MS-DOS Basic Knowledge

Now let's start the exploration in MS-DOS. You can go to one of the sections listed below. If you don't feel easy with MS-DOS, you can go to try something interesting in MS-DOS.

Firstly, let's start from MS-DOS internal commands.

Secondly, there are several different sections talking about MS-DOS:

  • Utilities & technologies:
    Initialization first: FORMAT.COM --- FAT and the directory structure
    Hard disk drive partitioning: FDISK.COM --- partition tables and the master boot record
    For your convenience: DOSKEY.COM
    Speed up the disk Method One: SMARTDRV.EXE --- disk caching technology
    Speed up the disk Method Two: DEFRAG.EXE --- disk defragmentation
    Maintenance for your disk: SCANDISK.EXE
    Editing plain text documents: EDIT.COM
    Creating small programs: QBASIC.EXE
    Utilize your free memory: RAMDRIVE.SYS
    Test your hardware: MSD.EXE
    Extended memory management: HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE
    Optimize memory utilization: MEMMAKER.EXE
    Starting up your computer: AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS
    Substituting a free drive letter for a directory: SUBST.EXE
    Protecting files using MS-DOS attributes: ATTRIB.EXE
    Copying lots of files with ease: XCOPY.EXE
    Read documents page by page: MORE.COM
    Move files on the command line: MOVE.EXE
    Debugging? You need it to modify the MBR: DEBUG.EXE
    Enable your CDROM drive in MS-DOS: MSCDEX.EXE
  • Related Software:
  • FDISK Simulator (from Shanghai Online)

    There is a usual way of getting experiences of a new MS-DOS command.

    I accumulated some experiences during reinstallations of Windows.

    Return to Beginners' Overview