MSDOS Basics

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MSDOS is a non-graphical single user operating system. DOS is short for Disk operating System .

Today, MSDOS is no longer supported by Microsoft as an independent operating system, however, the DOS box of Windows works as efficient and fast than the former operating system.

Windows 9x, up to version ME, acutally ran on top of DOS. This was shown in Unauthorized Windows 95 through the exploration of kernel level calls which continue to use DOS interrupts for functionality. This can also be seen by changing the command interpreter from COMMAND.COM to some other command interpreter, such as 4DOS. If the command interpreter is changed (through a system configuration file) windows will not load unless the "WIN" command is added to the end of autoexec.bat. In essence, it is loading in the same way that ?Windows 3.11 did, loading itself from autoexec.bat. COMMAND.COM simply hides this fact.

Some of the main DOS commands are listed below:

attrib  //sets the attribte of a file
cd      //change directory
copy    //copies a directory
delete  //deletes a file
dir     //list all directries
help    //shows a list of all MSDOS commands
mkdir   //creates a new directory
path    //used in BATCH files to set the path of programs
prompt  //changes lookandfeel of the DOS promtp
rename  //renames a file or directory
rmdir   //remove directory
replace //replaces a file or directory
set     //used in BATCH files to set environment variables
time    //shows the system time
version //shows actual version of MSDOS running
xcopy   //copies directories rather than files

Each MSDOS command supports at least one or more parameters. The dir command, for example, supports some 10 paramters. To see all paramters of a specific command, you can use the help command.

help dir //shows all parameters of dir command

Note: some versions of DOS may support more or not all commands listed above

last edited (December 19, 2006) by bilderbikkel, Number of views: 18518, Current Rev: 12 (Diff)

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