AND HOW TO USE IT IN YOUR OWN LANGUAGE

You have bought some new antivirus-software, made a bootdisk, and there it is : the keyboard
under dos is the standard  US-keyboard !
Actually, this can be solved easily : just copy the files keyboard.sys and keyb.com (c:\windows\ command) to your bootdisk. I'm always referring to Windows 98 SE and Dos version 7.

When you start your computer with this bootdisk, type the country letters after keyb ("keyb fr", if you want the French layout), right after the prompt (A:>). Type "keyb gr"  if you want the German layout.

Here you see all the settings for most European  keyboard layouts.
1= country
2=country letters
3= country code (same as telephone code)
4= codepage or character sets
5= date and time format
 

 1                            2         3                 4                5

Belgium	be	032	850,437	23/01/1993 17:35:00
Brazil	br	055	850,437	23/01/1993 17:35:00
Canada fr	cf	002	863,850	1993-01-23
Croatia	yu	038	852,850	1993-01-23
Czech rep	cz	042	852,850	1993-01-23
Denmar	dk	045	850,865	23-01-1993
Finland	su	358	850,437	23.01.1993
France	fr	033	850,437 (120,189)	23.01.1993
Germany	gr	049	850,437	23.01.1993
Hungary	hu	036	852,850	1993-01-23
international English	us	061	437,850	23-01-1993  5:35:00.00p
Italy	it	039	850,437 (141,142)	23/01/1993
Latin America	la	003	850,437	23/01/1993 5:35:00.00p
Netherlands	nl	031	850,437	23-01-1993
Norway	no	047	850,865	23.01.1993
Poland	pl	048	852,850	1993-01-23
Portugal	po	351	850,860	23-01-1993
Serbia	yu	038	852,850	1993-01-23
Slovakia	sl	042	852,850	1993-01-23
Slovenia	yu	038	852,850	1993-01-23
Spain	sp	034	850,427	23/01/1993
Sweden	sv	046	427,850	1993-01-23
Switzerland french	sf	041	850,437	23.01.1993
Switzerland german	sg	041	850,437	23.01.1993
United Kingdom	uk	044	850,437 (166,168)	23/01/1993
United  States	us	011	437,850	01-23-1993 5:35:00.00p
Yugoslavia	yu	038	852,850	1993-01-23

The time format has only 3 exceptions which I marked in red. The rest uses 17:35:00.
 

You need the keybrd2.sys file (which contains following countries)  if you want the Turkish or Russian keyboard layout.
 

Brazil (secondary standard keyb)	br	274,275
Bularia	bg	442
Greece	gk	442
Iceland	is	161
Macedonia and Serbia/Montenegro	yc	118
Romania	ro	333
Russian	ru	441
Turkish	tr	440,179

 

HOW TO MAKE THE IDEAL BOOTDISK ?
 

First I have to thank Dev Anand Teelucksingh, who has a splendid site on the subject. The problem with most bootdisks is that they are too small. However, you probably have more than 32 Mb Ram on your computer. Well, we're going to use this to extend our range under dos by making a ramdisk
of 9 Mb, which will appear as a different drive (drive W:) under dos.
 

You need to download the following files from the web (and you'll need Winzip, or Pkunzip.exe for dos to unzip some of them):

---shsucd14.zip (a smaller version of Microsoft's mscdex.exe) : after unzipping,  shsucdx.exe is the
file you need in order to use the cdrom-drive if you want to.

---Furd19_i.zip : of all the files you'll find after unpacking, you'll need xmsdsk.exe. This will take care
of the 9 MB Ramdisk (Type "Furd19_i.zip" between quotation marks in Google, and you'll find it in no time, as you can do with all the other files by the way)

---Dh20.zip (=dos here) You don't need it for the bootdisk, but it makes working under dos in Windows very easy. Place your mouse on any folder, right click and select 'Dos here', and a dos
window opens, which you can leave by typing 'exit'. Extract Dh20.zip and install "Dhsetup.exe"
with the options proposed, as most of us use the command.com of Windows anyway.

---Pkunzip (type in Google + "pkunzip.exe" + dos, and you might run into a free version of pkunzip for dos

---xxcopy16.exe  (200 kb) (Under "xxcopy freeware download" click on http://www.xxcopy.com/ download/xxcopy.zip). This we use instead of the xcopy.exe from windows, because with the latter you can't copy hidden system files. If you want to copy the contents of the A:-drive to W: (and then you have to be in W: already), type xxcopy16.exe a:\  w:  /H  /E  /R  /K  /Y , then all the files and folders, even empy ones will be copied, and the directory structure of the disk will be the same as on A:  Of course, it's a large file, so as an alternative, type in Google  + caldera +"xcopy.exe". Maybe you can find it for free on the web :-) ! This one also copies hidden system files, but is only 17 kb.
A simple DIR command doesn't list hidden system files either : you'll have to use DIR /A.

---apicd214.exe  Put this file in a folder called "apicd", double-click on it and it will expand itself.
You only need the vide-ccd.sys file. Rename this file to "Cdrom.sys" Almost all the Atapi cdrom
drives can be seen under dos with this driver (not the SCSI ones)

---Go to www.powerload.fsnet.co.uk/bootdisk.htm. Download the MS-DOS 7.10a Bootdisk image(Fat 16 and Fat 32 for windows 98 and 98 SE (4.00.2222) and write the image to the bootdisk. You can use the "Winimage 5.0 32 bit for Windows" or "Disk image Pro v2.6 for dos" from the same website (command : dcp name-of-image.img  a: ) or you can use di.exe . On this bootdisk you'll find : command.com, format.com, fdisk.exe, drvspace.bin (you can delete this if you don't use any compression of C:), io.sys, msdos.sys and sys.com.
 

The reason we don't make a bootdisk the normal way is the following : you'll need 2  DIFFERENT
command.com's, in order for the command DIR to work in the ramdrive W:. Specialists in dos
could perhaps offer an explanation, but I'm a novice.

Some people think you can clone a bootdisk, by transferring all the files from one to the other. This
doesn't work : you'll need diskcopy.com (under c:\windows\command) to do this (or "di.exe")
 

NOW THE DETAILS

Take the bootdisk you made from the image, and create a folder on it, named "Ramdisk"
You copy the file xxcopy16.exe to this folder.
In  c:\windows, you'll find the other command.com, which you will have to copy to "Ramdisk"
Copy "himem.sys" from c:\windows to the bootdisk
Copy pkunzip.exe (if you don't have to unzip anything, you don't need it) and cdrom.sys to the disk.
Copy "mouse.com" and "mouse.ini" from c:\windows\command to the bootdisk. You might need it.
Copy "keyb.com", "keyboard.sys" from c:\windows\command to the disk
Copy "xmsdsk.exe" and "shsucdx.exe" to the disk.
 

NOW THE CRUCIAL TASK

We will have to make an autoexec.bat and a config.sys.

Autoexec.bat
Open "notepad.exe" and type the following text literally,with all the spaces, comma's and semi-colons (not the yellow text, although you could do it, because it has REM (= remark) in front of it, this means that the line will not be executed) . You can always select the text, push CTRL + C, go to notepad and paste it with CTRL and V.

@ECHO OFF
REM if you don't want to see the following text on the screen
REM during the boot process, type "@echo off" at the beginning
MOUSE
SHSUCDX /D:cd1,X
REM if you want your cdrom drive to be named T, change X in T
XMSDSK.EXE 9000 W: /y
REM if you want a ramdrive of 20 Mb, type 20000
COPY A:\Ramdisk W:\
REM this will copy the contents of the folder "Ramdisk" to W:
path=w:\;a:\;x:\
if exist w:\command.com
SET COMSPEC=w:\command.com

Save this text as "auto.txt" on your bootdisk

Config.sys
Again, open notepad.exe, and type the following text :

DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICE=CDROM.SYS /D:cd1

Save this text as "confi.txt" on your bootdisk  THEN CHANGE "CONFI.TXT" IN "CONFIG.SYS"  AND "AUTO.TXT" IN "AUTOEXEC.BAT"
 
 

HOW TO USE THIS DISK

When you start with this bootdisk, you'll see the A:\> First of all, type keyb fr (if you are French),to
have your own French keyboard, or keyb be (if you want the Belgian keyboard) . Look at the
references here When you type W: you'll have 9Mb of space under dos. From within W: you type xxcopy16  a:\  w:  /H  /E  /R  /K  /Y and your files will all be transferred to W: You can then simply remove the bootdisk if you want to, and put in another disk with all the possible dos-files you might need, and copy them again to W:
Test the bootdisk in order to know if your cdrom will be seen under dos : after the A:>prompt
type X: and do a DIR command.
However, if you want to finish, you can put in the original bootdisk again, type A:, and then
you can eliminate the ramdisk and everything in it by typing xmsdsk /u (/u is unload).
I must admit I always forget to do this, but it doesn't have any consequences.

Download "readntfs.zip"if you want to be able to read and copy files from a NTFS-partition to another non-NTFS-partition in Dos ; unzip it and put it on your bootdisk
 

DOWNLOAD
 
 

Download "image.zip"if you want the ready-made bootdisk  : if you unzip it with Winzip, you'll
find 4 files : Mymage.img. This you can extract to a floppy, using di.exe (dos command :
DI  /R  A:  MYIMAGE.IMG). A readme.txt and Leesmij.txt have been added for English and Belgian users.
 

Download "windows.zip"if you want the vmware iso-player for windows 
 

Download "linux.zip"if you want the vmware iso-player for linux