Under the hood of Windows 2000: The MS-DOS 7 that hides beneath

Microsoft never sold MS-DOS 7 separately. But when upgrading from Windows 98 to Windows 2000, you'll end up with a hidden MS-DOS 7 on your hard drive.

That leaves me with 4 questions:
What is it all about?
Where does it come from?
What happens, when upgrading from Windows Me?
And why is it there in the Windows 2000 final release, but only functional in the Windows 2000 Release Candidate 2?

00:00 Intro
00:52 Getting hold of MS-DOS 7 - The unofficial way!
02:05 Getting hold of MS-DOS 7 - The Microsoft way!
08:12 Second Look with the English versions of Windows 9x/2000
08:53 Third look with Windows 2000 pre-release versions
10:00 Windows Me: A different beast!
11:20 Conclusion
11:49 Next on TPC: Recovering MS-DOS 8 real-mode

Links:

Archived Microsoft KB191860:
https://web.archive.org/web/201210261...

MS-DOS 7, as extracted from Windows 2000 after upgrade:
https://archive.org/details/win2000-m...

The inofficial MS-DOS 7 distro:
http://web.archive.org/web/2015020200...

The inofficial MS-DOS 7 distro on WinWorldPC.com:
https://winworldpc.com/product/ms-dos/7x

Windows 2000 (and pre-release copies):
https://winworldpc.com/product/window...

Windows ME Upgrade Restrictions:
https://web.archive.org/web/200308050...

Various Wikipedia articles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Me
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_XP

The NY Times on the Windows 9x future:
https://web.archive.org/web/201411291...


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