Issues installing 5.25"-based software in MS DOS (various environments)

EAASI Research Alliance Legacy Grant Phase
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Deployment: Are you using the hosted EaaSI service, or a local node?
Hosted
Windows 10

EaaSI Version: This corresponds to the release branch/installer version used to deploy your instance. This information should be available in the Manage Node menu, if accessible
Build: 2021.10 (I only see this number under “Application version”
UI Build:

Browser: The name and version of the browser you are using to access the EaaSI UI, if applicable
Chrome, Version 104.0.5112.81 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Description: Please describe your issue in as much detail as possible, including name + ID of any relevant environments, software or content. You can also attach screenshots or relevant error report files.

I have a lot of WordStar files I want to open. For that reason, I am attempting to install WordStar (4.0 Professional) in an MS DOS environment–namely MS DOS 6.22 - Base - V1 and Windows 98 SE w MS DOS drivers. ((NB: I do actually want to install a different version of WordStar (3.31) but I’m confused on how to load the content since it’s that version is more complicated. Further, I do know that version of Word up until a point can read WordStar files, but the only one I have tried is in Mac OS 9 and that environment doesn’t work.)) After some issues with the D: drive I found the thread that Tim had begun and followed Ethan’s instructions re: the ISO disk.

Windows 98 SE with DOS CD ROM driver
I cannot find a way to run Winstall on the installation media OR actually see the installation media in the environment drives. I can tell that the environment detects 5.25" installation media, because the icon changes, but I can only see native Winstall executable and other relevant files, not the installation media, when the 5.25" disks are detected. When I do access the A or B drives, it asks me to insert a disk with a serial number of 00000-00000 and press any key: i do that, then it thinks for a few seconds and then it fails reading the drive. Feel like I’m doing something wrong but I can’t pin it!

MS DOS 6.22
I navigate to the A: drive type winstall.exe and it asks me what file I want to install, I type the name of the first disk “WS400-DISK1-IN” (I truncated the filename when loading it), it asks me what I want to save the changes to, I type the same file. Doesn’t work.

Are you able to reproduce the issue or did it happen once? What steps can you take to repeat the issue? What did you expect to occur and what was the actual outcome?

I can reproduce the issue. The steps I took to repeat the issue:

  1. shutting down the environment (I never once have saved to environment in this specific project/process) or restarting it;
  2. adding software to environment or adding software and environment to emulation project;
  3. letting the environment restart or starting it up from scratch;
  4. i either open up ‘My Computer’ to see if anything has been detected in the A: drive and sometimes I take a look in the D: drive to see if I can open it (I can’t when I add software and environment to emulation project)
  5. open up the shell to access drives
  6. I try to access the A: drive, (if unsuccessful i got to next step (7), if successful i skip to step 10)
  7. if i cannot access it i respond ‘F’ to the ‘Abort, Retry, Failure’ prompt
  8. I have to respond ‘F’ a second time before drive is made inaccessible
  9. Then i can try to call the other drive (A or B), which is successful
  10. Once the prompt tells me to insert a diskette, I change the resource media to the first floppy disk
  11. I press a key, the computer might think for a few seconds and then it informs me of drive read failure

Urgency: If possible, please give an indication of how urgently the issue needs to be addressed - is there a timeline or deadline (e.g. upcoming demo, researcher request, etc.) that EaaSI support staff should be aware of?

There are a few researcher requests related to this material, so it is a high priority for us. It would be amazing if the issue could be addressed within the next 1-2 weeks but we are thankful for any sort of help on any timeline you can give us.

ms-dos-622-base-v1-screenshot-8-18-2022-4-49-17-pm
ms-dos-622-base-v1-screenshot-8-18-2022-4-49-17-pm720×400 4.13 KB

windows-98-se-with-dos-cd-rom-drivers-screenshot-8-18-2022-2-23-46-pm
windows-98-se-with-dos-cd-rom-drivers-screenshot-8-18-2022-2-23-46-pm1024×768 16.1 KB

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Hi @monique_lassere - I have been trying to do some research into WordStar 4.0, as this issue seems specific to that program’s install process and I could not tell exactly what was going on here.

Luckily the full manual has been scanned and uploaded on the Internet Archive and I think it is extremely helpful, with step-by-step instructions that might be missing from the software itself:

I think the long and short here is that they’re using the word “install” a bit differently than what I’m used to - rather than copy the program files off of the removable media to your hard drive (like most/many installation programs do), it looks like WINSTALL assumes you’ve already copied the program files off of the various floppies to the hard drive manually, so when you run WINSTALL it assumes that you’re in the same directory (it recommends creating a C:\WS4 directory) as the WS.EXE file from one of the other floppies. WINSTALL is then more like a configuration/settings program where you can set up a printer and monitor settings, etc.; I can’t quite tell if it’s strictly 100% necessary to run WINSTALL or if you could just run WS.EXE and see what happens.

I linked above right to the page where the manual starts the process with copying your disks first, rather than jumping right to “install” - note that you’ll want to follow the boxes/instructions that say “If you have a hard disk computer”, not “If you have a two floppy disk computer” - the MS-DOS 6.22 environment is set up with a hard disk as the C: drive and one floppy drive as the A: drive!

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Hi, Ethan,

Thanks so much for your answer to this question. That makes a lot of sense. I will investigate doing this! I did find a normalization method for the WordStar files that worked pretty well but I will still be finishing the install of this software to see if the original files render differently. Will update the thread.

Thanks!
Monique

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