Installing Win95E and Win95J: A Better Solution

by the editors

"Ensuring peaceful coexistence: How to run English and Japanese versions of Windows 95 on the same computer," in our December 1995 issue, has elicited more reader response and requests for back issues than any other article in our first two years of publication. PC operating systems are rarely designed to coexist peacefully -- but few less so than Windows 95, which has been described by some as a "predatory system," one unwilling to share your computer even with other Win95 versions.

The method of installing both English and Japanese Windows 95 described in our December issue works (as many readers have written to attest), but it requires that you manually copy system files and write batch files containing some basic DOS commands. Several readers have written to confess their trepidation about attempting the process and asking if there isn't an easier way.

System Commander

Yes, there is, although it involves shelling out (about ¥9,800 in Akihabara) for an additional piece of software. But if you value your time and want to ensure system reliability, System Commander (by V Communications Inc.; Japanese version distributed by Lifeboat Inc.) is definitely worth the price. It accomplishes the same objective that the convoluted method from our December issue does, but faster and more easily, and offers other benefits as well.

System Commander is a "pre-operating system" that allows you to install any combination of Intel-compatible OSes (such as Windows 95, 3.1, and NT; MS- and PC-DOS and DOS/V; OS/2; Linux and UNIX; and NetWare), in any languages, on the same computer. After installation, you can easily select the desired OS from a menu at bootup.

You can install System Commander from DOS or Windows 95. The first reboot after its installation puts the current OS in the boot menu, and each subsequent operating system installation adds the new OS to the System Commander menu. Then, if you want to switch from Win95E to Win95J, for example, just reboot and make your selection from the boot menu.

With System Commander, you can easily evaluate a new OS without giving up the reliability of your existing operating system or risking a time-consuming recovery from a system crash. If you are an office laptop user, you will also find System Commander an easy solution for creating and choosing between separate portable and network-connection setups.

The System Commander installation process is simple and straightforward; it takes less than 5 minutes. We've test-installed it on over a half-dozen computers of various makes so far (Pentium and 486) and have had no problems.

No problems with System Commander, that is. The Windows 95 installation process itself is a different story, and System Commander actually averted disaster on two occasions when our second installation of Windows caused a General Protection Fault mid-way through and crashed the system. (With System Commander, we easily recovered to the first Win95 version.) We've experienced a mid-installation crash (including on computers without System Commander) on several occasions when trying to add Win95E to a computer with Win95J already installed. (And yes, we used the /is setup switch to prevent Win95E from choking on Japanese double-byte file names.) If you plan to put both Win95E and Win95J on the same computer, we strongly recommend that you install the English version first and then add the Japanese version. We've encountered no problems going that route.

If you install the Lifeboat version of System Commander from a Japanese OS (Windows or DOS), it yields Japanese-language installation menus and help screens. If you install it from an English OS, the first screen pops up as garbage (double-byte characters) but then reverts to English for subsequent screens. Of course, you'll still have the Japanese paper manual to contend with.

System Commander needs less than 1MB of hard disk space, and it uses no resident memory -- thus eliminating possible clashes with your OS or applications. It will identify and warn about probable boot record viruses, and provides almost tamper-proof system security by enabling password protection of any or all the installed OSes. Should you wish to return your computer to its pre-System Commander state (and we doubt you ever will), it comes with its own uninstall program.

No more workaround solutions, or waiting for Microsoft get around to developing and supporting a dual boot solution (or, even more unlikely, a multi-OS solution). If you want to put both English and Japanese Windows 95 (or any other combination of OSes) on your computer, System Commander is a "must buy." This is one program that gets the CJ Editors' Seal of Approval.

System Commander

List prices: ¥12,000 (bilingual, Japanese manual), US$99.95 (English)

Lifeboat, Inc.: phone 03-3293-4711,
fax 03-3293-4710

V Communications Inc.:
tel +1 408-296-4224, fax +1-408-296-4441; http://webmill.com/vcom/syscmdr