Info : dosstart

I have no doubt that BillyBob will tell me what I did wrong - but just a
warning to you all ...
If you edit dossstart as I did, and make a typo to a non-existant :label, you can find yourself in an endless loop such that Windows boots only to the bad
dosstart. You can edit dosstart in DOS but it makes no difference - the
(bad) dosstart.bat file is stored somewhere (I wonder where) and the newly
edited file is not used.
CTRL + Alt + DEL does not bring a new, correct Win reboot, neither does
pressing the restart button on the case, or a PowerOff/PowerOn -
it would be nice if I new where these boot settings were stored.
regards

 

merlin,

Windows reads the lines in dosstart.bat and takes them and whatever lines are in your regular autoexec.bat to create a new autoexec.bat whenever you choose "restart in MS-DOS Mode" from the shutdown menu. It renames your normal auto.. and config.sys temporarily, then restores them when you type "EXIT" to return to Windows. If this can't occur normally because your dosstart.bat is faulty (or your dos program crashes, etc.), then Windows will continuosly boot to that faulty autoexec.bat.

What I'm getting at is you're editing the wrong thing at this point. Just edit autoexec.bat while your still in DOS (which you'll notice includes whatever you put in dosstart.bat.) Now, you'll be able to "EXIT" from it properly, and Windows will restore your original autoexec.bat and config.sys to return to Windows.

 

I would be gald to help out here BUT !!!!! .

I tried to restart my Win98SE machine in the MSDos Mode and there were some ILLEAGL entires in the DosStart.bat and messed me up.

They are the same Creative Audio lines that are in the Autoexec.bat but are REMed out. I am actually using the onboard audio.

I have it back now so will do some further checking tomorrow.

But I believe Eck has it right.

BTW. The DosStart.bat is in the C:\Windows folder.

BillyBob

 

Hi Eck and Billybob, Your responses most welcome.
I have neither autoexec.bat nor config.sys on the PC - maybe dossstart
creates them when I exit to DOS - don't know, but it is likely after
I read Ecks post.
I have a lot of CHOICE statements in dosstart and one of them lead
with either a Y or N to the same label at the beginning of the dosstart.bat
If dosstart created an autoexec with this bad code, it would certainly
make all following boots just go into an endless cycle - which makes Eck's
post very plausible and welcome - I should have removed the created
autoexec and config files instead of editing dosstart.
I do not understand tho' why creating a new, edited dosstart file does not
create new, correct autoexec and config files on a reboot to MSDOS.
Interestingly, after running dosstart I find files config.app and
autoexec.app on my root drive - who can figure what is happening ?
Certainly not me !
Anyway I sorted it out by restoring a root partion from a save I had made
before I changed dosstart. I only changed this file after I read a post on
these boards giving a tip and batch file which allows you to see up to
15 RB00 system save files in folder Sysbackup. This now works OK.
Thanks again and regards