The great PC-Task thread

[rvo_nl]

IMHO, it's one of those things that should ultimately have had a PPC version. Emulating an x86 on PPC would certainly have been a lot more effective than doing it on 68K, especially with a JIT implementation.

I was surprised by the speed of dosbox running under OS4.. It was fast enough to play the DOS version of settlers. So thats an option for classic users that want to play old DOS games.

[rvo_nl]

So, today I've decided to have a go at PC-Task. One of the last things I want to get running on my machine. Unfortunately, I havent gotten very far. Here's what's happened so far..
 
First off, I had lots of trouble creating a bootable disk. Windows 7 has lost all support for creating 720kb boot disks, it seems. Then I found out I can mount a disk IMAGE instead. Crossdos is able to create a dosdriver for that. I was able to find some bootdisk images on bootdisk.com. So I can now boot into MS-DOS 6.22. So much fun!

Then I tried installing Windows 3.11 from disk, but when loading SETUP it complains about a missing file. Fortunately, 'on some other site' I found a hardfile that contains all the Windows 3.11 installation files. Mounting the hardfile is no problem, but installing Win3.11 gave me quite some trouble again.
 
First, I needed a dedicated Windows partition. When I installed my drive, I made sure to leave a 1.4Gb partition free (well below the 4GB barrier) for PC emulation. So I booted from the MS-Dos 6.22 Disk Image and selected FDisk to set the partition as active and after that ran format to format the drive. Unfortunately it only recognises 344.5MB.. After doing this I could no longer acces the drive on the Amiga side so I tried creating a dosdriver for it using Crossdos. This worked but still I can not access the drive. (had no problem with this for my Mac partitions, mind).

Anyway, the emulation recognises the partition so I decided to continue with Windows 3.11 installation. So the install itself goes fine, but after that it says I have to wait for Windows to load. I did wait for 30 minutes but nothing happens although CPU is 100% occupied. When I give up and check the files installed there is a Windows folder but no autoexec.bat's or anything like that, so I guess its impossible to boot from this partition. So I'm stuck here.

What's more, Ive done all this using the Dynamic version of PC Task 4.4, since the Interpretive version crashes when I set it to boot from the Disk Image. I've also tried PCx but that doesnt load at all.

So basically, Im a  bit stuck here and could use some help!

What is the better emulator, PC-Task or PCx? Do both programs allow me to install Windows 95 (my ultimate goal - yes I know I need to get out more) ?

Do I need the Interpretive version of PC-Task to install Windows 3.11?

What can I do to succesfully install Windows 3.11?

What MS-DOS version should I use?

Should I worry about MS-DOS / PC-Task not recognising the entire partition? Is there an explanation for this?

Is it possible at all to have access to the pc files under AmigaOS or is this really risky?

Does someone have, uhm.. a hardfile containing a working Win3.11 or Win95 installation? That I could study?

[rvo_nl]

Whoops, I had not configured valid screenmodes for the video modes listed under advanced options in Pc-Task. Windows 3.11 now installs properly!

However, I tried changing the Identifier of my dedicated partition so it reads MSH\00 instead of custom filesystem, but still only around 340MB is recognised under DOS, so I reverted this change.

BTW, I gave up trying out PCx, although I found out it was MCP that was causing the crash. When I remove MCP from startup-sequence however, PCx wont start at all.

[rvo_nl]

Made quite some progress today. Was able to solve most of my problems but am still left with a couple of questions. Do not hesitate to reply with your suggestions -I've only started using a PC with Windows 2000!

- I haven't been able to get PC_Task-Interpretive to work. But since it doesnt support Windows95 its no big loss. And I have plenty of RAM to use PC_Task-Dynamic instead.
- I gave up trying PCx. I am a bit worried though, can someone tell me which of the 2 is the faster emulator? And am I right in thinking PCx can emulate a Pentium processor while PC-Task is stuck with 486 max? Does this have any consequences?
- I fixed the issue with the partition size. Apparently I was using a DOS bootdisk instead of the DOS installation disks. Ive mounted disk 1/3 of those and it was then able to recognise the full 1.4Gb of my drive. I didnt finish installation though, no idea how to swap disk images on-the-fly.
- I was able to install Windows3.11 aswell. Previous attempts failed because I did not have the right screenmodes set. Still, can someone explain the difference between VGA and Video 7? Cant find much about it online, which of the 2 is faster?
- I was able to mount my CD-Rom drive and am currently installing Windows 95 (this is quite slow I can tell you). Is it possible to install Win98Lite on top of this?
- Is it possible to enable network support in PCx or PC-Task?
- Can Crossdos mount the PC partition in a way that I can access the files on it on the Amiga side?

[rvo_nl]

Thanks Xanxi, will try this out asap. Mounting the DOS installation disks was faster than writing them on pc and using pc0:. First off, Windows 7 wasnt able to deal with 720kb disks, second, the DOS 6.x images are 1,44MB each. So I created a DOSDriver for the installation disks using Crossdos7, then entered the name of the DOSDriver as drive A: in PC-Task. Damn useful.

[rvo_nl]

well, you might be able to read them. but try formatting one or creating a bootdisk or extracting a diskimage onto one.

[rvo_nl]

thanks, but:

1) I did try using /S:720 (or a similar flag) which appeared to work fine (readable) but it wasnt possible to write anything to it
2) the disk images Im talking about are 1,44MB
3) there is not one windows OS that fits on a 720kb disk yet creating a 720kb bootdisk was possible up to Win XP If im not mistaken -which is exactly my point
4) its no longer needed since mounting a virtual disk is a lot faster and convenient

[rvo_nl]

ofcourse! thats even better! thanks, will try this out myself

[rvo_nl]

Thanks for your reply. Now that you mentioned the screenmode restriction Im really forgetting about PCx. I'm quite satisfied with PC-Task anyway. Windows 95 works and seems stable. It is ofcourse very slow but I dont care, I just want to see if it would be possible at all. I will give Win98Lite a try and after that test I think I'm done with this whole PC emulation thing. BTW, yes, Fusion is a great emulator, that provides a fast MacOS8 experience for me. Thanks for the tip regarding Win3.11 standard mode, I was using that already.

[rvo_nl]

Ok, so I gave up trying to get Win98 working. Im pretty sure it can be done but I lack the time (and knowledge) to do it. The installer keeps returning to DOS, throwing an error. I did some extensive testing of win98lite, which is known for its ultra 'small' installations of 15 to 50 MB for the complete OS, but this too uses the standard win98 installer that throws the same error. I hope someone with more patience is willing to continue my effort, but I doubt anyone is crazy enough to do it

[rvo_nl]

haha, been there, done that. somehow its all part of the fun. at least for me.

[rvo_nl]

nice stories. I would love to run win98 on my amiga, Im convinced it can be done with one of the win98lite distributions, but I lack the knowledge to fiddle with that.

[rvo_nl]

well, I suppose.. but there is no way that is going to run under pc-task

[rvo_nl]

I have couple of questions in knowing how to use PC Task. I have downloaded and installed the latest verse 4.4. But I am unable to continue further from that.

I assigned the virtual HD to Work:HDFile (80 MB) however, I have DOS games burned in the cd and not inside a virtual file hard drive or anything like that. I do not have a boot up disk and I do not know where to go from there.

How do I transfer files into the virtual HD and how do I obtain a bootup disk that works in my Amiga 4000D disk drive when I use PC Task.

Where do I go from here?

Thanks in advance.

 I would recommend mounting a dedicated partition (beware, should be below the first 4Gb of your drive). That way you can copy files across using diropus. I dont think there is a way to do that with a hardfile. You could, however, mount a cdrom drive and install windows 3.11 or 95 that way. From there it should be easier to install games.
 
 BTW, Im not sure what types of games you want to run, they'd better be from the early eighties. You can not run more modern games under PC Task, IMO. If you have a PPC, try dosbox under OS4 instead.