    A Product Review...                         System Commander


                The Operating System Manager: A Challenge
                  Copyright 1995 by John M. Campbell

 The current crop of new operating systems has tempted the more
 adventurous among us to give the various offerings a spin.  Now, it isn't
 too difficult to try different OSes, one or two at a time. For instance,
 running, DOS, Windows 3.x, Windows 95, OS/2 Warp and      Linux at the
 same time represents a challenge over and above the obvious need for a
 humongous amount of hard drive space.  Yet, it is difficult to evaluate
 several new systems unless they can be  used alongside a standard
 reference system.  Three or more OSes can co-exist on one machine, but a
 successful installation  requires consider-able planning, keeping in mind
 the need to easily switch back and forth among them.

 All OSes depend on a small area at the beginning of the hard drive
 reserved for the "Master Boot Record."  Among other things, this critical
 area holds the code needed to start the OS.  Some systems, such as OS/2
 Warp, Windows NT and Windows 95, have built-in features that make it
 possible to move back and forth between that system and DOS.  But no OS
 that I am aware of carries the built-in capability to switch back and
 forth among multiple systems.  Enter System Commander, from V
 Communications.

 System Commander can manage over 100 different operating systems
 in primary and logical partitions, or as many as 32 different FAT
 compatible OSes in a single primary DOS partition!  I can't imagine
 anyone in their right mind attempting to run 100 OSes, but it's nice to
 know the capability is there!

 The program offers a lot of useful features that will be summarized at
 the end of this article.  For now, let's see how it  works and go through
 an actual installation.

 C:(Root)
            |
  |----MSDOS622
  |----COMMAND.COM
  |----CONFIG.SYS
  |----AUTOEXEC.BAT
                  |
 WIN95
 |----COMMAND.COM
 |----CONFIG.SYS
 |----AUTOEXEC.BAT
 |----MSDOS.SYS (Win95
      configuration file)
                  |
 WINNT
 |----BOOT.INI

 System Commander works its magic by writing its own unique boot record
 to initiate the boot process, then replacing it with the code for the
 desired OS, which is selected from the System Commander menu.  The boot
 process then continues under the control of the selected system.  If the
 chosen OS uses its own AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, COMMAND.COM and/or other
 unique files, images of these files are stored in a special directory,
 then swapped to the root directory of Drive C when that OS is selected.
 The inset is a typical SC image file directory structure that might exist
 after loading three OSes:

 The installation itself is straightforward.  The program comes on a
 single diskette.  Typing INSTALL, then following a few on screen
 instructions, sets up System Commander.  When the computer is rebooted,
 the program saves system information for whatever OSes it finds, then it
 presents the SC menu.  Every installed OS should be listed.  The order,
 description, and other functions can be changed at this point by pressing
 ALT-S for a Setup menu.

 If new OSes are installed after System Commander, they may not appear on
 the SC menu when the machine is rebooted.  Or, SC itself may not appear.
 Windows 95, for example, overwrites the  boot sector code, in this case,
 SC's, with its own during the install process.  The developers have taken
 these possibilities  into account.  The Setup menu permits adding the new
 OS to SC's menu, and a separate utility, SCIN, is provided to deal with
 Windows 95 and the Japanese DOS/V, which also destroys SC's code in the
 boot sector.  Running SCIN from DOS reinstalls SC's master  boot record.
 Now for the additional features.  There are quite a few.  First, there is
 optional boot security protection.  A password can be chosen to pre-vent
 access to the hard drive(s), and make it impossible to boot from a
 floppy.  Passwords are internally encrypted for additional security.  A
 second password can be used to prevent unauthorized persons from
 accessing SC's own setup menu, or from using certain HD partitions.

 It is possible to run multiple versions of DOS, or to run DOS with
 various AUTOEXEC.BAT and/or CONFIG.SYS configurations. Each configuration
 can be a separate menu choice.

 If you are so unfortunate as to be stricken with a boot sector virus, it
 can be easily removed by rebooting.  SC will detect the changed code and
 ask if a new OS has been installed.  Selecting bypass on the SC menu will
 cause the boot sector and the hidden system files to be over-written with
 the fresh, hopefully uninfected, copies that SC keeps in the image
 directories.  Of course, all this is dependent upon using anti-virus
 software to detect the problem in the first place! Another neat trick SC
 offers is the ability to create multiple primary partitions and make any
 of them bootable, something FDISK can't do.  Consider Windows 95.
 Normally, you have the choice of install- ing it over version 3.x, so
 that Windows applications will migrate, or you can install 95 into a
 fresh directory, in which case apps will have to be reinstalled.  One
 choice mangles DOS making it impossible to return to the earlier Windows
 version; the other involves a lot of application reinstallation.

 What if you had two computers?  You could install Windows 3.x and your
 DOS and Win apps on both machines, then install Win 95 on the second
 machine only. With System Commander, you can, in effect, do something
 similar on a single computer, if you have unused disk space.  First,
 using FDISK and SCIN, create a second bootable partition from the unused
 space.  This becomes Partition 1.  The original bootable partition is
 Partition 0.

 Here is one example.  Remember that DOS assigns Drive C to which-ever
 partition is bootable:

             partition 0  | DOS/Windows 3.1   |
              (drive C:)  |                   |
                          |___________________|
             partition 1  | DOS/Windows 3.1   |
              (drive C:)  | with Windows 95     |    _________________
                          |___________________|   |                 |
             partition 2  | Extended             |---|Logical DOS Data |
              (drive D:)  | partition              |   |_________________|
                          |___________________|



 In this layout, when you boot into partition 0, you can run
 Windows 3.1 on drive C.  Drive D is on the logical partition, which
 contains application data.  Partition 1 can either be hidden by System
 Commander or will appear as drive E, at your option.

 When you boot partition 1, Windows 95 will appear as drive C, and drive D
 is the same logical partition as appears when booting DOS/ Windows 3.1.
 Partition 0 can either be hidden or you can elect to have it appear as
 drive E in our example.

 Another feature of System Commander is the ability to make either Drive A
 or B bootable, although this does not work with certain BIOSes, or with
 operating systems that bypass the BIOS.

 SC has still another useful feature.  Actually, this one is vital.  SC
 detects any change in the root directory configuration  files by
 comparing them with its saved images.  Normally, if you  manually change
 your AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS files, on the next boot into the same OS,
 SC will overwrite the images with the new versions.  This may not be what
 you wanted to do.

 To overcome this problem, SC can be set up to prompt the user before
 overwriting its image copies.  If the prompt is answered no, the boot
 proceeds using the files that are already in the root directory, thus
 sparing the images SC keeps.  You can then manually restore the root
 directory AUTOEXEC/CONFIG to the originals.  (I use a handy utility
 called Autocon to manage multiple configurations.)  Of course, SC can be
 set up to use multiple versions of DOS configuration files.  Each version
 would be a separate SC menu item, as mentioned earlier.  That would seem
 to be the most logical way to go, if you really need multiple
 AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS files for different applications.

 This is not covered in the manual, but I have found it useful to keep a
 second copy of all image files in a separate directory.  Several times, I
 inadvertently told SC to overwrite its images.  And on one occasion,  I
 let Win95 run an unruly DOS game in Single Application DOS  Mode. The
 game hung up the computer, so I could not exit back to Win95.  I had to
 reboot.  Since Win95 adds a line to its AUTOEXEC.BAT to run a DOS app in
 SA mode,  System Commander kept bringing up that changed file, and the
 game kept loading, and hanging my machine.  Thats when I learned the
 wisdom of keeping a fresh copy of the proper file stashed away somewhere,
 so that I could replace the image in the SC directory.  Yes, I had also,
 dumbly, allowed SC to overwrite the image file with the version that ran
 the game!

 System Commander does sometimes misbehave.  I discovered a problem when I
 upgraded the program, after I had installed OS/2 Warp and Windows 95.
 When SC's menu appeared, Win95 was listed three times!  All attempts to
 delete the extra entries using SC's own utilities failed.  A V
 Communications' technician was able to talk me through the process, which
 was not something the average user would be able to figure out on their
 own.  It seems that Win95 adds code to the boot record of every
 partition.  This confused SC into thinking I had multiple installations
 of that OS.  The technician also told me how to bypass the OS/2 Boot
 Manager menu that had been appearing when I chose Warp from SC.  So now,
 I don't have to see the extra menu and make the OS/2 choice there also.


 I believe System Commander to be a unique and useful program for managing
 multiple operating systems.  The manual is well written and offers a
 wealth of information about different OSes and hard drive partitioning.
 There is an extensive troubleshooting section.  The installation disk
 even includes several typical main menu screens in PCX format, and a
 utility for capturing the user's actual menu.


 System Commander (current version - 2.11)
 V Communications, Inc
 4320 Stevens Creek Blvd., Suite 120
 San Jose, CA  95129
 (408) 296-4224


 John Campbell, again, provides a down-to-earth, step-by-step, description
 of a complex installation procedure. He is employed by the State of West
 Virginia's Unemployment Compensation Board as it's local office manager.
 John is a regular contributor to WindoWatch.





                                     ww

