News Group Posts

merge boot disks

Why Merge wants a boot disk

From: Bela Lubkin <belal@sco.com>
Subject: Re: Merge Installation/Configuration Problem on OpenServer 5.0.7
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2003 06:45:09 GMT
References: <20030803230650.GC1332@jpradley.jpr.com>
<20030803193345.24535.00000956@mb-m28.aol.com> 

Transpower wrote:

> OK, I see your problem, JP and Tony.  With the AOL news group reader I can see
> a list of all messages in a thread and so I get the entire context.  I can go
> to any message in the list.

Apparently you do not see, because you still do not comply.

> Update on Attempting to Install/Configure Merge 5.23: I realized that there
> must be a permission problem in a user, since the problem wasn't the Start
> Disk.  So I created a new user under 5.0.7 and this time the install of
> Personal Windows went much further, proving that the in-place upgrade did not
> upgrade certain user data/permissions.  However, I now get this message:
> 
> "This version of Windows requires MS-DOS 7.1 and currently MS-DOS 6.x or older
> is installed.  If someone already has Windows 3.1 installed and this MS-DOS is
> upgraded to MS-DOS 7.1, the Windows 3.1 will not work anymore.  If this is the
> situation it is best to install the upgrade version of Windows 95, because it
> has MS-DOS 7.0 which works with Windows 3.1.  If you really want to install the
> Windows from this CD then you first need to log in as 'root' and install DOS
> from this CD.  Windows installation failed."
> 
> But I've completely removed the previous version of Merge (from the 5.0.4
> installation), and I've installed DOS/Windows using the latest revision of
> Merge.  Is the previous version of DOS hiding somewhere?  Any ideas?

As far as I can tell from this context-free discussion, you are trying
to install some version of Windows (you don't say which -- you've
mentioned several along the way) -- using boot disks that were made for
you by a tech at some computer store.  In order for this to have any
chance at all, the boot disk and Windows install media you're using will
have to exactly match.  Since you've mentioned neither in this message,
every single reader is in the dark.  You're just throwing words to the
wind.

Merge requires a boot disk because Windows installation requires a boot
disk.  If you had a completely blank PC you would not be able to install
Windows from unbootable media, you would need a boot disk.  Merge
_could_, technically, provide internal boot media.  But this would
violate Microsoft's copyrights, and the authors of Merge would have been
put out of business more than 10 years ago.  I suspect that with current
Windows media kits, they might even technically be able to install
without a boot disk; however, the software scrupulously follows the
original requirement so that there is no question at all of Merge
promoting piracy of Windows.

You could of course use your own pirated media, but you would be doing
that under your own power, neither encouraged nor abetted by Merge.  In
fact, it sounds like this is pretty much what you _are_ doing, trying to
use Windows upgrade media whose salient differences from full product
media are (1) they aren't bootable, (2) they're cheaper.  And hey,
you're paying the price in frustration and confusion.  The system works.

>Bel<

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