Win-OS/2 installed on non-boot drive

[Doug Clark]

If I remember correctly you can install Win-OS/2 on a drive other than the boot drive.   I also seem to remember that when you do this some environment variable is set to indicate which drive holds the Win-OS/2 system.

So my questions are:

1) does this environment variable, or some other means, exist to determine which drive Win-OS/2 is installed on?

2) What is the directory structure when installed on a different drive?   (Normally it is C:\OS2\MDOS\WINOS2)

[Fahrvenugen]

WinOS/ is pretty simple - Windows 3.1 was always fairly easy to move to a different drive / folder, as long as you move the entire contents of the \windows (in this case \os2\\mdos\winos2) folder and all sub folders.

I have not tried this so your mileage might vary, but I know that the winos/2 path has to be in the path of the autoexec.bat file for things to work properly. Also there is a win.ini and system.ini in the winos2 folder - they are all text files so do a quick edit of them and search to see if the folder is referenced anywhere.  If it is then update it to reflect your new path.

Also check your config.sys file and update any path references there.

You may also have to update objects on the WPS, but I'm not 100% sure of that. 

I recall back in the Warp 3 red spine days - the version of Warp that used your existing installation of Windows 3.1 - you could specify in the OS/2 setup  and install where you had your Windows 3.1 installed.  I admit that I'm not in front of my OS/2 machine right now and I can't recall if that option exists in the Warp 4 / eCS / ArcaOS setup.

Just out of interest, why are you wanting to move the WinOS/2 install?  It really doesn't take up that much room on the boot drive and by leaving it alone it'll for sure work as designed.

[Dave Yeo]

If you look at x:\autoexec.bat, there is a SET WIN3DIR=X:\OS2\MDOS\WINOS2 line, I'd guess this what you change to point at WinOS2 on a different drive.
You could easily test by using the WPS to move your WINOS2 directory to a different location, and adjusting the SET WIN3DIR line. WinOS2 itself probably just expects things like \system to be under the main WINOS2 directory. I'd start out by keeping all the directory names the same, eg move WINOS2\ to x:\WINOS2 or x:\foo\WINOS2.
Let us know your results.
Edit: Fahrvenugen also makes some points about other things that need adjusting. Possibly if mdos is in a different place, COMSPEC might also need setting in autoexec.bat to point to command.com

[Doug Clark]

Thanks Fahrvenugen and Dave.   The line

SET WIN3DIR=X:\OS2\MDOS\WINOS2

in AUTOEXEC.BAT is what I was thinking of but could not remember.

I am not looking to move Win-OS2 myself. But I had a friend who told me he had installed Win-OS/2 on a different drive than where OS/2 was installed., so I know it is possible. Plus, as Fahrvenugen points out, with red spine and/or the ability to boot to a specific version of DOS (and probably windows) WIn-OS/2 might be located anywhere - at least in theory.

 I am updating WinZombe and there is one particular circumstance where it assumes Win-OS/2 is installed on the C: drive.   I wanted to update it for the one person left in the world who has installed or moved Win-OS/2 to somewhere other than boot:\os2\mdos\winos2.  I will just scan the autoexec.bat the session points to for the SETWIN3DIR= line in those circumstances.

Thanks again guys.

[Dave Yeo]

One thing was the Red Box OS/2 patched Win 3.1 for it to work under OS/2, forget the specifics, and blue box is already patched. I don't think that blue box can use a Win 3.1 install, though https://hobbes.nmsu.edu/?path=%2Fpub%2Fwindows does contain a couple of possibilities.

[Wendy Krieger]

The environment variable from 2.x days is WIN3DIR=path to windir.

If you are using a 'for windows' red version, it could be d:\windoze  Under blue OS/2  it's d:\os2\mdos\winos2