Windows 3.xx, OS or not?

[Kintaro]

Anyway, none of your points change the fact that Windows 3.11 puts the processor in protected mode and runs a virtual machine that emulates all of the features of DOS. When these are disk features, that magic in MSDOS.SYS does the real work. It doesn't really run on top of dos though, it runs an independent system that then provides an abstraction of some very small DOS features.

He's not saying any of that isn't true, just that his definition of an operating system is a piece of software which is required to use a computer and that Windows 3.1 doesn't meet that definition because DOS is required in order to fulfil the role of an OS.

We're going round in circles, I said this a couple of posts ago, not only is Windows 3.1 not an operating system neither is Linux which is just a kernel and requires other components (bootloader, shell etc.) before it can be considered to be an operating system.

Well, you need a filesystem driver to get much use out of any operating system. Without grub and the filesystem drivers, Linux has no files and it has no way of loading any (even an initrd), to stop calling it an operating system because of this is absurd. Without DOS, Windows 3.x is broken, much like Linux is in this case. I think it just reflects back to Worker201's statement of the operating system being an object. DOS is part of the Windows 3.x operating system - but when all that is left of DOS is just an abstraction Windows 3.11 is hardly a secondary component to DOS - DOS becomes a secondary component to Windows 3.11 through its VM stack.

[worker201]

There isn't any real hard or fast definition of an OS, because the concept of an OS is just an abstraction layer.  You know, there's the hardware, and the userland programs - the OS is defined as the control structure that sits between them.  For example, Windows 3.1.1 sits between Word and a 386 SX.  If DOS sits between Windows and the processor, then DOS is just a lower-level abstraction layer than Windows is.

One might say that Windows and DOS are the primary components of the Windows Operating System.

Just as one would be correct in saying that Gnome and the Linux kernel are components of the Fedora Linux Distribution.  It's really all the same shit - but the components in the Linux distro are more transparent and hot-swappable, so it feels like they are actually userland programs.  They're not.

[Calum]

PS - 32 bit windows is an OS because it does do this, whether it's based on MS DOS or not, if you get a Windows 95/98/2000 CD and install the system from it, you get a windows operating system, with DOS integrated (or emulated in some cases?) as part of it. But with 16 bit windows, the installer is a program that you run in DOS, just like every other DOS program is.

simples.

Nope, you won't get Windows 9x to run either without DOS. This is because in the initial stages of its operation, just like Windows 3.xx, win.com uses DOS disk functions to open up vxds (in 9x) for things like the disk driver, display driver, etc. Then it switches into protected mode, and fires up the virtual machine (that 'emulator' you talk about). Also, with Windows 3.xx the extractor that puts the installer on the disk is written in DOS, the actual installer is a windows application. As a nostalgic, I've installed this recently enough under VMware to know.

Anyway, none of your points change the fact that Windows 3.11 puts the processor in protected mode and runs a virtual machine that emulates all of the features of DOS. When these are disk features, that magic in MSDOS.SYS does the real work. It doesn't really run on top of dos though, it runs an independent system that then provides an abstraction of some very small DOS features.

In any case this is getting a bit like debating that Linux isn't an operating system when it is running under VMware.

ok, first, GNU/Linux (for want of a better catch all term) is still an OS wherever it is, and second, you've missed what i said again, in this case, i didn't say Windows 9x would run without DOS, what i said was that if you install Windows 9x, you get DOS as part of the system, however with Windows 3.xx, you don't install a Windows operating system, you install DOS, and then install Windows as a program under DOS.

I mean there were thousands of other DOS programs that had to do OS duties themselves due to the slim responsibilities that DOS was prepared to take on. eg DOS didn't even do any networking (and neither did MS Windows, for the most part) which is a bit extreme by today's OS standards, but would you class all those other programs as OSs as well? Is this an OS? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachne_%28web_browser%29

Where's the line? Here's where i draw the line: If it makes your computer operate, it's an operating system. DOS does, Windows 9x does (whether it has a DOS chassis or not) however Windows 3.xx does not, and cannot without an actual OS powering it.

i think this dead horse has been flogged truly to pieces by now, by the way, but we can go round the circle another couple of times if you like.

One other thing, glancing over this thread is further confirmation that your accusations of my ignorance and stupidity are actually nothing more than your frustration that i don't have the same opinion as you.

[Aloone_Jonez]

I mean there were thousands of other DOS programs that had to do OS duties themselves due to the slim responsibilities that DOS was prepared to take on. eg DOS didn't even do any networking (and neither did MS Windows, for the most part) which is a bit extreme by today's OS standards, but would you class all those other programs as OSs as well? Is this an OS? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arachne_%28web_browser%29

Is a DOS extender an OS?

Some DPMI kernels only use DOS for nothing more than file IO and possibly mouse, although some of the DOS games I have use their own mouse driver and it wouldn't surprise me if DOS extenders with 32-bit disk access exist.

I've just read the Wiki for the HX-DOS Extender which seems like one hell of an OS and is even capable of running some Windows programs.
http://www.unet.univie.ac.at/~a0503736/php/drdoswiki/index.php?n=Main.HX-DOS

[Calum]

imho an extender isn't an OS, it's an extender.

However it can be part of an OS, just like all the apps, and even programs, in any OS distribution are part of the OS. I mean nobody would seriously claim MS Notepad was an OS, and yet it's been part of MS Windows longer than some of you have been alive, i bet.

Arguably any piece of software can be part of an OS, in fact anything that's been installed under an OS could be said to be extending that OSs functionality, if it does anything at all.