Microsoft MS-DOS 7.0 Beta 1... real or fake?

[kappabeta]

I saw this strange thing on SkyDrag0n`s FTP server. It apparently used to be on BA, but was removed by mrpijey for no reason. It comes in 5 floppy disks (one extra disk than 6.22), but it's actually a boot disk, chopped up into 5 little pieces, and disk 1 didn't have setup.exe, but command.com, so i had to use a Windows 95 machine to run it. So it is real? It has no build number and MS never released 7.0, so it might be fake?
For your downloading pleasure: https://mega.co.nz/#!9QhVWbpa!1NEjpvR-P ... oZzru39tR0

[Battler]

- kappabeta: This was taken from an early Chicago (Windows 95) Build, and repackaged in a way completely inconsistent with how real MS-DOS Builds released by Microsoft tend to be packaged. So not a genuine release. That's precisely why it was removed from our FTP.

[kappabeta]

- kappabeta: This was taken from an early Chicago (Windows 95) Build, and repackaged in a way completely inconsistent with how real MS-DOS Builds released by Microsoft tend to be packaged. So not a genuine release. That's precisely why it was removed from our FTP.

What build was it, however? My guess is something like 34, 58, 73, or 81. All are leaked except 34. So this is not a fake, rather they stripped out the Jaguar kernel of the Chicago build and packaged it into a floppy image (same thing with that dummy DOS 7.1 ISO).

[ExplicitNuM5]

I think it's real, as you can't have a magical release of DOS 7. And also, I used DreamSpark as I have a college friend. There's a MS-DOS 7 there, as a real product. It's probably enterprise-grade.

[Battler]

Could provide any kind of evidence for your claim to have seen MS-DOS 7 on DreamSpark? Also, I know for a fact that this particular release is just files taken out of a Chicago Build by third parties and repackaged into an improper set of floppy images. I think this is from Chicago 58s, 73g, or 81.

[kappabeta]

I think it's real, as you can't have a magical release of DOS 7. And also, I used DreamSpark as I have a college friend. There's a MS-DOS 7 there, as a real product. It's probably enterprise-grade.

There were also enterprise versions of DOS with FAT32 support (6.23, 6.24, 6.25) and probably Windows 3.21 and 3.22, which are unleaked retail versions released only to governments. Some guy claims to have 6.25, and ExplicitNuM5, do you have that DOS 7? If so, leak it.

[Battler]

- kappabeta: There is no evidence those versions actually existed. Only rumors.

[ExplicitNuM5]

OOPS!!! My mistake, it was DOS 6 and 6.22.

[dw5304]

I think it's real, as you can't have a magical release of DOS 7. And also, I used DreamSpark as I have a college friend. There's a MS-DOS 7 there, as a real product. It's probably enterprise-grade.

There were also enterprise versions of DOS with FAT32 support (6.23, 6.24, 6.25) and probably Windows 3.21 and 3.22, which are unleaked retail versions released only to governments. Some guy claims to have 6.25, and ExplicitNuM5, do you have that DOS 7? If so, leak it.

I just logged into dreamspark and their is no ms-dos 7 their.

[os2fan2]

There are two versions of "MS-DOS 7.0" which i usually take as authentic, except for the distribution (that is, they are repackages). Only one has seen the light of day on the internet. Neither of these are distributed as being packed. Some of the files from the supplemental disk (such as MS-Edlin), are there, but the full content (eg the access stuff is not there).

M607 is the review point for MS-DOS 7.0 beta 1. It is largely based on msdos 6.0 code, the help file matches that (it has an entry for dosshell in it). It features a number of new commands, which generally do not work, one of which is 'autowin': You put this at the end of autoexec and it loads windows. ffind is a wrapper around a command.com 'dir' command.

M627 is MS-DOS 7.0 beta 2. It has not been sighted, but is referenced under that name in Andrew Schuhmann's book 'Undocumented DOS'. It is based on 6.22 code, since it supports DBLSPACE and DRVSPACE. Andrew seems to make the distinction between this and the then windows betas, where it uses WINBOOT.SYS / INI rather than IO.SYS etc to load the OS.

It should be noted that the win95 'old ms-dos', except msd, is from 6.22. MSD is new, there is an unlocked version in one of the betas, that one might correct the display error (it's version 2.13, not vers 2.11 like win95 says). The win98 versions contain msdos 7.10 files intended to be left out, but included at the last moment, along with a new msd (2.14), and some non-versioned stuff from 6.22 (help, qbasic).

MS-DOS versions like 6.23 to 6.25 have been talked about, but i do not think they're complete dos versions like these DOS versions. O

No version of MS-DOS 7,0 supports fat32. Instead, msdos loads what is necessary to support 32bfa (through ifshlp.sys), and long file names, (vfat), but no fat32 support. This is the domain of msdos 7.1 (and pc-dos 7.1).

[Battler]

- os2fan2: I'd like you to check the two-digit Chicago Builds we have. You will notice the DOS versions that come with them still have old-style IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS. The files in the known MS-DOS 7.0 Beta package are identical to those in one of these. Chances are they were stripped of from there.
As for Schulmann, well he was not a Microsoft employee and he might just have based himself off of what was released to the public. I don't exclude him stumbling upon the same package we have and mistaking it for a genuine release simply because he did not have the equivalent Chicago Build to compare the files with. We on the other hand do, and it's not hard to see where the files from that MS-DOS 7.0 Beta package were taken from.
And given how Builds such as 99 etc. were probably scene-leaked back at the time, a "MS-DOS 7.0 Beta 2" package could have been released with files from one of them.

[os2fan2]

I put M607 up against various early files as Battler suggests, using Builds 56, 58 and 73. First i use 'delsame' to delete identical files in the build, using M607 as the source. That is, if the file is in both, the one in M607 is kept. Then one can do a visual inspection of the remaining files.

1. The redistributables msd.exe, emm386.exe, himem.sys, ramdrive.sys, and smartdrv.sys, are all different betweem b58 and M607, but i have not further investigated this.

2. Edit.hlp and Qbasic.hlp. M607 uses the files from ms-dos 6.00, while b058 use the files from 5.00 (like lots of betas until edit.2 was written).

3. b58\undelete is different to m607, but are both CP.

4. At this point, only io.sys, command.com and fdisk.com remain. msdos.sys are identical through all builds.

IO.SYS has one byte change at 9f43, which changes the copyright date from 1994 to 1993.

FDISK in b58 and b56 has its version changed from version 5.00 to 7.00, and the copyright changed to 1994.

COMMAND.COM has a string change at 07A9, which changes the text 'Chicago Version 4.00.58s' to a space-padded 'MS-DOS Version 7.00'. A similar patch occurs at 03160. Note command.com was extensively rebuilt, as one can pick up in the dates from the files in b73.

So 'MS-DOS beta 1' is largely cobbled together from b58 and msdos 6.00, with some alternately sourced files. The version of dosshell is a single bit change in dosshell.exe.

Revision

I had a closer look, by removing exacts from M607, against the full 058 beta and the full 6.20 files. The final readme for this is shown here.

Code: Select all

M607  "MS-DOS 7.00 Beta 1"
==========================

The bulk of this package is by replacing files in MS-DOS 6.20, with files
found in the "Chicago" beta 58.  A number of files are further modified,
mostly by string hacks (replacing text strings in binary files).  Most of
these are intended to harmonise the copyright dates and product names to
show 'MS-DOS 7.00' and '1994'.

A number of compiled batch files complete the picture.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Bxxx is a Chicargo beta 'xxx'
   Mxxx is MS-DOS x.xx release

B058 files, string-hacks.

COMMAND.COM     FDISK.EXE       IO.SYS

   COMMAND.COM:  The string "peter wassmann" is in b058 as well.

M620 files, string-hacked to 7.00

DBLSPACE.BIN    DOSSHELL.EXE    EMM386.EXE      MEMMAKER.HLP    PRINTFIX.COM
DELOLDOS.EXE    DOSSHELL.HLP    GRAPHICS.PRO    NETWORKS.TXT    README.TXT
DOSHELP.HLP     DOSSHELL.INI    INTERSVR.EXE    OS2.TXT         UNDELETE.EXE
DOSSHELL.COM

  EMM386.EXE: Version edited from 4.48 to 5.00.  Win9x uses 4.95 hre.

Remaining files

ARJ.EXE         Not a microsoft product - Shareware.
AUTOWIN.COM     Looks like a batch compile
DBLBOOT.COM     This is a compiled batch: 620\dblboot.bat
EGA.SYS         This is actually a german version of this file.
FFIND.COM       Looks like a batch compile
XDIR.COM        Looks like a batch compile

Since ega.sys, arj.exe and dblboot.com all are sourced elsewhere, and do not
reveal anything interesting, save that dblboot refers to itself as a batch
file.

autowin.com, ffind.com, and xdir.com, all appear to be new batch compiles.

    ffind.com      =  command.com /c dir c:\%1 /b /s /p
    xdir.com       =  command.com /c dir /v %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
    autoload.com
        [on]  del c:\win.com
        [off] copy c:\command.com c:\win.com

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