Welcome to Acronis OS Selector 5.0 Special Edition The product is developed by Acronis. Copyright (c) SWsoft, 2001. All rights reserved. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Contents of this Read_Me file 1. About OS Selector 2. System requirements 3. Installation tips 4. Additions available in OS Selector 5.0 Deluxe 5. Contacting us / Ordering from us 1. About OS Selector Faced with current multi-faceted world of the operating systems the user has always to choose between them. And the choice is not always the best. Now it is much easier to solve this problem. OS Selector allows using many different operating systems all of which are installed on single computer and easily switch between them at booting time. In some cases in order to comfortably allocate several operating systems on single computer it may be necessary to change partitions structure without data loss. We strongly recommend to use Disk Administrator from OS Selector package as very powerful, safe and easy to use partition manager. A competent design and a friendly user interface makes using OS Selector a pleasure. OS Selector has the following main features: * Supports a vast number of operating systems including Linux (ALL distributions), Windows XP, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 95 OSR 2, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT 3.1, Windows NT 3.5, Windows NT 3.51, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, FreeBSD, Solaris, SCO, UNIX, UNIXWARE, OS/2, BeOS, MS-DOS, PC-DOS, PTS-DOS, DR-DOS, FreeDOS, QNX, and B-TRON compatible! * Can be installed on any FAT16/FAT32 partition, including a separate partition that is unavailable to any other operating system. * Supports booting from floppies right from the Boot Menu. * Automatically detects operating systems both on primary and logical partitions of all the hard disk drives that can be accessed through BIOS. * Supports multiple operating systems on one FAT16/FAT32 partition. * Prevents system and configuration file conflicts for operating systems that are installed on one partition. * Allows for fine-tuning the configurations of operating systems and their easy addition and deletion from the hard drive. * Built-in boot viruses protection. * Easy recovery in case of MBR corruption. * Supports large hard disks in all the modern BIOS modes. * Ability to set separate passwords on Boot menu and different operating systems configurations. -------------------------------------------------------- OS Selector includes the Disk Administrator - a powerful tool for hard disk partition management. It allows: -------------------------------------------------------- * Creating partitions of any type and formatting for FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, Linux Ext2, Linux ReiserFS file systems and for Linux Swap. You can choose the precise location of a partition and all its parameters at the time of creation. * FAT16 <=> FAT32 partition conversion. * Copying and moving FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, Linux Ext2, Linux ReiserFS and Linux Swap partitions. You can select the precise position of a partition and all its parameters at the time of moving or copying. You can copy or move a partition into free space of smaller size as a single operation! * On-the-fly FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, Linux Ext2, Linux ReiserFS and/or Linux Swap partition resizing. * Selecting the cluster size manually during any operation of creating, copying, moving or resizing a partition. * Deleting any partitions. * Changing FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and Linux Ext2 partition labels. * Getting detailed information about partitions. * getting detailed information about hard disks. * Optional use of 64-kilobyte clusters for FAT16 and FAT32 partitions. * Sector-by-sector editing of the partition and hard disk contents with help built into the multi-windowed disk editor. * Selecting the partition list sorting mode. * Browsing partition letter and number assignments for different operating systems. * Performing partition operations and viewing changes that will be made before applying them to your system. 2. System Requirements OS Selector can be installed on any computer with at least a i386 CPU, 4 megabytes RAM (you may need 32 megabytes or more to work with large partitions on large hard disks), a 3.5" floppy disk drive for installation/booting from a diskette or a CD-ROM drive for installation/booting from a CD-ROM, and a VGA-compatible video-board and monitor. OS Selector requires at least 10 megabytes of space on any FAT16/FAT32 partition (if your PC lacks FAT partitions, Acronis OS Selector Installation Wizard will offer to create it). OS Selector may conflict with some boot virus alarms that may be built into some BIOSes because it frequently modifies the MBR and boot sector contents. For normal performance you should switch this option off. Also, some anti-virus software may warn you about the possible presence of viruses in, for example, the REINSTAL.COM file. If you have grounds to suspect that your computer is really infected you should perform all the necessary diagnostics and cures and restore OS Selector from an uninfected installation diskette. 3. Installation Tips Place the CD-ROM disc in your CD-ROM drive and close the drawer. For Windows: a) Click on the Windows Start. b) Click on Run. c) When the Run sindow opens click on Browse. d) When the Browse window opens, click on Look in and slected the CD-ROM drive that contains the OS Selector CD-ROM disc. When the contents of the CD-ROM are shown, "double"-click on the application oss_s_e.exe. The executable file oss_s_e.exe will now be shown in the Run window. Click OK to start the program. To start the installation process you must boot from the installation media (either a floppy diskette or a bootable CD-ROM drive) and carefully read all the messages and perform the required actions. If you are using the large hard disk support utility (like EZ-Drive or DM6 DDO), you must create and boot from a floppy diskette. In this case you will create a bootable installation diskette to install OS Selector from CD-ROM by executing the program that is supplied on this CD-ROM. 4. OS Selector 5.0 Deluxe has the following extra features: Setup: * Creating Boot from floppy sections, separators and comments; * Copying sections; * Hiding sections; * Changing section properties; * Changing options except Boot default and Display Mode; * OS Detection Wizard; * Windows 9x/ME Installation Wizard; * Deactivation of OS Selector Disk Administrator: * Perform all converting, copying, moving and resizing partitions in Disk Administrator and within Disk Editor. * The Disk Administrator may perform operations with/on all partitions. 5. Contacting Us / Order from us Contact Acronis at: Acronis 395 Oyster Point Boulevard, Suite 213 South San Francisco, CA 94080 (USA) Homepage: http://www.acronis.com/en E-mail: info@acronis.com Order from us at: Sales URL: http://www.acronis.com/en/sales/ E-mail: sales@acronis.com