As far as I know, Windows 1.0 Alpha can only be installed properly in MS-DOS 3.0 or earlier. MS-DOS 2.11 is often used. I have tried using MS-DOS 6.22 since I know it supports CD-ROM drivers but obviously it does not work.


I am just curious if MS-DOS 2.11, or any other versions of MS-DOS other than 6.22, support CD-ROM drivers. If so, where can I find drivers and how can they be installed?
Thanks.

Only 3.10 and up.

That's unfortunate. Oh well, what would I use CD-ROM drivers for anyway in these old buggy versions of Windows.
Thanks.

I think you can't on buggy releases like the Alpha or earlier. Beta can support CD drivers and MSCDEX as it has proper support for DOS 3.10 and up.

That happens due to incorrect DOS version. You can still install Beta and later on later versions of DOS by using the SETVER hack, but you can't do this with Alpha due to Alpha doing an internal check. According to my information, you can hack DR5 to work on later versions of DOS by using SETVER, but I don't know how.

Theoretically, 3.0 and upwards, since that is where the redirector interface was added.

However the internal structures and API changed between the two versions, so one would have to create custom drivers for 3.0. Hence practically using available "off the shelf" software, only 3.1 upwards.

I think I got DR5 working by using SETVER on MSWIN or something, but I forget. Yeah, SETVER does not work at all on Alpha, and I have to use my extremely buggy method to just show the programs in MS-DOS Executive (it even only works on one video card) which cannot even be opened.

Both work flawlessly on DOS 2.11, at the cost of no compatible CD-ROM drivers.

It should see whatever drives DOS sees, and I seem to recall having two floppy drives in DR5. I'll test this out a bit later toda.

I think it depends on the BIOS or something when I was playing with it.

That's a possibility, yeah. Maybe it doesn't like specific BIOSes or just clones in general. But as I said, in that case, DOS shouldn't see the drive either.