Quad Boot Windows & DOS?

Can I ask why you want to "TRAIN" your kids on these old, unsupported operating systems?

Ditto. Let them setup Ubuntu. Much more educational.
http://www.ubuntu.com/

Thank you so much. Your comments were very helpful.

It never ceases to amaze me how, when I stray from the programming sections of this site, the value and significance of the replies I receive to questions asked diminishes so dramatically.

So here's the scoop. I work in Linux daily. My kids won't. In their world, the real world of 10 and 14 year olds, they will use Windows.

I intend to present them with a basic mapping and understanding of the OS evolution that is Microsoft.

I already have a dual boot W2K/SP and a separate Vista PC. I just need something capable of demonstrating the early days.

Plus, as an added bonus, running a few games and setting soundblaster and other config options in autoexec.bat, config.sys and the like will be both fun and educational for them.

Hopefully the above mandated explanation provides the justification necessary for a proper reply.

I've participated in several topics from car repair, to renaming businesses on EE.  So as far as your comment about diverting from programming giving you diminished quality of responses, I call shennanigans.

I call it like it is.  And I, having a fairly sound understanding of DOS and early windows for my "YOUNG" age, see no value in teaching it.  


"I work in Linux daily. My kids won't."
They will if you don't provide them a Windows environment.

They NEED to learn how to use Linux! It is a VERY important operating system ( i use it every day too ), and setting it up and troubleshooting any problems will give them valuable IT skills!

we used to use system commander for this

http://eu.v-com.com/product/System_Commander_Home.html

partitions and maintains boot manager for switching between them

... Note also that with the Virtual PC approach you can have as many of the OS's as you want "booted" at the same time (in different windows) => which is very nice for comparing features; looking at how various utilities have evolved; etc.

Instead of trying to quad boot this system I would use virtualization instead. There are many free software programs you can use to do this such as Virtual PC, VirtualBox, and VMWare Server. You can get these programs here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/details.aspx?FamilyID=28c97d22-6eb8-4a09-a7f7-f6c7a1f000b5&displaylang=en

http://www.virtualbox.org/

http://www.vmware.com/products/server/

I hope this helps. Good luck.

A big 'Thank You' to all those who provided helpful comments!

I think I will be giving garycase's suggestion #1 a try, as it appears it will do exactly what I'm looking for.

This will be setup on an old Pentium. I have already acquired the necessary drivers for all of the OSs (including DOS) for the video, sound, etc. so I should be good to go.

Had there not been a good suggestion I was looking at the possibility of simply using up several old 2.4GB hard disks I have laying around, installing one OS on each, and simply swapping them out as needed.

On the same note, I had also thought about some sort or rigged 'super switch' with a couple DPDT switches (or maybe one switch and a relay) to select any of the four HDs, but that seemed like a lot of extra trouble for something that will in all likelihood be used very little.

I must say that even though I use VMs in linux-based servers, it never crossed my mind as a possible solution here. I do like the idea of side-by-side comparison between the OSs, but I think I like the multi-boot solution better.

Once again, thank you for your replies.
 

Thank you for your help and for taking the time to respond.

The following method would probably work.  (Note I haven't tried it).

Create your partitions first.

DOS on the first.
Windows 3.11 on the second.
Win 95 on the third
Win 98 on the fourth.

You are going to have to use fairly small partitions because there's a limit on where these OSes can boot from on a hard disk.  I can't remember the size specifications but someone here will know them.

You can probably "pour" the operating systems from another working system into these partitions as long as you take them in the order they are written on the donor system.  Do the root folder files first in the order it is on the disk and then take the rest of the folders.  ZTree is an excellent file manager in showing the order of the files on the disk.

For a boot manager you'll have to ask someone else.

Option #1 will work just fine => feel free to post any questions you have r.e. getting Boot-It set up correctly ... although if you follow the tutorials on their web site it's pretty simple.   It IS a bit "geeky" ... but not hard at all => and it works VERY nice :-)