Talk:MS-DOS

DIR

The "DIR" example needs to be changed. The output looks more like UNIX/Linux. I've never seen any such output from a DOS "DIR".

Thats probably from a Windows machine running an updated version of DOS. Older DOSes, as you most rightly probably see, did not comma-separate nor tab out the display as nicely as the newer DOSes did. Dysprosia 12:22 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

It looked very strange to me. I replaced it with a heavily edited version of my root directory, from Windows 98. I stripped off the LFNs, I think it's pretty much the same as DOS now. -- Tim Starling 12:35 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Well, comma separation came round v6.2, but I don't think we really need any of this to dig that far back :) Nice work Dysprosia

Improve references in article

== the referenced Official website does not seem to exist anymore ++ GioCM (talk) 06:15, 4 October 2018 (UTC)

MS-DOS and Clones

MS-DOS is bought from a system that apparently is the root for DR-DOS as well, so it is unfair to talk as DR-DOS as a clone of MS-DOS. Because Microsoft were allowed to licence what they wrote for IBM for other manufactures, strictly speaking, MS-DOS is a clone of PC-DOS to run on computers that cloned the IBM PC.

The first retail or upgrade DOS was DR-DOS 5.0. All DOS versions before this were available as OEM only.

It's only after version 5, and the split between IBM and Microsoft, that people started to think of MS-DOS as the thing being cloned. In part it's more to do with the magic that Microsoft was putting into DOS (which they did not have a monopoly), and Windows (which they did), that other DOS manufacturers had the inside edge. IBM had access to the real DOS/Windows code up to DOS 6.20 (which is the basis of 6.30), and Windows 3.10 (which is the basis of Win-OS/2 3.1).

IBM were allowed to go it head on with Microsoft, so beginning with PC-DOS 5.02, IBM's DOS competed with Microsoft's DOS on the open market. When this arrangement finally lapsed, Microsoft released 6.22, and 3.11, where references to OS/2 as the server were replaced with Windows NT. Note that both OS/2 2.x and Windows NT rely on DOS 5.0 for their DOS utilities.

MS-DOS 6.x OEM disks are labeled "MS-DOS and additional tools". This split separates things like qbasic, memmaker, msav, msbackup, scandisk, as 'additional tools'. One could either licence DOS by itself, or with the additional tools. IBM licenced DOS itself, and provided its own editor, script language, antivirus, compression, etc.

MS-DOS 7, 7.1 and 8 exist, but as subsystems of the Win9x systems. The bootable DOS diskette produced by diskcopy.dll produces a DOS 8 diskette, however, the DOS utilities provided in Windows (eg debug.exe, edlin, command.com), are DOS 5. debug.exe is a straight byte for byte copy of the DOS 5 utility. Edit is from Windows 9x, runs under any DOS from 3.1 onwards. Likewise, the QBASIC from any Win9x cdrom is from MS-DOS 6.22, amd from Windows NT 3.x, 4.x, is straight out of 5.00.

--Wendy.krieger (talk) 11:19, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

changes

I was expecting that there is a little changelog what changed in the different dos versions. Why is there nothing(only release date and versionnumbers) what features the different versions add/removed? mabdul 10:53, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

DOS 5 (PC-DOS and MS-DOS), are essentially equal, except PC-DOS is compiled for the 386, while MS-DOS is a 286 version. This supports a new editor (QBASIC EDIT), a DOSSHELL based on Windows 3.0 standard mode, and an upper memory management program. The system is much more stable to 4.0 or 3.0. 2880 kiB floppies are supported.

DOS 5 is the basis of the DOS emulation in both OS/2 2.x (except PPC), and NT i386.

DOS 6 and Windows 3.x1 files are packed with compress v1, and with PKLITE. The install disks are now usable as program files.

MS-DOS 6 seems to vary little, once one takes account of the version check. The differences between 6.00 and 6.22 and intermediate versions, amounts to some changes in IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM, and one or two other files. Between 6.0 and 6.2, there are changes in the redistributables (himem.sys, emm386.exe, mscdex.exe). The bulk of the differences between 6.20 and 6.22 are in the version check, although SETVER's table changes, and IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM are different.

This version comes with a revised QBASIC (broken support for reading HELP.HLP), along with utilities similar to contempory DR-DOS 6.0. Memmaker (memory management), DRVSPACE (broken in 6.0, fixed in 6.2, removed in 6.21), DBLSPACE (new in 6.22), MSBACKUP, a broken antivirus MSAV.

PC-DOS 6.0, 6.1 and 6.3 are very similar at byte level, and with the exclusion of version-check, more of the files become different. I did not decode the files to see if there are more files are equal save the version check. PCMCIA support is added.

IBM did not licence Microsoft's 'additional tools', and included a back-version of PC TOOLS.

MS-DOS 7 et sec are essentially identical, handle long file names in fat (when a driver is loaded). The bulk of the files are identical, save for IO.SYS, COMMAND.COM, and some files changing due to the introduction of FAT32. MS-DOS 8 is merely 7.2 rebadged. Very little changes here except what is needed for Windows (ie FAT32, loading straigt into Windows). Files packed with Extract into cabs.

Most of the additional tools were removed (first to 'OLDMSDOS' on the cdrom), a new editor replaced the QBASIC editor.

PC-DOS 7 is basically PC-DOS 6.3, with an updated editor and rexx support - these appeared first in the DOS 6.3 emulated in OS/2 PPC. As with DR-DOS, IBM includes Stacker 4 (not the DOS and OS/2 version). In line with SAA, the files are packed as for OS/2, using the PACK2 utility. PC-DOS 2000 is a cosmetic change to PC-DOS 7 + bugfixes.

PC-DOS 7.1 is a version for building installs, supports FAT32, but not LFN, fits essentially onto a floppy disk.

--Wendy.krieger (talk) 08:13, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

MS-DOS and Windows NT

Somewhere, it should be noted that people call the Windows NT command prompt 'DOS'.

Microsoft did a lot to foster this. The icon in Windows NT 3 and 4 for cmd.exe is the same as the MS-DOS 5 icon, and the same window can run both DOS and Win32 command-line utilities. Given that Windows cmd.exe is more like command.com than OS/2's version, and that its command.com actually passes commands through to cmd.exe (or any other underlying command processor) to process, gives the illusion that Microsoft's command window really is DOS. In Consumer windows (win9x), it actually is DOS that processes it, but this command.com pretends to be Windows.

Contrast this with IBM's OS/2, where this confusion never arose. One has specific DOS and OS/2 command-line windows, each with their own set of programs. One does not read in the OS/2 press (eg OS/2 magazine), any confusion about the OS/2 command-line being 'DOS'.

It's not that people would confuse the two - this did not happen in OS/2, but that Microsoft made this easy to happen.

--Wendy.krieger (talk) 07:26, 14 April 2011 (UTC)

People even today refer to the CLI as DOS. ( CompTIA A+ 20-701 ). The article propagates this also: "MS-DOS is still alive today in Windows 8, but in the form of Command Prompt." I thought that in Windows NT 4, that command.com generated a stack error, but I can test it with Windows 2000, NT v5.

I would rewrite this line: "MS-DOS is still alive today in Windows 8, but in the form of Command Prompt." as "The Command processor of DOS, has evolved to be compatible with the latest file systems, and Operating systems." ( You can do a dir with OS 8 on a ExFAT ). I would fit the word version in there too somehow... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.156.92 (talk) 10:51, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

This is a huge mistake. People still call a console window a DOS box and similar terms. The two are totally different; the programs that execute in the two are different. This article should not promote the confusion that a console window executes DOS programs. Sam Tomato (talk) 16:31, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

It is not true that "the same window can run both DOS and Win32 command-line utilities". A DOS box can only run DOS applications and a Windows console window can only run Windows console programs. There are versions of DOS commands (such as "xcopy" that first appeared in DOS) available for console windows but they are not the same program. Sam Tomato (talk) 17:58, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

It is indeed true that "the same window can run both DOS and Win32 command-line utilities". Windows itself comes with Windows console commands (eg xcopy), along with some DOS commands (eg edlin, edit, kb16 are pure MS-DOS 5.0 commands or MS-DOS 7,0). The situation under OS/2 would clear this up.

Under OS/2, there are separate DOS and OS2 command-lines, and OS/2 people don't refer to the OS/2 prompt as a 'dos prompt'. Commands that run in both (eg xcopy) are OS/2 bound programs in c:\os2. In Windows, there are no bound programs like that. The DOS-only stuff is in c:\os2\mdos. If you run a DOS program under cmd.exe, OS/2 will open a DOS window, run the program, and close the window. The Windows MS-DOS session runs with the console window in Win32. So the console and the output are handled by the Win32 side, and one can pipe between DOS and Win32 console programs.

If you want to run a pure DOS session, in which TSR programs work (like some of the UBasic maths programs), you have to create a pure DOS session. That is, you have to launch command.com, and then have command.com run your program. TSR programs are not active at a Windows prompt, but when you load a dos program in them, then they are active. Compare with OS/2, where a TSR program can be read even at the OS/2 DOS prompt. Wendy.krieger (talk) 07:30, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

Competition Section, Incomplete Thought

In the Competition section is the sentence:

MS-DOS supported the simple .COM and the more advanced relocatable .EXE executable file formats; CP/M-86 a relocatable format using the file extension .CMD.

I am having trouble seeing what completed thought is in the phrase after the semicolon. What thought, from the first part of the section (before the semicolon), is being commented upon / added to / whatever in the last part (after the semicolon)? The last part needs to be reworked to clarify what it is saying. — al-Shimoni (talk) 23:39, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I rephrased this a bit. Hopefully it becomes clearer now. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 23:58, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is much clearer. Thank you. — al-Shimoni (talk) 09:37, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

MS-DOS Version 2.2x and 3.35

Hello. My name is Ole Juul and I live in Coalmont BC. I am an avid user of MS-DOS and an amateur computer historian. I would like to point out that the Wikipedia list of MS-DOS versions includes "Version 3.35 (OEM)" but that there does not appear to be any proof of that version's existence. To be included in this list I strongly believe that there should be some official Microsoft documentation of (at least) intent, or an actual copy of the software. As it stands, it would appear that there is neither.

The only mention that I can find is on a Russian "abandonware" site. See here: http://oscollect.old-dos.ru/OS/MS-DOS/Final%20Releases/

Unfortunately that version is actually 3.3 and _not_ 3.35 like it says. Another "abandonware" source came from Hungary and it was also just a mislabled version of 3.30. There are legitimate sellers of used and historical software as well but I have not been able to locate one with any mention of version 3.35. It would appear that the problem could be a typographical error somewhere along the way, and that it got carried forward. There are now other lists on the web which reflect this apparent error. Is it possible that Wikipedia has taken the information from another web site without any verification?

I have checked with others in the DOS community, and the version is not known. We all collect any historical versions of DOS and it would appear that a copy of 3.35 has not surfaced. If someone here wishes to confirm a version of 3.35 you can view the code in the COMMAND.COM file and the version number will be visible about four screens down (~line 99). The Russian version says 3.3. You can also type "ver" to get the version information - but you will obviously have to boot with that particular version in order to do that.

I hope this information will be helpful in sorting out this situation. Having Wikipedia list something which does not appear to exist is causing some people to spend a lot of time on a wild goose chase. I would challenge the original poster of the list to actually produce a copy, because I do not believe that this list has any legitimacy without the compiler either referring to Microsoft documents, or looking at a real world copy of each version. Otherwise it is hearsay and, unless labelled as such, should not be included.

Respectfully yours,

        Ole Juul  oj (at) coalmont (dot) net

PS: I am unable to register because my name, and anything close, is already registered. My sense of honesty will not allow me to use a pseudonym. However, I have great trust in the integrity of the editors here and have every confidence that this matter will be dealt with appropriately. 64.251.64.58 (talk) 11:25, 6 March 2012 (UTC) Ole Juul

Really? Typing User:Ole Juul in the search box gets you to a "user not registered" page. WP:Be Bold and change it. Trusting in the integrity of editors here is going to get you disappointed. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:29, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

Right now, I have no personal recollection of a MS-DOS or PC DOS 3.35, but haven't checked my archive yet. It is possible that it existed, but if it did, it's rare and definitely not one of the "mainstream" releases. There was a lot of parallel development and quite some confusion in version numbers in the time frame between 3.3 and 5.0, and OEMs sometimes used their own numbering schemes.

The version number must not necessarily be reflected in strings embedded into COMMAND.COM (although it does so most of the time). Have you checked the other system files, INSTALL/SETUP or the likes or README files as well? Have you compared the files in the mentioned "distribution" with files from a normal MS-DOS 3.3 issue? Are there any differences? Have you checked the version number reported by the system on INT 21h/AH=30h level? (IIRC, MS-DOS 6.21 continued to display as 6.2. And PC DOS 6.1 reported a version number of 6.0 on API level. Strange things happen... ;-)

FWIW, there was for sure an OEM version of DR DOS 3.35 in October 1988, but DR DOS is not based on MS-DOS, of course.

Regarding your registering problems, once you have registered you could set up a signature different from your account name. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 15:01, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

It was determined in a Vintage-Computer.com forum that the 3.35 version Ole had was actually just a DOS 3.3 that was renamed.

I found a great resource with some DOS history, but am unsure how best to integrate it into the wikipedia article -- maybe someone else can run with it? The link is http://www.os2museum.com/wp/?page_id=639 --Trixter (talk) 02:35, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

There was never a MS-DOS 3.35 - removed from version list. I'm 99.9% sure there was never a MS-DOS 2.2x either, any evidence to the contrary ? If not then it should be removed as well. Asmpgmr (talk) 22:43, 12 June 2012 (UTC)

Confirmed, I was a computer historian too, and I never saw a MS-DOS 3.35. 3.31 came with the IBM Portable. As for MS-DOS, PC-DOS was version 2.0 and 2.1, MS-DOS was 2.0.1 and 2.1.1. PC-DOS 2.2 was a patched version by Tech-PC Magazine that fixed a register order error. ( you could rename PC-DOS to be 2.1 ( no change ) or 2.2 or 2.1p ) Ill look for others. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.156.92 (talk) 10:55, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

And yes, Diablo Valley College Engineering department had Televideo Machines with DOS 2.2 on them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.156.92 (talk) 11:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

FWIW I vaguely recall a Japanese OEM DOS 2.25, it supported AVAILDEV and SWITCHAR in CONFIG.SYS. –Be..anyone (talk) 03:45, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Conflicting Release Date

In the current article, it says on the side box that MS-DOS 1.0 was released in 1981 (this seems to be correct, as I'll point out later), but on the text itself it claims to have been released in 1982. I've checked the source of that, and can't find any solid evidence that it was in 1982, just some people talking about stuff happening "months later" or "a year later" with questionable context.

However, after checking the fourth External Link in this page (http://www.linfo.org/ms-dos.html) the article clearly states a more accurate date, August 1981.

So, I ask, is it acceptable to change the article to reflect this, and accept August 1981 as the proper Release Date?

Raven-14 (talk) 04:18, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Please Please do so. I was there, and I am the reference, so I, by rule cannot source it. DOS 1.0 came out with the first PCs when they were shipped. It only supported single sided disks, and its file creation dates were Aug 04, 1981. Later on in the same month in August, My brother and I went down to the computer land in El Cerrito, CA and purchased a dual DSDD IBM PC with 256K of ram, and DOS 1.1, which was necessary to handle the second side. So August, 1981 saw two versions of DOS released.

Lets see about solid evidence. The Disk labels for DOS 1.0 and 1.1 both say (C) 1981. DOS itself says (C) 1981, and ....

But a picture....

http://web.archive.org/web/20070220194642/http://www.16bitos.com/ibm100_1.htm

It Reads: "IBM Personal Computer Computer Language Series 6172212 DOS Version 1.00 (C) Copyright IBM Corp. 1981 Licensed Material Property of IBM

-- 2013-02-12T02:26:16‎ 67.180.156.92

If you bought an original IBM PC with 256K of RAM, double-side floppy disks and PC DOS 1.1, that must have been after May 1982, not 1981. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 18:10, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Things are complicated a bit by the fact, that there were two operating systems, MS-DOS and PC DOS. PC DOS 1.0, an OEM version of MS-DOS tailored specifically for the IBM PC, was released in August 1981 together with the IBM PC, but MS-DOS itself was not available to end-customers at this time (or at least I'm not aware of it and could not find any sources for it). PC DOS 1.1 was released in May 1982 together the double-side floppy disk upgrade of the IBM PC, and it was only in June 1982, when other OEM versions of MS-DOS started to appear, and while some of them maintained the same version numbering schemes, other OEMs used very different names and versions, sometimes causing a lot of confusion when it comes to the task of determining the exact MS-DOS version they were originally derived from. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 18:10, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

MS-DOS 1.25 was the first version of MS-DOS, released in 1982. MS-DOS was OEM version of IBM PC DOS that Microsoft licensed and adapted for other manufactures of computer systems with Intel 8088 or 8086 CPU, not IBM PC compatible at first.

While IBM PC DOS 1.0 was released in August of 1981 with the IBM PC (model 5050).

IBM PC DOS was something IBM payed a one time payment for to MS, together with programming languages. IBM engineeres had superviced closely the development of turning 86-DOS into PC DOS for around 9 months, and had over 300 changes. Some of the commands was programmed by IBM. Tim P. was hired in by MS and did the programming. Flash951 (talk) 22:20, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

Windows 95 up until Windows NT

The statment "Since the release of Windows 95 up until Windows NT, it was segregated as a full product used for bootstrapping, troubleshooting, and backwards-compatibility with old DOS games and no longer released as a standalone product." doesn't make sense. Windows NT was released in 1993, two years before 95. Emmette Hernandez Coleman (talk) 11:04, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

I tore this section apart, clarified a little stuff (concurrent NT/9x), removed some stuff that was replicated elsewhere in the page. I don't think this bit is an issue anymore. --Overand (talk) 15:51, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Multi-tasking and "the other DOS 4.0"

It might be interesting to add some info about the "multi-tasking DOS 4.0" described in this blog post. It seems that this was developed alongside 3.0, intended to be a major new version with advanced multi-tasking features. But it was later abandoned in favour of OS/2, except for cut-down releases for some OEMs who'd already signed up for it. What most people know as MS-DOS 4.0 was actually a different product, released by IBM as PC-DOS 4.0 some time later, and the multi-tasking features never made it into the main line of DOS. - IMSoP (talk) 00:43, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

There is Multiuser DOS for this purpose, if the article doesn't link to it anywhere please add it, e.g., put it in MS-DOS#See also. No, that's something else. We only have a shaky redirect from European MS-DOS to New Executable. –Be..anyone (talk) 17:05, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Hm, there's a few interesting references scattered about, and I think it deserves its own article, so I've gone ahead and stubbed one out: Multi-tasking MS-DOS 4.0.

I'll go around linking it in and fixing up redirects now. - IMSoP (talk) 19:32, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Better, thanks. –Be..anyone (talk) 10:55, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Opening of source code

Note that the source code is not even open source, as the policy is "see, don't touch", and applies to DOS 1.0/2.0, and under a restrictive research license (non-commercial, not for distribution and modification, etc). -Mardus (talk) 14:03, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

This has changed, DOS 1.25 and 2.00 has now been released under the MIT license on github. As such, I think one should consider add MIT to the listed licenses. Sundhaug92 (talk) 01:56, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

Localization

Stuff belonging to the localization apart from the referenced COUNTRY.SYS, all covered in the same TechNet MS DOS 6 technical reference: DISPLAY.SYS (handles codepage changes for the display), various *.CPI files including EGA.CPI (display fonts), KEYBOARD.SYS (keyboard layouts), KEYB.COM or EXE, NLSFUNC.EXE (manages CHCP for keyboard/display/printer), CHCP (internal command). Lots of codepages existed, and the NLSFUNC stuff allowed to use any of the "prepared" codepages with CHCP, not only two as in OS/2. –Be..anyone (talk) 03:04, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi

Here is a screenshot of MS-DOS 6.22 set to German settings: [1][2][3] As you can see the language is still English even after a reboot. Your source also says "enables MS-DOS to use country-specific conventions for displaying times, dates, and currency". It does not say anything about User Interface language. Additional screenshots are also available if you wish.

May I remind you that the burden of the source is on you? But so far your have been reinstating your change without additional source, justification or anything; while it was I who took my time to take screenshots. Are you familiar with out edit warring policy?

Best regards,

Codename Lisa (talk) 22:02, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

MS-DOS logo

Hi.

I am hoping Sk-Eiht is viewing this, because I reverted one of his edits that I found objectionable, per WP:BRD. In view of the recent attempts to place an image in the logo area of the article, I thought it is time we had this discussion.

Logo is different from cover art, seal, splash screen and mascot, although computer icon is a form of logo. For example, File:Office logo (Pre-2003).png is a logo of Office 97. File:Microsoft Office 97 Professional Box Art 2.jpg is a cover art but not a logo. Another example is ESET NOD32: File:ESET antivir 7 logo.png is its logo but the software recurrently shows a picture of robot, as seen in File:ESET-NOD32 Antivirus.JPG. The robot is not the logo.

Does MS-DOS have a logo? If I remember correctly, MS-DOS didn't have a logo. It did have a cover art, but that was just art and was not registered as its mark. File:Microsoft DOS.svg is a definitely a logo and is derived from both Windows 3.1's DOS prompt logo and the cover art, but its source does not indicate that it is made by Microsoft.

P.S. Welcome to Wikipedia, Sk-Eiht!

Best regards,
Codename Lisa (talk) 05:58, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

Sorry for my edit, it was absolutely in good faith. I thought it was the official logo of MS DOS. I am not a native English speaker (I am Italian), but I got what do you mean. Thank you for your kindness and nice work on wikipedia :) --Sk-Eiht (talk) 17:25, 4 September 2014 (UTC)

The github-version of the sources includes what appears to be two versions of the MS-DOS logo, one at 600x600 and one at 250x250. Sundhaug92 (talk) 02:01, 29 September 2018 (UTC)

MS-DOS 5 is the same logo that Sandhaug92 refers to. This is the icon in Progman from Windows 3.1, and the NT 3,4 icon. MS-DOS 6 has a towering version of this, similar to the box-label. It is provided as an MSDOS.ICO in the file set. PCDOS 5 has a black square with DOS written in a circle. The icon form is rare, but is found in IBMDOS 6.0. PC-DOS 6.1 and OS/2 3.x uses a DOS icon with a grey background. The PCDOS 7.x icon has the O lowered and the letters PC put above the O. They all match the box art. Wendy.krieger (talk) 08:34, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Proposed merge with MIDAS (operating system)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Proposal withdrawn per WP:SNOW. Taking to WP:AFD instead. — Keφr 14:25, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

---

The MIDAS article contains barely two sources and some apparently WP:OR content. I believe the topic is not notable on its own; any correctly sourced content may however warrant mention somewhere in the history of MS-DOS. — Keφr 05:27, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

For the record, if this proposal fails, I will be nominating that article for deletion instead. — Keφr 16:43, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose merge; different subject, Microsoft dead-end product has nothing to do with MS DOS. Those are arguments for improvements at MIDAS (operating system) but I don't think they support merging that content here. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:22, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

  No amount of improving an article can change the fact that its subject is not notable. Apparently this one is not, but it still seems to me somewhat relevant to the history of MS-DOS, even if it is something else. Hence this proposal. — Keφr 16:43, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

  Well, yes, but that's an argument for deletion, not for merging. --Wtshymanski (talk) 17:17, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

  In fact, I intended to put that article to AfD if this merger proposal fails… which, as it looks like, it is about to do. I am closing this. — Keφr 14:25, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

• Oppose merge; MIDAS was never released, I don't believe it should have its own article and should be deleted as it does not meet notability guidelines. I'm sure there are hundreds of proposed computing products around that time that that were never released. Perhaps it could be a short footnote in the MS-DOS article if it can be shown that MIDAS had some influence on MS-DOS. — Diverman (talk) 20:33, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

NO.The MIDAS article has nothing to do with MS-DOS.Qqwe2 (talk) 02:17, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Add stuff about XP.

XP DOS is not just boot disks.IT ALSO HAS MS-DOS PROMPT. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Qqwe2 (talk • contribs) 19:32, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but the kernel of Windows XP is Windows N.T. not M.S.-D.O.S. so the information is not relevant to this article, and the Command Prompt article itself has enough about it.

Sincerely, --Namlong618 (talk) 11:07, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

The dos produced by the boot disks is DOS 8.0 (WinMEdos), while the DOS emulation is 5.0. The editor runs under both, but the other commands (eg, edlin) do not work in the DOS 8 boot disks. Wendy.krieger (talk) 08:37, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Version history regarding 7.0 through 8.0

Microsoft never officially made any operating systems named "MS-DOS 7.0", "MS-DOS 7.1", nor "MS-DOS 8.0". Instead, Windows 95 included a version of DOS which reported itself to applications as version 7.0. Windows 95 OSR2.x (95B/95C) and both versions of Windows 98 included a version of DOS which reported itself to applications as 7.1, and Windows ME further still included a version that reported itself as 8.0. Reading an archived talk page, the information very much smells like original research and the version numbers themselves should really have a reliable source to cite from (preferably Microsoft themselves).

As there were no such stand-alone operating systems, MS-DOS at that point in history being included in Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows ME as more of a compatibility object than the primary system itself (arguably--the software architecture probably made it prohibitively complex to fully decouple from DOS, but that's a moot point here). The newer version numbers along with the tie to the Windows 9x OSes can be noted with a proper citation, but I don't believe they should be represented as whole operating systems on their own right. --Chungy (talk) 15:01, 21 November 2014 (UTC)

There are three sources for the DOS version: the box, the 'ver' command, and the system calls. The string that comes for 'ver' comes from a part of IO.SYS, where the string eg 4.10.2222 can be edited to 7.10.2400. Therefore 'ver' is using an inbuilt string, rather than the system-call to get the version number. Of course, it is hardly 'original research', since it is written clearly in the binaries of the files that they are MS-DOS 7 etc. Looking into a program like 'xcopy32.mod', for example, shows eg "MS-DOS Version 7 Copyright (C) 1981-1995 Microsoft Corporation". The files that make 'MSDOS7' are pretty much what you get when you upgrade a Win98 etc to Windows 2000. A directory is created C:\MSDOS7 which can be activated into the boot menu. Wendy.krieger (talk) 07:44, 7 October 2018 (UTC)

RAS syndrome

"This article is about Microsoft's MS-DOS. For other compatible operating systems of the DOS family, see DOS." MS-DOS already means Microsoft DOS, so isn't the above equivalent to "Microsoft's Microsoft DOS"? 71.29.50.7 (talk) 20:27, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't know the TLA RAS, but your shorter DAB note is okay ;-) –Be..anyone (talk) 23:01, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

See RAS syndrome.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:40, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

History

I removed the following paragraph from the History:

"While MS-DOS appeared on PC clones, true IBM computers used PC DOS, a rebranded form of MS-DOS. Ironically, the dependence on IBM-compatible hardware caused major problems for the computer industry when the original design had to be changed. For example, the original design could support no more than 640 kilobytes of memory (the 640 KB barrier), because IBM's hardware design reserved the address space above this limit for peripheral devices and ROM. Manufacturers had to develop complicated schemes (EMS and XMS, and other minor proprietary ones) to access additional memory. This limitation would not have been a problem if the original idea of interfacing with hardware through MS-DOS had endured. (However, MS-DOS was also a real mode operating system, and the Intel x86 architecture only supports up to 1 MB of memory address space in Real Mode, so for simple access to megabytes of memory, MS-DOS would have had to be rewritten to run in 80286 or 80386 Protected Mode.) Also, Microsoft originally described MS-DOS as "an operating system for Intel 8086-based microcomputers", and the 8086 CPU (and its cousin the 8088) itself has only 1 MB of total memory address space."

There is no reference in that. Since Microsoft DOS exists because IBM contracted with Microsoft for a disk operating system for their PC, it is wrong to say that PC DOS is a rebranded form of MS-DOS. Therefore it is wrong to say that IBM compatibility caused major problems. The comments about supporting no more than 640 KB of memory is irrelevant except for the fact that MS-DOS used real mode. Actually, the processor used in an IBM PC (except for the IBM PC AT and IBM PC XT/286) was incapable of using more than 1 MB of memory; "real mode" only applies to future processors. That whole paragraph was a mess. Sam Tomato (talk) 17:42, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

You should read "In Search of Stupidity", Merril R Chapman, which is a very solid account of the computer industry and marketing in the 1980s and 1990s. "MS-DOS compatable" means that it was able to run DOS text-mode applications. IBM Compatable means that when it switched into graphics mode, you used the same calls as an IBM computer (as opposed to an Olivetti or a Tandy one). Games had a little sticker on the box to say what kind of graphics set the program needed.

Microsoft did not have a DOS when they scored the contract. They bought 86DOS from its manufacturer after they got the contract, and offered it to IBM. IBM wrote a vast part of DOS 1.0 and 1.1, Microsoft revamped the code to 1.25 and forwarded it on to their clients, without a graphics portion.

The 640 kb memory thing is not a big issue. Both OS/2 and Windows NT reserved space in the 'high area' (ie well past contempory machines), which become a problem when this area is in normal RAM. (Win32 can only see 3 GB of ram, at 32 bits, it ought see 4GB). Some programs allow you to put a ram-disk into the past-3GB memory in Win32. Normal 1980s computers might have well less than the full 640 kB.

But there are a number of incorrect terms there. Wendy.krieger (talk) 09:18, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Use of undocumented APIs; starting and exiting

Because Windows operated on top of MS-DOS, and as such required a basic ability to interact with and take control where necessary, that they communicated has no bearing on whether they were separate products or not. All software that can communicate with other software does not make it a monolithic product, e.g., all Windows programs require and run on top of Windows to function, but everything from games to third-party drivers are not part of Windows, even though they cannot function absent Windows being present. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.162.33.175 (talk) 07:23, 11 November 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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Clarification needed

Do versions of MOS-DOS after 6.22 require post-3.11 versions of Windows (95, 98, ME, XP)? That is, if you have a system running Windows 3 and DOS 6, can it be upgraded to DOS 7 or DOS 8, and continue running Win 3?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:38, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

MS-DOS 7.0 (ie 95 osr1) can run Windows 3 without modification. The difference here is that if you load ifshlp.sys, you sould use the version with the version of windows, or disable 32-bit file access in win3.x. DOS 7.1 (osr2, 98fe, 98se), can be patched to run Windows 3.x, but there is an arbitary disabling patch there. DOS 8.0 has not been determed to run Windows 3.x in enhanced mode, although it seems to run in standard mode.

Note that the Win95 (osr1) can run under DOS 7.1 (98se), if you load a patch to say the version is 7.0. Otherwise the Windows DOS session does not start. Also the 95.0 windows does not understand fat32, even though the DOS does, so fat32 is not available either in Windows or msdos. MS-DOS 8.0 xcopy actually uses unicode output, and does not run in Real DOS mode.

Windows XP is Windows NT 5.1, does not run under any version of DOS. It runs on top of a hacked version of VMS, you can't even run Win32 console programs in the state before the GUI loads (eg from the boot disks). You can do this with OS/2 though. Wendy.krieger (talk) 09:31, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

Include timeline data in pseudo History?

Seems the text block leaps ahead to 2004. And the long list of versions? the perfect place for dates? #NoJoy --BenTrem (talk) 23:40, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree. The release dates are very important. I found only one website, which contains that information, we should incorporate it in the version info (before this piece of history is lost), but the current formatting is not so flexible. Should we change it to a table? --Spinel9876 (talk) 22:51, 22 September 2019 (UTC)

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Which logo to use

The logo used to depict MS-DOS is currently seeing an edit war between https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Msdos-icon.svg (hereafter the "pixel icon") and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MS-DOS_logo_2.svg (hereafter the "older logo"). Rather than continue the edit war, it is likely more constructive to settle this matter on the talk page.

The pixel icon is the most commonly known depiction of the MS-DOS logo, being used most prominently in Windows 9x, and is to this day used by Microsoft as MS-DOS's logo in MS-DOS's Github repository. It is both an official logo and is seeing active, continued use. The pixel icon is also an SVG derivative of the PNG file found in the aforementioned repository.

The older logo was seen on retail packages of MS-DOS and software products to be used with MS-DOS, but has not been used in subsequent times and has been de facto superceded by the now more commonly known pixel icon. The SVG file is a trace of the older logo from historical materials.

In the interests of describing subject matter in a way that accurately reflects what is both officially and popularly known today, I propose that the pixel icon is the favored logo for depicting MS-DOS in this article.

King Arthur6687 (talk) 07:48, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Microsoft also uses the pixel icon for MS-DOS on microsoft.com (https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/re-open-sourcing-ms-dos-1-25-and-2-0/), if usage on Github is somehow insufficient. King Arthur6687 (talk) 08:51, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

There are numerous reasons why the "pixel icon" is simply not appropriate for use here.

1. The "pixel icon" is not actually a logo, but as the description states, it's a discontinued icon. Icons and logos are not the same. In fact, it's an icon that did not exist until long after MS-DOS was a standalone, separately-sold commercial product, and was only used later-on in Windows-based systems to launch a DOS prompt. A DOS prompt in Windows is more closely associated with the Windows operating system that it is as a standalone system in which the article is supposed to encompass.

2. This article is not about the COMMAND.COM interpreter, and the icon actually belongs there instead. In fact, it could even be argued that because this article is about MS-DOS, the operating system, that it is against Wikipedia:Logos guidelines, because it states that, "a logo may appear in the infobox of the main article on the subject the logo represents". The subject it represents is, in fact COMMAND.COM and not MS-DOS itself. The images in question are most likely still trademarked by Microsoft, and need to only be used in conjunction with appropriate subject matter so as not to violate that.

3. The edge uses of the icon as King_Arthur6687 presents are not reasons to deviate from conformance to all the other operating system articles on Wikipedia, and just arbitrarily do something different here. We need to strive to be conformant to higher-assessed articles, which requires a similar level of conformance.

4. The assertion that the Windows COMMAND.COM icon is the most popular representation of MS-DOS as a standalone OS is unfounded. I don't think we can actually assert that, because we don't have evidence of that. I doubt anyone has done a study on the matter, so this is all anecdotal. When all we have is anecdotal evidence, we should definitely err on the side of official usage instead.

5. It is not what Infobox OS documentation provides the space for. The description of the parameter is "An image path for the logo associated with this operating system. Logos used must comply with Wikipedia:Logos guidelines. For example: 'File:Microsoft Windows XP Logo.svg'". Notice how it doesn't mention any icons instead?

6. Most importantly, we actually HAVE the official logo:

We already HAVE a logo that was used on actual official physical merchandise. It's important to use this. During the time in which MS-DOS was a standalone operating system (again the actual subject matter of this article), it was distributed in physical form, and physical merchandise is indicative of how consumers would've seen viewed it on store shelves. I'm not sure if King_Arthur6687 is actually old enough to have been around at that time, but I know I personally saw this logo, and associated it with MS-DOS back then and now.

7. Historical usage is all we have on a product that is full-on discontinued. Using something else at this point is simply revisionism. The notion that the official MS-DOS logo "has not been used in subsequent times" is immaterial. The appropriate response is, "of course not!" MS-DOS is no longer an actively developed nor marketed as a product. They're not going to be putting out official merchandise at this point, and the GitHub repo is not a marketing of the former product. The icon used on a Readme file on a GitHub repo is simply something decorative in nature.

8. The icon is actually just a stylized version of the official logo. With the two-line/stacked initials and interlocking "DOS", it's clear to see that the two images were intended to be the same thing, and the pixelated icon only exists due to limitations in the graphics that were available in Windows 3x. So, using the pixel icon over the logo is just purposefully using a technically-crippled version of something. We really don't need to do that. Brian Reading (talk) 10:14, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

I'll reply to each bullet point in turn.

For 1.: The seemingly arbitrary definition of icons ("not scalable and quadratic") is not useful. Icons have been capable of scaling ever since vector icons became preferred over raster icons, and logos regardless their shape and layout can be reasonably argued to reside within square canvases. We could certainly discuss the linguistic differences between icon and logo, but I'm reasonably sure that's not the intention here.

I will also mention the description makes no mention that the icon is "discontinued". It merely states the icon was used in older versions of Windows.

For 2., 3. and 4.: This article concerns MS-DOS in its entirety, from version 1 all the way through version 8. This includes the standalone MS-DOS versions 1 through 6.22, versions 7.0 and 7.1 which are still standalone in functionality despite being bundled and integrated with Windows 95/98, and version 8 which was tightly integrated with Windows ME and could not run standalone outside of system recovery contexts.

For 5.: The Wikipedia:Logos guidelines state that "Usually, the current logo should be the logo presented.". The current icon/logo used by Microsoft to depict MS-DOS is the pixel icon, as seen both on their Github repository and associated microsoft.com blog post.

Further, the guidelines also state "When a historical logo is used, the caption should indicate this, and there should be a good reason for the use of the historical logo (whether the current logo is used or not) explained in the historical logo's fair use rationale.". The older logo as was used here did not mention its historical nature in a caption.

For 6.: The pixel icon is just as official as the older logo. Also as mentioned already in response to points 2 through 4, this article concerns the entirety of MS-DOS including its versions associated with Windows 9x. The historical nature of the older logo is also demonstrated by Microsoft not using it today, nor is the logo found on most packages or disk media including pictures of them used in this article.

For 7.: The older logo was historical even during MS-DOS's supported life due to Microsoft silently retiring it in favor of the pixel icon that they still use to this very day.

For 8.: You are correct, but Microsoft also uses the pixel icon today instead of the older logo despite the lack of the aforementioned technical limitations. Shouldn't we use what is the "current logo" as stipulated in the guidelines and as demonstrated by Microsoft who would be the foremost authority on depicting MS-DOS?

King Arthur6687 (talk) 14:01, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Enforcement of the name MS-DOS

Hello @Matthiaspaul. In https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MS-DOS&oldid=470260030 (2012) you added the part before it enventually enforced the MS-DOS name for all versions but the IBM one, which was originally called "IBM Personal Computer DOS", later shortened to IBM PC DOS. However, except for the fact that Microsoft started selling their DOS directly to customers next to licensing to partners, and for the fact that the latest DOS versions were all called MS-DOS, I don't see any source that Microsoft enforced its partners to call it MS-DOS. Can this be clarified? Ben221199 (talk) 00:35, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

Release date is a misconception and should be changed

It seems that people mistake the first version of MS-DOS being released in 1981 with the IBM PC but this seems to be incorrect. The source for MS-DOS's release date for it goes to a site that is a brief history of MS-DOS and is going by the release date for the IBM PC, which is August 1981 (https://www.linfo.org/ms-dos.html). WinWorld also has it under 1981 (https://winworldpc.com/product/ms-dos/1x) whereas BetaWiki has 1982 (https://betawiki.net/wiki/MS-DOS_1). While BetaWiki still has 1981, this is for the unreleased internal release named MS-DOS 1.20 and not the first public release.

WinWorld has a copy of COMPAQ MS-DOS 1.10 which is pretty much a OEM version of MS-DOS 1.25 and is from 1983 (boot screen says 1982 and some OEMs labeled their release with different version numbers) (https://web.archive.org/web/20201002042421/http://16bitos.com/112ms.htm) and the boot screen for the COMPAQ version going by that site where I got floppy diskette images from states 1982 too in the boot screen (https://web.archive.org/web/20201002042421/http://16bitos.com/112ms.htm)... you also have The MS DOS Encyclopedia which states that the first version of DOS for IBM PC is called PC DOS (https://archive.org/details/The_MS-DOS_Encyclopedia_Ray_Duncan/page/56/mode/2up?view=theater) and that the MS-DOS name didn't come until 1982.

Let alone the The MS DOS Encyclopedia was published by Microsoft Press which is the publishing arm of Microsoft, usually releasing books dealing with various current Microsoft technologies so it would be weird to say the book is false.

The first version of PC DOS that came with the IBM PC has 1981 on the BetaWiki for the release (https://betawiki.net/wiki/IBM_PC-DOS_1.00) unlike the first public version of MS-DOS.

Personally I think the release date should be changed to address this misconception as I provided sources for my information.

I also realised that it says “IBM licensed and re-released it in 1981 as PC DOS 1.0 for use in its PCs.” so this would have to be changed up as well. —Sinclair-Speccy (talk) 09:49, 13 May 2024 (UTC)