Microsoft didn't "screw up" to use your words but instead removed real
mode from Win Me. Long overdue and something that should have been done
when Win 98 was launched.

If you want to multiboot Win 9x systems (not just Win Me) you will need to
use a third party boot manager although there are methods by which Win Me
can be hacked so as to give the option to boot to DOS at bootup. Let
Google be your friend. There are at least three variations on this theme
in circulation.
--
Mike Maltby



ASTROJAZ wrote:

I have been at this problem for a solid two weeks, tried
everything, and got nowhere. It seems that you can set up a Dual or
even Multi boot with every Windows O/S product "except" Millennium
Edition. You don't even have the option to "Shutdown to Command
Prompt" in any menu. I need to use the drive for a straight DOS
system - critical real time motor control - but would like to use the
system for normal Windows tasks at other times.

The literature offers Win-ME dual boot with "higher level products"
like NT and Win2000, but fails all attempts to keep DOS alive on the
boot partition. After ME is installed, the hard drive goes directly
to Win-ME, or if interrupted by (CTRL or F8), you get 3 options, all
ending up in Win-ME running - no more "Command Prompt Option" - as
there used to be in Win-95 & 98, and as there is once again now, in
Win-XP, (which is overkill for this application, so I am staying with
ME, if possible).

In fact, after installing ME following the DOS 6.22 install (as
required), the MSDOS.SYS has entries for MultiBoot=1, and has renamed
IO.sys and MSDOS.sys to .DOS files - just as it did in the old
Win-98. It looks like it is quite "prepared" to run the DOS and
Win-ME options, but never does. I tried to change the BootGui=1 to
BootGui=0, so ME would not even launch, but even that was ignored,
and ME starts up anyway.

After about a dozen re-installs of DOS then ME, trying various
tricks, I even tried modifying the Config and Autoexec to create DOS
and WINDOWS "MenuItems" - but these DOS based prompt screens never
showed up, almost as though Win-ME "completely ignores" Config.Sys
and Autoexec.Bat, as soon as it has read what it needs for itself to
run, from the new MSDOS.SYS file for Windows ME version.

I also tried Partition Magic 8 (Boot Magic), which identifies the
DOS and Windows partitions, as one item "pair" - I suppose it expects
them figure things on their own, and to "Dual Boot" using Microsoft
code, after PM8 simply launches code in the main partition. This
again, ends up running Win-ME, just as without PM8.

Please help: Has anyone out there managed to create a Dual Boot with
Win-ME and DOS? What is the secret? I have already searched the web,
and Microsoft Knowledge Base, without results.

Am I correct in thinking that Microsoft screwed this up in ME and
failed to fix it since XP was in the works? Seems to be very little
reference at all, to Win-ME anywhere on this website, compared to all
the other O/S's. Maybe they wanted us to get a life, and ditch DOS -
but they had to relent in releasing Win-XP.

Any help would be most appreciated.