Uses For A List Of Simple DOS Commands

by Michael Collins

A complete list of DOS commands is a very extensive list. Usually when you search for a list of simple DOS commands, you will only get the top few, or the most popular ones.

Microsoft Corp has MS-DOS as it’s trademark. Disk Operating System is what DOS stands for. The reason it was written (it is software) - was to control hardware. That hardware was the IBM PC. When it was introduced to the computing industry in 1981, Microsoft Windows was not even on the drawing board. The user interface for DOS is a plain simple command line. The last update for DOS which was ver 6.22 happened in 1994.

The command prompt you will find yourself at when on the DOS command line is this: “C:\>”. From this prompt, you can tell that unless otherwise specified, the next command you issue is expected to be found on the C drive, which is the main hard disk. To change where you want to run your files from, you can issue the following command “D:” or “E:” etc. Then you will find yourself at a “D:\>” prompt or “E:\>” prompt.

Throughout the years there have been many versions of DOS. These include:

1. PC-DOS version

2. MS DOS

3. DR DOS

4. 4 DOS

DOS will run very happily within windows if need be. Sometimes, issuing a DOS command on the command line can be a quicker option than going through the attractive interface Windows presents us with. It is in this situation that it could be advantageous to have a list of simple DOS commands on hand.

Despite the technology of Windows these days, DOS does still have it’s use. If (or should I say when) Windows decides to have the day off and crash, you can still communicate with and talk to your computer using DOS commands.

Since nearly anything of importance can be done on a command line and a DOS prompt. So a list of simple DOS commands is quite a handy little thing to have nearby.

The main DOS commands used mainly deal with directory and file management. There are 71 DOS commands for the DOS command shell provided with Microsoft Windows XP.

If you find yourself looking for a list of simple DOS commands, the first place you should go is to your DOS user manual if you still have it.

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