It depends on what you mean by "W3.1 bootable ISO". Making a bootable ISO should be easy enough, but what it it supposed to do? Load Windows 3.1 on the CD? Install it? Both? Neither?
It depends on what you mean by "W3.1 bootable ISO". Making a bootable ISO should be easy enough, but what it it supposed to do? Load Windows 3.1 on the CD? Install it? Both? Neither?
-Q
It enables you to boot from the CD. And you can't boot from CD's without having the CD have boot files in them
I don't know, I'm mostly concerned with getting the DOS boot sector on so it'll pass off to IO.SYS. Also, if the BIOS recognizes the CD and boots from it, that'd obviate the need for MSCDEX, wouldn't it?
It is quite possible to make a windows 3.x bootable cdrom, and easy as well. It is also easy to get older machines to boot to the cdrom without too much effort.
To make windows, one needs to create a ram disk (use xmsdsk.exe, as this sets the ram drive letter), and the files on the cdrom.
To create the cdrom files, run setup /a, and install it to any directory. I use eg, s:\windows, where s: is the cdrom drive.
To create the ramdrive files, run setup /n, this creates a small directory with about 140k of stuff. I put this into r:\win. To create this, you can use subst r: c:\ramdisk, and set the stuff in c:\ramdisk\win
Windows should be configured for VGA mode, prehaps with the speaker for noises. When you are ready. You can then set other applications that you want in s: (ie c:\cdrom), so that you have all the apps ready for use.
Once you are happy with this arrangement, you can put r:\ into an archive file, and then start making your boot disk. This should create the things like the ramdisk (using xmsdsk), the cdrom (use /L:S to set the drive to S:). and a few other things.
You can either use a real DOS boot disk, or you can use something like bcdlw or smartbootmgr to bypass the bios, and boot whatever is on the cdrom without having to fiddle the bios. Your boot disk should be the boot image of the cdrom. [you could use isolinux here].
If you wish to save the config between sessions, you can do some fancy things, by removing the bulk of the 160k. These require win.com and winver.exe to be in the windows load directory. However, you can copy these from the cdrom, and not archive these on every write. You can reduce the stored file to a 14k RAR file, for example.
Comments
-Q
-Alexander Zarach
-Q
It enables you to boot from the CD. And you can't boot from CD's without having the CD have boot files in them
-Q
-Q
-Q
To make windows, one needs to create a ram disk (use xmsdsk.exe, as this sets the ram drive letter), and the files on the cdrom.
To create the cdrom files, run setup /a, and install it to any directory. I use eg, s:\windows, where s: is the cdrom drive.
To create the ramdrive files, run setup /n, this creates a small directory with about 140k of stuff. I put this into r:\win. To create this, you can use subst r: c:\ramdisk, and set the stuff in c:\ramdisk\win
Windows should be configured for VGA mode, prehaps with the speaker for noises. When you are ready. You can then set other applications that you want in s: (ie c:\cdrom), so that you have all the apps ready for use.
Once you are happy with this arrangement, you can put r:\ into an archive file, and then start making your boot disk. This should create the things like the ramdisk (using xmsdsk), the cdrom (use /L:S to set the drive to S:). and a few other things.
You can either use a real DOS boot disk, or you can use something like bcdlw or smartbootmgr to bypass the bios, and boot whatever is on the cdrom without having to fiddle the bios. Your boot disk should be the boot image of the cdrom. [you could use isolinux here].
If you wish to save the config between sessions, you can do some fancy things, by removing the bulk of the 160k. These require win.com and winver.exe to be in the windows load directory. However, you can copy these from the cdrom, and not archive these on every write. You can reduce the stored file to a 14k RAR file, for example.
W