Extended Operating System Loader (XOSL) is an absolutely free boot manager, created to dramatically simplify the booting process on systems with more than one operating system installed. The main characteristic of XOSL is its user-friendly Graphical User Interface, unknown to today's commercial and non-commercial boot managers.

Photo above shows XOSL options

CLICK THE LOGO ABOVE TO VISIT XOSL WEB SITE

By Jimmy Hanley
  (OS/2 Warp User)

Hello All......As there is some ongoing discussion of boot managers and their features vs problems, I thought I might add one new to me until very recently.  It didn't take long to get very impressed.  The multi booter is called XOSL and can be downloaded free from http://xosl.org.  It is compatible with many Unix based systems (including Linux ), OS/2 HPFS ( I don't know about the new JFS ), NTFS ( more like HPFS with every release ), and is capable of booting DOS/Win3/Win9X from a second partition on a second drive.
   It does require a Fat 16 partition ( it will run on others as long as  all OS's must be able to "see" it ) but it can be a small dedicated partition as well as share with a FAT based OS.  It has full mouse support GUI and numerous video resolutions and lots of options such as the ability to password protect any, all, or none of the booting systems.  XOSL can even boot from floppy and this can be especially powerful because of the most important feature ( to me ) that I saved for last.
  One simply chooses ( highlights -and "Adds" ) any bootable drive, volume or partition........and then you can choose to "ignore, reveal, or hide" any and all other partitions!  Some examples would be,  (1)when desiring to force a particular drive letter assignment, or (2) prevent DOS from freaking at 4 primary partitions on a drive or (3) prevent NT/2000 from dumping files and dirty bootprints all over every piece of  real estate , you can set up a floppy boot in which certain partitions are hidden to begin the install.  One can even set up alternate reveals and hides for different situations as long as drive lettering conventions are worked out.  Source code is available.
   It took some playing to learn the complexities of a very powerful loader on a system with 4 drives and 12 partitions, but it does what it offers and what it  is told without error or complaint.  The only hitch I have seen so far is recognizing HPFS partitions both located in and sharing an extended partition with fat partitions.  Even that problem is easily sidestepped by choosing the less powerful IBM BootMgr partition with 0 sec delay and logical drive defaulted.
   

 Photo above shows XOSL installing on @Macarlo's NT4 SP6

Install Notes:
To install XOSL, execute INSTALL.EXE, and follow the instructions. INSTALL.EXE is also used to upgrade or uninstall XOSL.

FIXMBR.COM:
FIXMBR is a small utility, which will restore the MBR, so you can start XOSL again after installing (typically a Microsoft) OS, which had changed the MBR to directly boot the OS.

Additional Notes:
1. If you have a previous version of XOSL installed on a FAT16/FAT32 partition and want to have XOSL 1.1.0 on the same partition, either upgrade or uninstall the existing version. Do not just install XOSL 1.1.0 over it, or else you won't be able to uninstall XOSL anymore (through the install program)

2. If you have XOSL 1.0.0 installed and upgrade it to XOSL 1.1.0, some boot items might be corrupted if you have one or more extended partitions. If this is the case, make sure you check all boot items (the partition, and the hiding settings) after upgrade.

CONTACT AUTHOR

Extended Operating System Loader:
http://www.xosl.org

Geurt Vos
geurt@xosl.org

@Macarlo, Inc.
@Macarlo's Shareware & Web
OS/2
Java Lobby Member
Java Site Accredited

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