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Many 16-bit Windows legacy programs can run without changes on newer 32-bit editions of Windows. The reason designers made this possible was to allow software developers time to remedy their software during the industry transition from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 and later, without restricting the ability for the operating system to be upgraded to a current version before all programs used by a ...
Once in protected mode, the virtual device drivers transferred all state information from MS-DOS to the 32-bit file system manager, and then shut off MS-DOS. These VxDs allow Windows 9x to interact with hardware resources directly, as providing low-level functionalities such as 32-bit disk access and memory management.
It bypassed MS-DOS and directly accessed the disk, either via the BIOS or (preferably) 32-bit disk access (Windows-native protected mode disk drivers). This feature was a backport from the then-unreleased Windows 95, as suggested by Microsoft's advertisements for Windows for Workgroups 3.11 ("the 32-bit file system from our Chicago project").
A 32-bit register can store 2 32 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two most common representations, the range is 0 through 4,294,967,295 (2 32 − 1) for representation as an binary number, and −2,147,483,648 (−2 31) through 2,147,483,647 (2 31 − 1) for representation as two's complement.
Virtual DOS machines can operate either exclusively through typical software emulation methods (e.g. dynamic recompilation) or can rely on the virtual 8086 mode of the Intel 80386 processor, which allows real mode 8086 software to run in a controlled environment by catching all operations which involve accessing protected hardware and forwarding them to the normal operating system (as exceptions).
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Usually, 32-bit read could be safely enabled, but 32-bit write had issues with a number of applications. 32-bit Disk Access was the feature that made it possible to page MS-DOS applications to disk. Without it, if the real mode disk code (the Int 13h handler) was paged out, the virtual DOS machine would loop forever.
The Windows 9x kernel is a 32-bit kernel with virtual memory. Drivers are provided by .VXD files or, since Windows 98, the newer WDM drivers can be used. [2] However, the MS-DOS kernel stays resident in memory. Windows will use the old MS-DOS 16-bit drivers if they are installed, except on Windows Me. In Windows Me, DOS is still running, but ...