Basic MS-DOS

History
MS-DOS 1.0 was released in August 1981, and was

updated until April 1994 when it was replaced by

Windows 95
All versions of windows still contain some type of
DOS, in windows 95 and 98 you can go to run and
type command to get to DOS prompt, in NT, 2000,
and XP you can type CMD and get DOS.

Introduction

The role of DOS is to interpret commands that

the user enters via the keyboard.
These commands allow the following tasks to be
executed:
file and folder management
disk upgrades
hardware configuration
memory optimization
program execution

File Manipulation

DIR - Lists files and subdirectories

Wildcard Characters ? *
EDIT - creates a new file or modifies an existing file
COPY - copies a file or a group of files
XCOPY - copies all files in a directory (and its subdirectories)
DEL or ERASE - deletes a file or a group of files
UNDELETE - undeletes files
COPY (or XCOPY) plus DEL - moves files
DOSKEY - recalls commands
RENAME or REN - renames files
TYPE - displays text files
PRINT - prints a text file
COPY - used to create a file
ATTRIB - sets file properties
FC - compares two files

Directory Manipulation

MD or MKDIR - creates a directory

CD or CHDIR - changes directory
PROMPT - changes the command prompt
TREE - displays the directory structure
RD or RMDIR - removes a directory
REN - Renaming directories
PATH - creates a search path

Basic Structure
Most DOS commands use the same structure
Command Source Destination /Switch
The switch will give options to the command
Example COPY A:\file.txt c:\ /v
/v will verify if the file copied correctly

The Help Switch /?

You can use the help switch with any command. It

will give you the command structure, and the

availible switches.

MS-DOS Prompt
The prompt in MS-DOS displays your current

directory
C:\dos\commands> means you are in that directory,

and any command you use will apply to the current

directory unless you specify a different one.

DOS Naming
Characters like * + = | \ [ ] : ; < > , ? /

cannot be used in DOS names.

Relative and Absolute path

Alternatively referred to as the file path and full path,

the absolute path contains the root directory and all
other subdirectories that contain a file or folder.
absolute path
C:\Windows\calc.exe
Windows non absolute path (relative path)
calc.exe

Wildcard characters
Wildcard character will replace a single letter, or

word with a wild character

* will replace any amput of characters, and ? Will
replace one.
Example: copy a:/*.txt c:/ will copy all text files to
drive c:/
Example 2: copy a:/?????.txt c:/ will copy any 5
letter text file to c:/

Basic Commands CD
CD- Change directory
You use this command when you want to change the

directory.
Example: CD C:\DOS will bring you to the dos folder

Basic Commands CD.. And CD\

CD.. - brings you to the previous directory.
Example: if you are in C:\DOS\FOLDER

CD.. Will bring you to C:\DOS

Basic Commands CLS

CLS Will clear the contents of the screen

Basic Commands DIR

DIR will display the contents of the folder

Basic Commands COPY

COPY will copy the file from one location to another
Example COPY A:\file.txt c:\ will copy the file from

a:\ to c:\

Basic Command XCOPY

XCOPY can move files, directories, and whole drives

from one location to another, It is more powerful

then the copy command, and has a lot of switches.

Basic Commands MOVE

MOVE will move the file or directory from one

location to another
Example: MOVE a:\file.txt c:\file.txt will move the

file to the c:\ drive

Basic Command DEL

DEL will delete a file or an empty directory from the

drive

Basic Command EDIT

EDIT will open a text file

Basic Commands REN

REN will rename the file
Example : REN file.txt myfile.txt will rename the

file.txt to myfile.txt

Basic Commands MD/RD

MD is used to make a directory (folder) in MS-DOS.
Example: MD myfolder will make a folder called

myfolder in current directory

RD is used for remove directory

Deleting folders and sub folders

Basic Command TREE

TREE shows you all of the folders and files in current

directory like explorer in windows.

Attributes
Attributes are the properties of a file such as hidden,

read-only, archive or system file.

In MS-DOS you can view/change attributes with the
attrib command.
Example: attrib +r file.txt will make the file readonly.

The MORE Command

The PRINT Command

The PRINT Command in MS DOS is used to print

the text files

Syntax :

PRINT Filename

E.g.

PRINT File1.txt

The PROMPT Command

The PROMPT is used to configure a DOS prompt

into our linking

Syntax :
C:\ PROMPT Promptname
E.g.
PROMPT NCIT

Now, the Prompt will be as NCIT

Checking the Date/Time

For checking the date from the system in MS

DOS, we use the DATE command. It returns

the current system date.
Similarly, the TIME command returns the
current time from the system.
Syntax :

C:\>DATE

E.g. C:\>DATE

Removing unwanted Files

command line.
Go to Run > cmd. This should open the command
prompt.
Type g:\ where g is the USB drive letter.
Now run the following command: attrib -h -r -s -a *.*.
This will remove the attributes hidden, archive,
system from all the files.
Type del autorun.inf. This will delete the autorun.inf
file.

F:\>edit test.txt
F:\>edit test.txt
F:\>copy con 123.docx
my name is indika rathninda^Z
1 file(s) copied.
F:\>edit 123.docx
F:\>dir>1234.txt

Batch file

DOS, OS/2, and Windows, a batch file is a

type of script file, a text file containing a
series of commands to be executed by the
command line interpreter. A batch file may
contain any command the interpreter accepts
interactively at the command prompt.

The Old New Thing

The command processor CMD.EXE comes with a minicalculator that can perform simple arithmetic on 32-bit
signed integers:
C:\>set /a 2+2 4
C:\>set /a 2*(9/2) 8
C:\>set /a (2*9)/2 9
C:\>set /a "31>>2" 7
Note that we had to quote the shift operator since it
would otherwise be misinterpreted as a "redirect stdout
and append" operator.
For more information, type set /? at the command

Concatenating Files Together in MS-DOS

Say you have two files (or twenty) named textfile1.txt and
textfile2.txt.
You want to create a new text file that combines the two.
While you could open each file up in your favorite editor
and copy and paste the text, this is time consuming and error
prone. A much easier way to accomplish this task is to use
the copy command:
>copy *.txt result.txt
This will take all the files with the extension .txt and
create a new text file called result.txt out of all of them.

Finding Text Inside Files in MS-DOS

Lets assume I have a group of text files and I need to

find out quickly which one contains the string
"Test" inside it. You can quickly accomplish this using
the 'find' command like so:
>find "Test" *.txt
This will search the contents of all the
text files in the current directory and return
a list of all of them that contain the string "Test".
This command is extremely useful for searching text files.