APPEND May Prevent Windows NT Setup or MS-DOS Apps May Fail

• Microsoft Windows NT operating system version 3.1
• Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server version 3.1

SYMPTOMS

If the MS-DOS command 'APPEND C:/DOS' is in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file and you are using WINNT.EXE to set up Windows NT, the wrong version of COMMAND.COM may be copied to the $WIN_NT.~LS directory during the MS-DOS portion of Windows NT setup. This may cause setup to fail, or if setup is completed, MS-DOS programs may not be able to run.

RESOLUTION

The use of 'APPEND C:\DOS' in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file may cause one of the following problems:

• WINNT Setup may fail completely. When rebooting during setup, the following error message may be displayed:

        The system is not fully installed. Please run setup again.
  

  If this occurs, remove all APPEND statements from AUTOEXEC.BAT, delete the $WIN_NT$.~LS directory, reboot the computer, and run WINNT again.

  -or-

• Setup will be completed. However, applications that run in a Virtual MS-DOS Machine (VDM) may fail. The error message "Incorrect DOS Version" may be displayed when you try to run any MS-DOS application.

  If this error message appears, the correct copy of COMMAND.COM can be manually expanded from the Windows NT floppy disks (disk #20) or from the i386 directory of the Windows NT CD-ROM. Once the correct version of COMMAND.COM is expanded, the error message will no longer appear.