JT> Bob Lawrence wrote:
> WARNING **********  ON TOPIC QUESTION  ********** WARNING

JT> Close, but it would be advisable to place the ON TOPIC
JT> statement within the subject as well. Some (such as myself) can
JT> see these instantly, and just ignore the message.

 That's not the rule. As everyone knows, in AVT the subject heading
is meaningless anway. My favourite was BILL'S NEW VCR that ran for ten
years, and long after Bill had departed.

> I usually fix it in Win98, but yesterday I ran SCANDISK under
> DOS6 and it gave a message "You are using a beta version of DOS6,
> upgrade to an official release."

JT> Not sure where the "you are using a beta" message is coming
JT> from, I'm guessing the application, (scandisk), but it might be
JT> using something in the OS, but you've already checked in those.
JT> It's not windows is it? 

 No! It runs under DOS.

> Now, as it happens, I do *not* run a beta release of DOS6. It's
> actually DOS6.22 (the one with the disc-compression thaty Gates
> stole), and I *bought* the bloody thing!

JT> Yeah but. There are lots of versions like that around. You
JT> don't know it's a beta till you try to "upgrade", and the new
JT> "correct" release recognises it as one. It's all bullshit to
JT> get you to spend more money (or not run betas). 

 You're missing the point. My DOS6.22 runs SCANDISK perfectly okay on
the old 486 computer. Where is the message coming from? And *what*
is identifying the O/S as a Beta?

JT> Scandisk checks for more anomolies than defrag. In fact, defrag
JT> *relys* on scandisk to run first, and you risk corruption if
JT> you don't run them in that order... Let's just say the
JT> errorchecking within defrag is "minimal". 

 Actually, it's the other way around. DEFRAG operates on the disk
itself, SCANDISK also checks the files system (and tries to fix it).
My point was that *both* programs access the disc. If the message si
somewhere on the hard drive, why doesn't defrag find it too?

> The *difference* must be in the computer bios! When I boot from
> floppy, anything on the hard drive is not involved, it must be in
> the BIOS. Whatever is misidentifying an illegal DOS version is
> only in the new computer. Bloody Microsoft has built somethign
> norty into my computer! And stuffed it! Typical M$... they never
> get it right.

JT> Nah, Little or nothing of the bios routines are used anymore.
JT> Just about everything has been re-written and replaced by your
JT> OS.

 But my O/S is the *same* in both computers. I boot it off a floppy!

 When the computer boots, the BIOS goes first and finds all the
drives, sets the clock, all that hardware shit and writes the
variables into RAM. Then it boots the floppy and command.com. At
this stage, the hard drive is not involved. It could be blank!

 When I run SCANDISK (on the floppy) on the AMD 486, it checks the
floppy no problem. When I run SCANDISK on the AMD Athlon if get the
"Beta" message and it won't run!

 Surely, the difference (and the blooody message itself) must be in
the Athlon computer somewhere.

JT> Dunno about 'free', but there were THREE. 6.2, 6.21 & 6.22. 6.2
JT> was released, whoever complained about their using copywrited
JT> disk compression routines, 6.21 was then released (as an
JT> interim) WITHOUT any compressor, then came 6.22, which has
JT> their own compressor (or, at least no-one has proved it belongs
JT> to anyone else anyway).

 I must have missed 6.21. I thought it was DOS6 that had the stolen
compression, 6.2 had no compression, and 6.22 had a different stolen
compression. I got them all from Microsoft. I've still got the discs
with the Microsoft stickers. All you had to do was ring up and
complain, and they sent it to you. BTW, scandisk works with 6.20 on
floppy, perfectly well (no message).

 What worried s me is not scandisk (who gives a shit anyway) it's the
thought that Microsoft has built somethign sneaky into the Athlon
itself, or the Athlon BIOS. Where else can the message becoming from?
If I boot from floppy and the 486 works okay and the Athlon doesn't...
what's the difference? It's only the CPU and BIOS.

Regards,
Bob
  
  


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