I don't really remember anything about this file other than ... why do you need to edit/view it? Perhaps it's in ASCII (which would explain why it's a bunch of symbols). Try opening it in Windows Notepad where fonts are irrelevant.

IO.SYS isn't the file you are after, it's a binary file that's just for booting -- the files System.INI and Win.INI (in the default Windows directory) are more like what you are looking for -- but even those are not quite it.

Much of the information Windows maintains about fonts is actually kept in the Windows Registry -- but you probably don't have to muck about there, either.

Do you know the name of the font you are looking for? What app uses it? Did you copy it into the Fonts directory yourself, or did some program install it? If the file was copied into the directory yourself, Windows must be "told" about it. If you open the Fonts folder by clicking its Control Panel icon, one of the menus has a selection for updating the fonts list (I'm in Linux right now -- can't give exact menu or technique). Another way to do the same thing is to use TweakUI and select the Rebuild Fonts Cache item (or similar). TweakUI can be downloaded if you don't have it; make sure you get the appropriate version for your Windows version.

I don't think bassman is looking to do anything with his fonts. Rather, when he opens the binary file IO.SYS he gets a bunch of ASCII symbols. He thought maybe the reason it wasn't in english was because it is formatted with a font he doesn't have installed. Obviously, this isn't the case.

Mr bassman11
the file ur trying to open is the binary file so u cant read the file as a text file, and also that is the system file which is used to boot(for microsoft os lie dos,windows XX). it consists the routines(handling functions) to execute the interrupt. if u edit the file the system cant boot afterwords. so dont edit it, and u cant get any information from it. if want to do experi ment on it make a copy of it and then u can do it.
ok bye

well. this question is interesting:

why do you want to edit IO.SYS?

it's beyond my capacity to understand - that's
a big chanllenge...

Here's one reason: I'm trying to create a boot disk that will automatically launch the nifty little 'wipe.exe' utility I use on a regular basis. So far I've been able to edit the config.sys and autoexec.bat files to reflect removal of ramdrive- and CD driver-related files, leaving me with a 680kb disk that boots almost immediately to the A:\>, a real time saver. I figure somewhere along the way I can craft a batch file to run at startup, bypassing the prompt completely.

Here's the hitch: during startup, I still receive the message "Starting Windows 98..." But ya know what? I'm not. I've got me a boot disk loaded with lil' utilities, and I want to reflect that in the boot message, something like "Preparing to boot to A:\>..." or, eventually, "Preparing to run WIPE..."

The text in need of altering is found in IO.SYS, but I can't use Notepad to do the edit. Won't save correctly, of course. I figure another editor is in order. Any ideas?

FYI, in the past, I have simply copied 'wipe.exe/wipe.com' to a Win98SE boot disk. After the little piggy loads up and delivers me to an A:\>, I type "wipe 0" and respond "y" (yes), throwing the thingy into action.

If all of this appears a little anal, well, I'm a persnickety kinda guy....

Me again. :cheesy: I hope this whole conversation isn't too off-topic, but I think the original poster wanted to get into the IO.SYS file and make a few changes. So did I, which is how I stumbled across this thread.

I found a Hex Editor called, of all things, Hex Edit, and it worked like a charm. It went so far as to offer to disable the file's read-only attribute so that I could make and save changes.

My startup disk now boots up with "Booting to A:\>..." versus the standard "Starting Windows 98..." Me like.

Still thinking about a batch file and/or silent switch, if available, for wipe.com so that the hard drive is cleaned without any user intervention....

OK, last time....

I created a small batch file called wipe.bat and put it on the bootable floppy. It reads:

CLS
@echo off
wipe 0
exit

I then added a final line to AUTOEXEC.BAT to run the new batch file:

CALL wipe.bat

And I opened Hex Edit one last time (it has a 30-day trial period) and changed the opening text to "Initializing IBM's WIPE..."

So now the disk boots, presents a sensible message, and leaves me only to decide whether to proceed with the hard drive scrub or not.

Pretty painless. G'night all.

Actually Blink, I do believe that message comes from the command.com if you used a boot disk from IBM ("starting IBM PCDos....") or MSDOS 6.2 ("Starting MS-DOS 6"....) you would see these messages instead. the IO.sys I believe handles interupt hooks for the IO subsystems that Win98 uses