This article presents a list of commands used by MS-DOS compatible operating systems , especially as used on IBM PC compatibles . Many unrelated disk operating systems use the DOS acronym and are not part of the scope of this list.
16-517: In MS-DOS, many standard system commands are provided for common tasks such as listing files on a disk or moving files. Some commands are built into the command interpreter; others exist as external commands on disk. Over multiple generations, commands were added for additional functions. In Microsoft Windows , a command prompt window that uses many of the same commands, cmd.exe , can still be used. The command interpreter for DOS runs when no application programs are running. When an application exits, if
32-574: A command with a question mark. This command was formerly called ync (yes-no-cancel). The CLS or CLRSCR command clears the terminal screen . The command is available in MS-DOS versions 2 and later. Start a new instance of the command interpreter. The command is available in MS-DOS versions 1 and later. Show differences between any two files, or any two sets of files. The command is available in MS-DOS versions 3.3 through 5 and IBM PC DOS releases 1 through 5. Makes copies of existing files. The command
48-524: A different drive. It can also display drive assignments or reset all drive letters to their original assignments. The command is available in MS-DOS versions 3 through 5 and IBM PC DOS releases 2 through 5. Lists connections and addresses seen by Windows ATM call manager. Attrib changes or views the attributes of one or more files. It defaults to display the attributes of all files in the current directory. The file attributes available include read-only, archive, system, and hidden attributes. The command has
64-432: A program request. The command is available in MS-DOS versions 2 and later. Starts a batch file from within another batch file and returns when that one ends. The command is available in MS-DOS versions 3.3 and later. The CHDIR (or the alternative name CD) command either displays or changes the current working directory . The command is available in MS-DOS versions 2 and later. The command either displays or changes
80-411: A volume. The command is available in MS-DOS versions 1 and later. The CHOICE command is used in batch files to prompt the user to select one item from a set of single-character choices . Choice was introduced as an external command with MS-DOS 6.0; Novell DOS 7 and PC DOS 7.0. Earlier versions of DR-DOS supported this function with the built-in switch command (for numeric choices) or by beginning
96-675: Is available in MS-DOS versions 1 and later. Defines the terminal device (for example, COM1) to use for input and output. The command is available in MS-DOS versions 2 and later. Displays the system date and prompts the user to enter a new date. Complements the TIME command. The command is available in MS-DOS versions 1 and later. (Not a command: This is a batch file added to DOS 6.X Supplemental Disks to help create DoubleSpace boot floppies.) A disk compression utility supplied with MS-DOS version 6.0 (released in 1993) and version 6.2. A very primitive assembler and disassembler. The command has
112-402: Is found, an error message is printed, and the command prompt is refreshed. External commands were too large to keep in the command processor, or were less frequently used. Such utility programs would be stored on disk and loaded just like regular application programs but were distributed with the operating system. Copies of these utility command programs had to be on an accessible disk, either on
128-603: The BASIC programming language for PCs. Implementing BASIC in this way was very common in operating systems on 8- and 16-bit machines made in the 1980s. IBM computers had BASIC 1.1 in ROM, and IBM's versions of BASIC used code in this ROM-BASIC, which allowed for extra memory in the code area. BASICA last appeared in IBM PC DOS 5.02, and in OS/2 (2.0 and later), the version had ROM-BASIC moved into
144-536: The ability to analyze the file fragmentation on a disk drive or to defragment a drive. This command is called DEFRAG in MS-DOS/PC DOS and diskopt in DR-DOS . The command is available in MS-DOS versions 6 and later. DEL (or the alternative form ERASE) is used to delete one or more files. The command is available in MS-DOS versions 1 and later. System command Too Many Requests If you report this error to
160-458: The active code page used to display character glyphs in a console window . Similar functionality can be achieved with MODE CON: CP SELECT= yyy . The command is available in MS-DOS versions 3.3 and later. CHKDSK verifies a storage volume (for example, a hard disk , disk partition or floppy disk ) for file system integrity. The command has the ability to fix errors on a volume and recover information from defective disk sectors of
176-487: The capability to process whole folders and subfolders of files and also process all files. The command is available in MS-DOS versions 3 and later. These are commands to backup and restore files from an external disk. These appeared in version 2, and continued to PC DOS 5 and MS-DOS 6 (PC DOS 7 had a deversioned check). In DOS 6, these were replaced by commercial programs (CPBACKUP, MSBACKUP), which allowed files to be restored to different locations. An implementation of
SECTION 10
#1732858474031192-463: The command line. Spaces and symbols such as a "/" or a "-" may be used to allow the command processor to parse the command line into filenames, file specifications, and other options. The command interpreter preserves the case of whatever parameters are passed to commands, but the command names themselves and file names are case-insensitive. Many commands are the same across many DOS systems, but some differ in command syntax or name. A partial list of
208-445: The current drive or on the command path set in the command interpreter. In the list below, commands that can accept more than one file name, or a filename including wildcards (* and ?), are said to accept a filespec (file specification) parameter. Commands that can accept only a single file name are said to accept a filename parameter. Additionally, command line switches, or other parameter strings, can be supplied on
224-486: The most common commands for MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS follows below. Sets the path to be searched for data files or displays the current search path. The APPEND command is similar to the PATH command that tells DOS where to search for program files (files with a .COM, . EXE, or .BAT file name extension). The command is available in MS-DOS versions 3.2 and later. The command redirects requests for disk operations on one drive to
240-445: The program code. Microsoft released GW-BASIC for machines with no ROM-BASIC. Some OEM releases had basic.com and basica.com as loaders for GW-BASIC.EXE. BASIC was dropped after MS-DOS 4, and PC DOS 5.02. OS/2 (which uses PC DOS 5), has it, while MS-DOS 5 does not. This command is used to instruct DOS to check whether the Ctrl and Break keys have been pressed before carrying out
256-448: The transient portion of the command interpreter in memory was overwritten, DOS will reload it from disk. Some commands are internal—built into COMMAND.COM; others are external commands stored on disk. When the user types a line of text at the operating system command prompt, COMMAND.COM will parse the line and attempt to match a command name to a built-in command or to the name of an executable program file or batch file on disk. If no match
#30969