg-free?
Deviate
March 03, 2011 at 4:31pm
Perhaps they were nearly equal flops, with the exception that Vista stuck around long enough to receive a couple service packs. Not to mention MS's attempt to revive "faith" with the whole "Mojave" stunt. I think Vista had more hype riding on it than anything, simply because it had been 5 years since the last major Windows release, and they hyped it up to all hell. But from a technical standpoint, ME was still the bigger flop. MS knew it, and they swept it under the rug as quickly as possible with XP.
