Lolll,
In 2007 still needing MS-DOS?? Well okay then, there are several methods (it's going to be hard to remember all this 15 years later :-P).
The 1st one is the emulator, and I’d say it’s the most recommended method these days (DOSBox is probably the most widespread and suitable), especially if you want to run a program while having Windows at hand (even if I believe that XP can handle MS-DOS mode in many cases: see CMD in the run menu and you have a sort of DOS even if it’s not really one).
@Khaise: MS-DOS 6.22 (the last version before Windows 95) or PC DOS 7.0 (it's 50/50; neither version really differs in functionality from the other except for the distributor and a few commands, kind of like Linux distributions today ;-) )
Furthermore, note that MS-DOS only handles FAT and that means FAT => maximum partition of 2GB.
To install it, see Mister BeeGee's response for downloading at least the first floppy disk, but all 4 are needed for a complete installation.
See the recommendations made to Yanks (below) for the complete installation.
@Diallo: Transferring a version 6.22 of MS-DOS onto a floppy disk => see Mister BeeGee's post (posts #1 and 7).
For the first one, I haven't tested if the link is still valid, but only floppy disk 1 is useful; all 4 are for a complete installation.
For the 7th, provided you have a pre-installed system under MS-DOS because SYS A:\ creates the system boot (on drive A and hence a floppy disk) and only copies system files from disk C as well as FORMAT A:\ /U /S /F (/U => Unconditional (no recovery of old data) /S => System included, /F => Fast format).
Otherwise, there's ModBoot, but it requires a pre-installed MS-DOS system.
GOOD TO KNOW: If you only have 1 floppy disk drive, you can boot from the first floppy disk to create a second boot floppy disk using drive B. see: "SYS B:", the system will ask you to change disks each time (drive A for the system disk, and drive B for the destination disk, as if you had 2 drives or almost ^^)
Initially, only msdos.sys, io.sys, and command.com are needed on the floppy disk to boot under MS-DOS.
If they are copied on the fly, you need to modify them using the command ATTRIB +h +r +s [file_name] (r = read-only, s = system, h = hide); if I remember correctly, this should allow the system to boot from it but without config.sys or autoexec.bat and even less the useful little tools like the French keyboard (keyb.com + keyboard.sys and country.sys), access to XMS and EMS (himem.sys, emm386.exe) to load certain programs into high memory and allow a Windows 3.11 (for example) to utilize the system beyond the basic 640KB.
@Yanks: I have something better than a multi-boot that would probably work better in your case (and for others too), which is to create a virtual machine. Multi-boot generally involves partitioning and is only useful for memory and disk space-hungry systems, which isn’t the case for MS-DOS (2GB max on HDD and FAT, 4MB of RAM is more than enough). There are different tools available to install a virtual machine type system under Windows that allows you to manage MS-DOS as if you were on it. Among others, the famous VMWare. This allows you to have at your fingertips an operating system different from the one you have (nothing stops you from installing an additional XP by the way ;-) ). I myself have XP Pro and Debian under VMWare, allowing me to do some things under Linux (via VMWare) and others under Windows like gaming (if it’s not to say that ultimately Windows only serves to play and that I do everything else on Linux :-P).
Otherwise, for the multi-boot, you should start with MS-DOS (2GB FAT partition), then Windows XP logically. Windows XP would be installed in the remaining disk space (see: a 20GB HDD => 2GB for MS-DOS in FAT + 18GB for Windows XP (FAT32 or NTFS)). There are other methods for multi-booting but they require modifying the boot.ini of the previously installed Windows to boot from another disk and/or another partition, but this is more complex, and I wouldn’t dare share more to avoid any problem related to accidental data loss and manipulation errors ;-). It seems to me that you could find other topics related to multi-boot and the modification of boot.ini accordingly, but without real system knowledge (hda0, hda1, hdb0,... and also what that means: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)) it’s best to avoid; you risk no longer being able to boot without a complete reinstallation.
Personal little fun for 2008, autoexec.bat and config.sys dedicated to MS-DOS 6.xx only
Config.sys:
[menu]
menuitem=menu1,Default Config
menuitem=menu2,EMS Config
menudefault=menu1,10
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
[menu1]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE NOEMS
[menu2]
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE 2048
[COMMON]
DOS=HIGH,UMB
FILESHIGH=10
BUFFERSHIGH=20,0
STACKSHIGH=9,256
FCBSHIGH=4,0
COUNTRY=033,850,C:\DOS\COUNTRY.SYS
Autoexec.bat:
@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $P$G
PATH=C:\DOS
LH KEYB FR,,033,C:\DOS\KEYBOARD.SYS
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T3
:menu1
LH SMARTDRIVE 512
GOTO END
:menu2
GOTO END
:END
That’s my little fun with these 2 boot files; of course, it’s a multi-config boot under MS-DOS, with EMS management or not + smartdrive management in the event that there’s no EMS. I could have added a submenu (see: submenu) for network management, CD-ROM to manage or not those functions, but I thought that would be too much for novices.
Looking forward to having helped some to shed light on their lantern ;)
