Summary: Looking for an alternative to OS/2's boot manager? Kevin Salisbury takes a look at a well-known substitute.

Introduction

Do you need to have OS/2 and Windows 95/98/NT installed on the same PC? Not long ago I was looking to do just that. I have a four node home network, running different operating systems at each workstation. One workstation in particular had only Windows 95 installed, and we wanted to load OS/2 Warp 4 on it as well. I have done this in the past utilizing Partition Magic from Power Quest, which does the job well, but I wanted to try something new. I purchased a copy of System Commander Deluxe from the local CompUSA and I started the install that night.

System Information

The workstation hardware includes the following; Intel Pentium 200 CPU, 128MB RAM, Jaton 67p PCI Video Adapter, Adaptec 2940UW PCI SCSI Controller card, Seagate 4GB SCSI drive, 24X Acer IDE CD-ROM and an Intel 10/100 BaseT NIC. The existing Windows 95 install is on a 2GB FAT-16 primary partition, and the goal was to install OS/2 on the remaining 2GB FAT-16 partition. I wanted OS/2 and Windows 95 to be in separate FAT partitions, as I've had some problems in the past when they have shared the same partition. I've always had the best luck when I hide them from each other.

Before You Begin...

As for System Commander Deluxe, there are several things that you should do before you begin the install. First, read the areas of the manual that apply to OS/2 and to any other operating system that is or will be installed with it. Depending on your current configuration and needs, your operating system options may be limited. System Commander Deluxe does not correct operating system flaws. If your OS cannot be installed on a logical partition, this will not change. Make sure you know the limits of the operating systems that you want to use. The manual included in the box is concise and clear, just make sure you read it.

Second, visit the System Commander Deluxe web page at http://www.v-com.com/products/scd.html. You'll find decent product information there, just keep in mind that it is a marketing page. More importantly, visit the support pages at http://www.v-com.com/support/support.html. Be sure to check out the Technical Bulletins page, which contains, you guessed it, technical support information. V Communications has issued a maintenance release of System Commander Deluxe for owners of version 4.x only. If the version that you purchase is not 4.031 (see disk 1), then download the maintenance release. There are several fixes in the maintenance release, including a fix for a problem that occurred if you used the OS Wizard to install OS/2. Although I did not need it, Technical Support is also available via e-mail and telephone (9-5 PST) - reference their web site or product literature for more details.

Third, System Commander can be used without DOS or Windows, but it can only be installed from DOS or Windows 95/98. Luckily in my case this worked out perfectly, but it is something you should keep in mind before you purchase it. I hope future releases change this so that it is platform independent. Also, V Communications recommends that System Commander not be installed while using disk compression - be sure to read the manual if this applies to you because there are a few workarounds.

Installing and Using - Finally!

The installation process went very smoothly and quickly. After backing up the entire system to tape, from start to finish the entire process took no longer than 10 minutes. I especially like the OS Wizard feature. The OS Wizard is an excellent feature for novice users: you can select the OS that you want to install, answer a few questions and the wizard automates everything except for the operating system's install procedure. Your drives are then re-partitioned (if necessary) and formatted. All OS partitions that might conflict with your new install are hidden automatically (but you can easily modify when partitions will be hidden for each operating system later on). If you do not want to use the OS Wizard, you can also do everything manually.

The OS Wizard uses a Windows-like 16 color Graphical User Interface. You can use your mouse or keyboard to make selections easily. The online help screen is a one page, 'General Help' screen full of definitions. I'm not sure what prevented this help screen from being as thorough as the OS Selection Menus, but it should be reworked to include similar functionality. Luckily the manual is a good reference. Aside from the help screen, the interface is easy to use and it loads and runs quickly.

After selecting the OS Wizard from the boot screen, an easy to use GUI guided me through the setup for an 'Isolated OS/2 Install' on a separate partition. The 2 GB partition was formatted for me (FAT 16). It is worth mentioning here that the manual suggests using FAT for compatibility reasons (with other OSes). The manual doesn't say that HPFS will not work, however, you will not be able to resize a HPFS partition using System Commander Deluxe - you can only resize FAT partitions. As I do not require HPFS on this workstation, I did not install it.) Once the formatting was complete, the wizard prompted me once to make sure I wanted to start the OS/2 install. I selected yes, and inserted the OS/2 Warp 4 Installation Disk as you normally would. The Warp install on my new FAT partition went perfectly. Be sure to choose the 'Advanced Install' and not the 'Easy Install' option, however. This is because the 'Easy Install' will reformat and destroy all of the data in your current partition.

System Commander installs its own Master Boot Record and the System Commander program file on the first available primary FAT partition on the fist hard disk. The partition does not have to be bootable -- but it is a DOS based program, so it needs a FAT partition.

After the installation is completed and the system reboots, the first screen that you see is the OS Selection Menu. This screen looks like a 16 color DOS program (because it is one). You can access all functions (including OS Wizard) from this screen using several ALT commands (Ex.: ALT-O loads the OS Wizard). OS selection can be made manually, or you can setup the program to autoload a specific operating system after pausing for the length of time that you specify. The online help screens are context sensitive and they are as thorough as the printed manual. Overall, the interface is simple to use and it is very responsive on my modest PC.

After using this configuration for a few weeks, I can honestly say that I generally like the way System Commander Deluxe works. The manual and web site are very good information tools and the program itself is stable and functional. It was generally easy to install and use - for my simple configuration. It would be interesting to try another more complex OS arrangement - say Linux and OS/2? I'm not sure how this product would fare in that environment, whereas I know Partition Magic does a good job of this. I would like to see the install limitations removed (DOS or Win9x) and I would like to be able to resize HPFS as well as FAT partitions. Perhaps the product is a little pricey at $49.95 Retail as well. Overall, however, if I had to rate the product from one to five with one being the lowest and five being the higest rating, I'd give it a three and a half.

System Commander, V Communications. $49.95 (US Dollars).