IBM OS/2 Warp

OS2

OS/2 was IBM's answer for a consumer operating system with high end features (versus their enterprise mainframe operating systems). Jointly development with Microsoft for a period of time, it later was split apart and became an IBM exclusive product. For anyone who hasn't tried OS/2, it's like a mixture between Windows and Linux with 'IBMisms' thrown in there for good measure.


Downloads


OS/2 Videos

Kudos to Chris Satterfield for dumping a bunch of these OS/2 VHS tapes that I won on ebay, for me.

Just Add OS/2 Warp

OS/2 Warp Version 3: An In Depth Demonstration

OS/2 Warp Version 3 - IBM Sales Video


OS/2: Ahead and Behind

In the year 2016 Microsoft Windows still doesn't have a proper system to handle with higher DPI, and Microsoft has just started to implement 'resolution sniffing' where it will dynamically change your DPI settings based on your resolution. Well guess what, OS/2 Warp had this way back in 1999. If you set up OS/2 in 1600x1200, it will bump up the DPI to 125%. This was only *just* introduced in Windows 8! Windows 7 requires a patch released much later in its life to perform this.

There are a handful of curious 'firsts' I've noticed with OS/2:

What's more, is that OS/2 properly scales all fonts, windows and applications without having to smudge everything over-- which is becoming a huge problem even in Windows 10 where Microsoft desperately tried to change the DPI system breaking things even worse.

Of course OS/2's shell is old and it shows (although it may be less of age and just design paradigms to be honest). You can't drag and drop icons, you can't select everything with a swift Ctrl + A, and other commonly used features like that are lacking. But on the flip side it does allow you to copy to an existing window that's open; which is something Windows doesn't offer (unless you had a 3rd party program, of which I know of none which mimic OS/2's file management).

Where is OS/2 now at the present time? Its use has rapidly declined and even ATMs are starting to switch over to other operating systems; actually there's a big problem with the XP ATMs: which is why Microsoft is still making special updates for it that desktop users are relaying to their own machines as well. There are of course some businesses that have equipment and processes that still run on OS/2 and probably won't be changing any time soon because:

  1. It's more secure than Windows, Linux and OS X at this point. I'm actually going to retract this statement, as modern exploits become more elaborate, CVEs and security threats are at an all time high, more so than any point in history. OS/2 is merely secure through 'obscurity' which isn't real security.
  2. Removing it would cost more than keeping it running and would have more disadvantages than advantages. To a lot of legacy businesses, it's just not worth it.
  3. You still get proper DOS support in OS/2 and it's not as insecure as Windows 98, and with 3rd party enhancements it can still be installed on modern hardware and utilise multi-threading unlike Windows 9x. Although it may just be more ideal to run everything in a hypervisor anymore than using baremetal OS/2.

With some of the problems of Windows 10 though, OS/2 does offer some respite. And it's FAST. 2026 update-- yeah... try Windows 11 on for size, what a horrible product that is. Windows 11 makes Windows 95 look like a perfect product.


Advice for installing OS/2

If you're installing vanilla OS/2 for the first time, there should be a few things that you need to be aware of:

  1. It's best to use a version of OS/2 Warp that already has the Merlin 'Convenience Package'* installed (i.e. 4.52), this ensures that you don't have to disable ARTCHRON, have to deal with inferior hard disk controller drivers, and a host of other problems.
  2. You should always make sure the drive is fully formatted; as there can be stray partitions if you're using standard platter drives that could interfere with OS/2's deployment (re: the LVM partition).
  3. It's extremely necessary that you use HPFS for the operating system; using FAT32 will disallow long file names. You also don't want to exceed 16 GB as CHKDSK won't be able to run on an HPFS volume higher than that. This does not apply to eComStation or ArcaOS.
  4. \The operating system must be installed on the drive letter C:\

*Convenience Package is similar to a Service Pack in the Windows world


Differences between OS/2 Warp 4.0 and 4.52

Due to the amount of legacy information and documentation still surfacing around the internet, there's a bit of confusion regarding the differences between the two versions of OS/2 Warp 4.0 and 4.52.

Warp 4.0 with the Merlin Convenience Pack is in fact known as Warp 4.52. And IBM did release installation media of 4.52 (although never commercially, which is why you will always see Warp 4.0 boxed media, but never 4.52).

Warp 4.0

Warp 4.52

So with 4.52, you can throw away all of the pages talking about disk storage limitations and registration program issues. Why people are so insistent on talking about it when 4.0 was long displaced, I'll never know.

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