On Tue, 20 Sep 2005 18:46:55 +0000, John Williams wrote:

> Is there any way to run pure DOS on my M45?  I know I can run it under 
> WindowsXP but have some DOS programs thich must run before Windows loads.
> 
> If there is a way, how do I start it?  I have a serial-port floppy drive but 
> no serial port on the M45.  If I get a USB floppy, would it work?
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> John Williams

XP does not have "pure DOS". XP is an NT system and what you are calling
"pure DOS" is just the NT command prompt. 

You have 2 choices, you can either create another partition and install
another operating system (ie DOS, Win98, WinME) or you can set a floppy on
your computer and boot from the floppy when you need to use DOS. The
problem with the last choice is that when you are in DOS you may not be
able to read our hard drive if you used the NTFS format at installation.
So if your program does not fit on the floppy you won't be able to run it
anyway.

Now, if you want to run some resident programs while booting to XP then
you need to get an updated version of your programs. You need to get the
NT version of the program, then it will load as requiered.