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Setting up to dual boot Win98 as your second operating system, you will need a minimum of about 300 MB. This will be enough for the program itself and a small swap file (if you choose to leave it on the same partition as the OS). To install this operating system and be able to run benchmarking tests (WinBench99 in particular) on it, you will need to allow a bit more space. The minimum that I recommend is 700 MB This may be down sized after testing is completed.
To get started, you will need to plan how you will divide up you disk. For a single hard disk, I have found that 5 partitions suit my needs. One each for the operating systems, one each for the swap files, and one for programs.
Since there are usually 3 or 4 operating systems on my computer at one time and all of these OS's need to be able to access any and all programs, I keep the majority of my work programs on a partition separate from the ones I use for the operating systems. It should be noted that each program needs to be installed for each operating system. Using the same partition for programs as you do for one of the operating systems can cause problems when dual booting Win98 and Win95. I will use the example of having Win95 installed on the C partition and adding Win98. System Commander starts by hiding the partition for Win95 and creates a space for the new installation of Win98. Because Win98 can not see the partition Win95 is on when it is being installed, it defaults to C. You now, in effect have two C partitions. One C when you log on to Win95 and one when you log on to Win98. This also means that whichever OS you are NOT using becomes another drive letter (in my case, H).
Now if we install a program like Netscape into the Win95 C partition and try to use it from the Win98 C partition, we will have a problem when trying to access the mail folders from Win98. The problem lies in that the initial install of Netscape sets the mail folders to Win95 C:\Program files\netscape\users\username\mail. When you install Netscape from Win98, you must change the Netscape installation directory to H (or whatever) so that you don't have two instances of the same program. This then sets the mail folder to C:\Program files\ ~ \mail. The problem is that this is Win98's C, not Win95's C. Now when you try to access mail from Win98, it can't find the folder and gives an error. If under both Win95 and 98 you install Netscape to F (or whatever), the problem does not occur. I use the F partition for most all programs. The exception is any program that is operating system specific, such as a disk defragmenter I will only use with NT. These get installed on the OS's partition.
Another problem encountered any time you add partitions is the "migrating CD-ROM syndrome." Each time you add a partition, the CD-ROM or other removable type device will move down one partition letter. Not a major dilemma, but a definite pain when the OS is always looking on the wrong drive letter for your disk. This can be stopped by first setting the CD-ROM to a constant letter which allows you plenty of room to add partitions. Do this by setting the path to the CD-ROM on your DOS boot disk autoexec.bat file with the switch L:R (when you want the CD-ROM to reside on R). The statement for my CD-ROM is: a:\mscdex.exe /d:mscd000 /L:R. Since I often install OS's from CAB files on my hard disks, I also need to check and set the CD-ROM drive letter in the device manager on each new OS installation. It is best to do this before using the CD for the first time.
Dual Booting Win98 with Win95 as the
original OS
The following assumes you have partitioned
your hard disk into at least 2 partitions.
For some reason, on a few installations, System Commander does not detect the new operating system as it should. The following instructions will usually remedy the situation.
If after installing
the System Commander disk and choosing SCIN
=>
Enter
from the main menu => choose Enable/Update
System Commander, you end up at the boot screen
with only Win95 showing: