NOTE TO ALL READERS: THE OPINIONS EXPRESSED ARE THOSE SOLELY OF THE 
AUTHOR THOMAS M. EATON. NO INTENTION OF ENDORSEMENT OF ANY IBM PRODUCT 
IS INTENDED.

THIS IS IN RESPONSE TO THE DOCUMENT CONTAINED IN DOS4EVAL.ARC; IT IS 
RECOMMENDED THAT YOU DOWNLOAD THAT ARCHIVE IN ADDITION TO THIS ONE FOR 
COMPARISION PURPOSES.

This document was created as a response to the file contained in the 
archive DOS4EVAL.ARC. It is intended to give another "side" of the 
coin to those of you that are considering purchasing the new release 
of DOS (4.0), OS2 or just chugging along with what you have. I felt 
many of the items described by the author (whose remains unknown to 
me) were caused simply by his/her lack of understanding of DOS based 
products...the author did state that they worked in a computer store 
which bothers me simply because if a computer store worker cannot 
understand the manuals provided, that person will pass along that 
"mis-information" to their customers. The author did bring up many 
good points and I won't rehash them here. I just wish to respond to 
those I feel need clarification.

1.) 	First about the author's "WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!"; DOS is not 
creating any damage to the system by adding any mysterious files to 
the root directory. As stated in the Getting started w/DOS 4.00 manual 
on page 111...this is caused by the /SWAP command which can be turned 
off or on by modifying the DOSSHELL.BAT file.

2.)	The author complains of the lack of explanation of the new and 
enhanced DOS commands in the basic DOS user manual and the need to 
purchase the DOS 4.00 Command reference. I personally installed DOS on 
both PS2 machines and a 286 clone using the menu driven startup 
without having to reformat drives (still recommend making a backup) 
and doing it to diskette (3.5) with no problems at all (these all have 
since been reinstalled with the earlier version of DOS since).
In addition, since I purchased a 3.5 version for later usage I was 
froced to install the system on my PC without the Aid of the startup 
program and just using the basic manuals provided. Although the 
additional Command reference manual would be helpful, the basic user 
manula is more than adequate to get the system up, running and 
operational. Personally my hats off to IBM for coming up with an 
installation program that makes use of simplistic commands and prompts 
to help a "novice" get there system up and running without the need of 
a power user standing over their shoulder.

3.) The author talks about the inability of getting DOS up on a 
network file server...the manula describes in detail things needed for 
the particular use of 4.0 on a network and although I have not 
attempted this type of installation, it probably caused problems due 
to a lack of taking these documented special considerations into the 
startup process.4.)	The author talks of numerous problems trying to insatll onto an 
"no-name" XT-clone...first the author tried to format the hard drive 
using the 4.0 format /s command after booting from DOS 3.3...of course 
that wouldn't work. You can't reformat using 3.3 format.com after 
booting from 3.2 either. What needed to be done was to get a floppy 
disk that contained the "system files" for 4.0, 4.0 command.com and 
the 4.0 format.com...boot from the floppy and then reformat the drive 
using 4.0 after booting 4.0 DOS. The problems encountered prior to 
trying to do this probably came from the "clones" ROM or possibly the 
need for the configuration of the system with mixed floppies...the 
startup program checks all drives connected before actually begining 
the installation process, there may have been a conflict but it is 
unknown what it actually may have been since the author did not state 
which drive (3.5 or 5.25) was the A: drive.
	Next the author, after reformatting and installing the new files 
into a \DOS directory restoring all the old files back, the system was 
booted with the old CONFIG.SYS AND AUTOEXEC.BAT files which probably 
had a path to the old (3.3) DOS files and each time a call was made 
DOS would go thru the path to the old files vs. new ones. Once again
not really sure since the author didn't provide sufficient details. 
Also because of many enhancements documented in the basic manuls 
commands in the CONFIG.SYS AND AUTOEXEC.BAT files need to be modified 
for those enhancements to work properly (not that difficult though).
 Also with this same system the author talked about numerous drive 
assignment problems with the mixing of drives and the inability of the 
parameters set up in DOS 3.3 CONFIG.SYS to work properly. Once again, 
no need to call IBM was required, the manuals (page 81) document an 
almost identical setup in the manuals and give as their example the 
necessary information of parameter switches to get it all up and 
running. After coreectly configuring the 3.5 drive in config.sys the 
actual format command now required to format a 720k disk in it is 
easier than in earlier versions since all you need to tell DOS is the 
capacity of the disk instead of the # of tracks, sectors...so forth.


IN CONCLUSION:

Not to seem blunt but it seems the author of DOS4EVAL.ARC falls it the 
category of many computer users that "do" before they "read". This I'm 
not really sure of though since I don't know all the details of the 
story. It just seems that all the problems described are documented in 
the basic manuals and could be overcome with a little work...my system 
for which I currently have DOS 4.0 installed was done manually without 
the aid of the DOS startup program (due to 3.5 disks vs 5.25 drives) 
in about 1.5 hours (includes reformat and complete restoration of 
files) using just the manuals provided and the prior experiance 
described earlier. I personally would recommended this enhancement to 
all that consider it...the improvements made are a long time coming. 
Although there will be bugs that crop up (there always is) this 
program will excite both the casual user and everday computer jock.
This will most likely keep DOS alive for a long time even though it still 
only runs 1 program at a time but for the cost of a expanded memory 
board and a software multitasker; a user can get as much bang for 
thier buck out of their old PC/XT/AT as they can for a 7,000 speed 
demon. 

I would gladly discuss this with anyone who might have a question or 
comment by contacting me through the MiniNet BBS at (206)725-9233 or 
the Golden Springs BBS at (205)238-0012.

The opinions expressed here are solely my own and hopefully will be of 
use to someone.
               Thomass M. Eaton

[Note:  Comments regarding this can be directed to the author
via RBBS-PC of Chicago, (312) 352-1035 (290M, 6,000+ files on-line)]