How to make Windows NT, Windows 95, and MS-DOS co-exist in NT's boot manager

If you have MS-DOS, Windows 95, and Windows NT on your computer, more than likely your NT boot manager only shows two entries: one to boot to Windows NT and another to boot to Windows 95. In order to boot to DOS, you have to select Windows 95 and then select MS-DOS. If you have a few minutes to spare, here's something you can try to get MS-DOS (and Windows 95) listed in your NT boot manager:

First, go to the root of your boot drive and issue the following command:

attrib -r -h -s boot.ini

If you didn't have Windows 95 (just NT and DOS) you could have just added the following line to boot.ini to make MS-DOS appear in your NT boot manager:

C:\BOOTSECT.DOS="MS-DOS"

But, since you have 95 installed, you'd have to take few more steps:

• Rename BOOTSECT.DOS to BOOTSECT.W95

1. attrib -r -h -s bootsect.dos
2. copy bootsect.dos *.w95

• Run NT setup and choose to repair NT boot files and exit.
• Go back to the root of your boot drive and rename the newly created BOOTSECT.DOS to something else, so that it won't get overwritten during the next installation, update, repair, etc.

1. attrib -r -h -s bootsect.dos
2. copy bootsect.dos *.MSD

• Finally, add Win95 (if you don't already have it listed) and DOS to your NT boot manager:

1. attrib -r -h -s boot.ini

Once you execute the above command, add following two lines to boot.ini:

1. c:\bootsect.w95="Microsoft Windows 95"
2. c:\bootsect.msd="Microsoft DOS"