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121-474: OS/2 2.0 and later included the Program Manager as part of its Win-OS/2 compatibility layer. Win-OS/2, including the Program Manager, are still included in later derivatives of OS/2 such as ArcaOS . Program Manager descends from Desktop Manager (also known as Presentation Manager ), the shell for OS/2 1.2. Unlike Desktop Manager, which presents its program groups in a simple list, and opens each group in

242-458: A relocatable format using the filename extension .CMD to avoid name conflicts with CP/M-80 and MS-DOS .COM files. MS-DOS version 1.0 added a more advanced relocatable . EXE executable file format. Most of the machines in the early days of MS-DOS had differing system architectures and there was a certain degree of incompatibility, and subsequently vendor lock-in . Users who began using MS-DOS with their machines were compelled to continue using

363-543: A virtual DOS machine (VDM). Originally, a nearly complete version of Windows code was included with OS/2 itself: Windows 3.0 in OS/2 2.0, and Windows 3.1 in OS/2 2.1. Later, IBM developed versions of OS/2 that would use whatever Windows version the user had installed previously, patching it on the fly, and sparing the cost of an additional Windows license. It could either run full-screen, using its own set of video drivers, or "seamlessly," where Windows programs would appear directly on

484-599: A 1994 settlement agreement limiting Microsoft to per-copy licensing. Digital Research did not gain by this settlement, and years later its successor in interest, Caldera , sued Microsoft for damages in the Caldera v. Microsoft lawsuit. It was believed that the settlement ran in the order of $ 150 million , but was revealed in November 2009 with the release of the Settlement Agreement to be $ 280 million . Microsoft also used

605-448: A DOS startup disk on Windows Vista , the files on the startup disk are dated April 18, 2005, but are otherwise unchanged, including the string "MS-DOS Version 8 Copyright 1981–1999 Microsoft Corp" inside COMMAND.COM . Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 can also create a MS-DOS startup disk. Starting with Windows 10 , the ability to create a MS-DOS startup disk has been removed, and so either a virtual machine running MS-DOS or an older version (in

726-511: A Graphical User Interface (GUI) on top of MS-DOS. With Windows 95 , 98 , and Me , the role of MS-DOS was reduced to a boot loader according to Microsoft, with MS-DOS programs running in a virtual DOS machine within 32-bit Windows, with ability to boot directly into MS-DOS retained as a backward compatibility option for applications that required real mode access to the hardware, which was generally not possible within Windows. The command line accessed

847-405: A StartUp group. Programs and files placed into that group would be loaded when Windows starts. Holding down the shift key while selecting File then Exit Windows will save the current configuration of Program Manager to PROGMAN.INI, including the position of all program group icons, assuming that auto-arrange has been disabled. This allowed Microsoft testers to try many different configurations, but

968-422: A Windows installation. As most computers were sold with Microsoft Windows pre-installed and the price was less, "Red Spine" was the more popular product. OS/2 Warp Connect—which has full LAN client support built-in—followed in mid-1995. Warp Connect was nicknamed "Grape". In OS/2 2.0, most performance-sensitive subsystems, including the graphics (Gre) and multimedia (MMPM/2) systems, were updated to 32-bit code in

1089-452: A basic office application suite known as IBM Works . It was released in two versions: the less expensive "Red Spine" and the more expensive "Blue Spine" (named for the color of their boxes). "Red Spine" was designed to support Microsoft Windows applications by utilizing any existing installation of Windows on the computer's hard drive. "Blue Spine" includes Windows support in its own installation, and so can support Windows applications without

1210-735: A copy of the Windows Me boot disk, stripped down to bootstrap only. This is accessible only by formatting a floppy as an "MS-DOS startup disk". Files like the driver for the CD-ROM support were deleted from the Windows Me bootdisk and the startup files ( AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS ) no longer had content. This modified disk was the base for creating the MS-DOS image for Windows XP. Some of the deleted files can be recovered with an undelete tool. When booting up an MS-DOS startup disk made with Windows XP's format tool,

1331-630: A fixpack, and included as part of OS/2 2.1. Warp 3 brought about a fully 32-bit windowing system, while Warp 4 introduced the object-oriented 32-bit GRADD display driver model. In 1991, IBM started development on an intended replacement for OS/2 called Workplace OS . This was an entirely new product, brand new code, that borrowed only a few sections of code from both the existing OS/2 and AIX products. It used an entirely new microkernel code base, intended (eventually) to host several of IBM's operating systems (including OS/2) as microkernel "personalities". It also included major new architectural features including

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1452-538: A forceful letter to PC Week (November 5, 1990), denying that Microsoft was engaged in FUD tactics ("to serve our customers better, we decided to be more forthcoming about version 5.0") and denying that Microsoft copied features from DR DOS: "The feature enhancements of MS-DOS version 5.0 were decided and development was begun long before we heard about DR DOS 5.0. There will be some similar features. With 50 million MS-DOS users, it shouldn't be surprising that DRI has heard some of

1573-467: A full version of Warp 4 that required no activation and was essentially a free release. Special versions of OS/2 2.11 and Warp 4 also included symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) support. OS/2 sales were largely concentrated in networked computing used by corporate professionals; however, by the early 1990s, it was overtaken by Microsoft Windows NT. While OS/2 was arguably technically superior to Microsoft Windows 95 , OS/2 failed to develop much penetration in

1694-630: A hardware watchdog on selected machines (notably IBM machines) to break out of such a deadlock. Later, release 3.0 leveraged the enhancements of newer Intel 80486 and Intel Pentium processors—the Virtual Interrupt Flag (VIF), which was part of the Virtual Mode Extensions (VME)—to solve this problem. OS/2 2.1 was released in 1993. This version of OS/2 achieved compatibility with Windows 3.0 (and later Windows 3.1) by adapting Windows user-mode code components to run inside

1815-448: A higher price. Executable programs for CP/M-86 and MS-DOS were not interchangeable with each other; many applications were sold in both MS-DOS and CP/M-86 versions until MS-DOS became preponderant (later Digital Research operating systems could run both MS-DOS and CP/M-86 software). MS-DOS originally supported the simple .COM , which was modeled after a similar but binary-incompatible format known from CP/M-80 . CP/M-86 instead supported

1936-458: A large share of the business computer market. Microsoft and IBM together began what was intended as the follow-on to MS-DOS/PC DOS, called OS/2 . When OS/2 was released in 1987, Microsoft began an advertising campaign announcing that "DOS is Dead" and stating that version 4 was the last full release. OS/2 was designed for efficient multi-tasking and offered a number of advanced features that had been designed together with similar look and feel ; it

2057-407: A particular model), or per-copy (a fee for each copy of MS-DOS installed). The largest manufacturers used the per-processor arrangement, which had the lowest fee. This arrangement made it expensive for the large manufacturers to migrate to any other operating system, such as DR DOS. In 1991, the U.S. government Federal Trade Commission began investigating Microsoft's licensing procedures, resulting in

2178-496: A result of the dispute, IBM signed the license agreement 15 minutes before Microsoft's Windows 95 launch event, which was later than their competitors and this badly hurt sales of IBM PCs. IBM officials later conceded that OS/2 would not have been a viable operating system to keep them in the PC business. A project was launched internally by IBM to evaluate the looming competitive situation with Microsoft Windows 95. Primary concerns included

2299-480: A separate window, Program Manager opens program groups in child windows using the new multiple document interface in Windows 3.x. The icons used to represent Program Manager itself, program groups, and DOS applications in Windows 3.0 are carried over from OS/2 1.2. Windows 3.1 uses updated versions of these icons. When executables were dropped into Program Manager from File Manager , Program Manager automatically used

2420-509: A shared Windows session while isolating other applications in one or more separate Windows sessions. At the cost of additional hardware resources, this approach can protect each program in any given Windows session (and each instance of Windows itself) from every other program running in any separate Windows session (though not from other programs running in the same Windows session). Whether Windows applications are running in full-screen or windowed mode, and in one Windows session or several, it

2541-543: A single Windows session – multitasking cooperatively and without memory protection – just as they would under native Windows 3.x. However, to achieve true isolation between Windows 3.x programs, OS/2 can also run multiple copies of Windows in parallel, with each copy residing in a separate VDM. The user can then optionally place each program either in its own Windows session – with preemptive multitasking and full memory protection between sessions, though not within them – or allow some applications to run together cooperatively in

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2662-509: A standard Microsoft kernel, which they would typically supply on disk to end users along with the hardware. Thus, there were many different versions of "MS-DOS" for different hardware, and there is a major distinction between an IBM-compatible (or ISA) machine and an MS-DOS [compatible] machine. Some machines, like the Tandy 2000 , were MS-DOS compatible but not IBM-compatible, so they could run software written exclusively for MS-DOS without dependence on

2783-442: A system registry, JFS, support for UNIX graphics libraries, and a new driver model. Workplace OS was developed solely for POWER platforms , and IBM intended to market a full line of PowerPCs in an effort to take over the market from Intel . A mission was formed to create prototypes of these machines and they were disclosed to several corporate customers, all of whom raised issues with the idea of dropping Intel. Advanced plans for

2904-802: A time, and did this in a way that allowed the DOS program to have total control over the computer. A problem in DOS mode could crash the entire computer. In contrast, OS/2 2.0 could leverage the virtual 8086 mode of the Intel 80386 processor to create a much safer virtual machine in which to run DOS programs. This included an extensive set of configuration options to optimize the performance and capabilities given to each DOS program. Any real-mode operating system (such as 8086 Xenix ) could also be made to run using OS/2's virtual machine capabilities, subject to certain direct hardware access limitations. Like most 32-bit environments, OS/2 could not run protected-mode DOS programs using

3025-589: A variety of other computers based on various other processors were in serious competition with the IBM PC: the Apple II , Mac , Commodore 64 and others did not use the 808x processor; many 808x machines of different architectures used custom versions of MS-DOS. At first all these machines were in competition. In time the IBM PC hardware configuration became dominant in the 808x market as software written to communicate directly with

3146-450: A variety of tactics in MS-DOS and several of their applications and development tools that, while operating perfectly when running on genuine MS-DOS (and PC DOS), would break when run on another vendor's implementation of DOS. Notable examples of this practice included: All versions of Microsoft Windows have had an MS-DOS or MS-DOS-like command-line interface called MS-DOS Prompt which redirected input to MS-DOS and output from MS-DOS to

3267-452: A virtual machine or dual boot) must be used to format a floppy disk, or an image must be obtained from an external source. Other solutions include using DOS compatible alternatives, such as FreeDOS or even copying the required files and boot sector themselves. The last remaining components related to MS-DOS was the NTVDM component, which was removed entirely in Windows starting with Windows 11 as

3388-587: Is 4.52, which was released for both desktop and server systems in December 2001. IBM is still delivering defect support for a fee. IBM urges customers to migrate their often highly complex applications to e-business technologies such as Java in a platform-neutral manner. Once application migration is completed, IBM recommends migration to a different operating system, suggesting Linux as an alternative. After IBM discontinued development of OS/2, various third parties approached IBM to take over future development of

3509-422: Is an operating system for x86 -based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft . Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS , and a few operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as "DOS" (which is also the generic acronym for disk operating system ). MS-DOS was the main operating system for IBM PC compatibles during the 1980s, from which point it

3630-597: Is based on CORBA . The object oriented aspect of SOM is similar to, and a direct competitor to, Microsoft's Component Object Model , though it is implemented in a radically different manner; for instance, one of the most notable differences between SOM and COM is SOM's support for inheritance (one of the most fundamental concepts of OO programming)—COM does not have such support. SOM and DSOM are no longer being developed. MS-DOS MS-DOS ( / ˌ ɛ m ˌ ɛ s ˈ d ɒ s / em-es- DOSS ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System , also known as Microsoft DOS )

3751-412: Is mainly for education and experimentation with historic operating systems and for new programmers to gain an understanding of how low-level software works, both historic and current. According to program manager Rich Turner, the other versions could not be open-sourced due to third-party licensing restrictions. Due to the historical nature of the software, Microsoft will not accept any pull requests to

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3872-507: Is often called the MS-DOS Prompt. In part, this was the official name for it in Windows 9x and early versions of Windows NT (NT 3.5 and earlier), and in part because the SoftPC emulation of DOS redirects output into it. Actually only COMMAND.COM and other 16-bit commands run in an NTVDM with AUTOEXEC.NT and CONFIG.NT initialization determined by _DEFAULT.PIF , optionally permitting

3993-533: Is possible to use DDE between OS/2 and Windows applications, and OLE between Windows applications only. IBM's OS/2 for Windows product (codename Ferengi), also known as "OS/2, Special Edition", was interpreted as a deliberate strategy "of cashing in on the pervasive success of the Microsoft platform" but risked confusing consumers with the notion that the product was a mere accessory or utility running on Windows such as Norton Desktop for Windows when, in fact, it

4114-521: Is similar in functionality to a non-networked version of X11 or the Windows GDI . On top of this lies the Workplace Shell (WPS) introduced in OS/2 2.0. WPS is an object-oriented shell allowing the user to perform traditional computing tasks such as accessing files, printers, launching legacy programs, and advanced object oriented tasks using built-in and third-party application objects that extended

4235-441: Is still used in embedded x86 systems due to its simple architecture and minimal memory and processor requirements, though some current products have switched to the still-maintained open-source alternative FreeDOS . In 2018, Microsoft released the source code for MS-DOS 1.25 and 2.0 on GitHub , with the source code for MS-DOS 4.00 being released in the same repository six years later. The purpose of this, according to Microsoft,

4356-620: The BIOS or access hardware directly. Other development tools included a subset of the video and keyboard APIs as linkable libraries so that family mode programs are able to run under MS-DOS, and, in the OS/2 Extended Edition v1.0, a database engine called Database Manager or DBM (this was related to DB2 , and should not be confused with the DBM family of database engines for Unix and Unix-like operating systems). A task-switcher named Program Selector

4477-497: The HPFS filesystem . HPFS provided a number of improvements over the older FAT file system, including long filenames and a form of alternate data streams called Extended Attributes . In addition, extended attributes were also added to the FAT file system. The Extended Edition of 1.2 introduced TCP/IP and Ethernet support. OS/2- and Windows-related books of the late 1980s acknowledged

4598-539: The HPFS filesystem , text mode OS/2 1.x applications, and OS/2 LAN Manager network support. Some early NT materials even included OS/2 copyright notices embedded in the software. One example of NT OS/2 1.x support is in the WIN2K resource kit. Windows NT could also support OS/2 1.x Presentation Manager and AVIO applications with the addition of the Windows NT Add-On Subsystem for Presentation Manager. OS/2 2.0

4719-534: The Intel 80286 processor and DOS fundamentally does not. IBM insisted on supporting the 80286 processor, with its 16-bit segmented memory mode, because of commitments made to customers who had purchased many 80286-based PS/2s as a result of IBM's promises surrounding OS/2. Until release 2.0 in April 1992, OS/2 ran in 16-bit protected mode and therefore could not benefit from the Intel 80386 's much simpler 32-bit flat memory model and virtual 8086 mode features. This

4840-533: The Intel 8086 and 8088 processors, including the IBM PC and clones, the initial competition to the PC DOS/MS-DOS line came from Digital Research , whose CP/M operating system had inspired MS-DOS. In fact, there remains controversy as to whether QDOS was more or less plagiarized from early versions of CP/M code. Digital Research released CP/M-86 a few months after MS-DOS, and it was offered as an alternative to MS-DOS and Microsoft's licensing requirements, but at

4961-558: The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO). On March 25, 2014, Microsoft made the code to SCP MS-DOS 1.25 and a mixture of Altos MS-DOS 2.11 and TeleVideo PC DOS 2.11 available to the public under the Microsoft Research License Agreement , which makes the code source-available , but not open source as defined by Open Source Initiative or Free Software Foundation standards. Microsoft would later re-license

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5082-733: The Windows NT -derived 32-bit operating systems ( Windows NT , 2000 , XP and newer), developed alongside the 9x series, do not contain MS-DOS compatibility as a core component of the operating system nor do they rely on it for bootstrapping, as NT was not with the level of support for legacy MS-DOS and Win16 apps that Windows 9x was, but does provide limited DOS emulation called NTVDM (NT Virtual DOS Machine) to run DOS applications and provide DOS-like command prompt windows. 64-bit versions of Windows NT prior to Windows 11 (and Windows Server 2008 R2 by extension) do not provide DOS emulation and cannot run DOS applications natively. Windows XP contains

5203-527: The "Joint Development Agreement" in August 1985. It was code-named "CP/DOS" and it took two years for the first product to be delivered. OS/2 1.0 was announced in April 1987 and released in December. The original release only ran in text mode , and a GUI was introduced with OS/2 1.1 about a year later. OS/2 features an API for controlling the video display (VIO) and handling keyboard and mouse events so that programmers writing for protected mode need not call

5324-738: The "pre-announcement" of MS-DOS 6.0 again stifled the sales of DR DOS. Microsoft had been accused of carefully orchestrating leaks about future versions of MS-DOS in an attempt to create what in the industry is called FUD ( fear, uncertainty, and doubt ) regarding DR DOS. For example, in October 1990, shortly after the release of DR DOS 5.0, and long before the eventual June 1991 release of MS-DOS 5.0, stories on feature enhancements in MS-DOS started to appear in InfoWorld and PC Week . Brad Silverberg , then Vice President of Systems Software at Microsoft and general manager of its Windows and MS-DOS Business Unit, wrote

5445-451: The 1994 release of MS-DOS 6.21, which had disk compression removed. Shortly afterwards came version 6.22, with a new version of the disk compression system, DriveSpace, which had a different compression algorithm to avoid the infringing code. Prior to 1995, Microsoft licensed MS-DOS (and Windows) to computer manufacturers under three types of agreement: per-processor (a fee for each system the company sold), per-system (a fee for each system of

5566-512: The DOS command line (usually COMMAND.COM ) through a Windows module (WINOLDAP.MOD). Windows NT-based operating systems boot to a kernel whose purpose is to load Windows and run the system. One cannot run Win32 applications in the loader system in the manner that OS/2, UNIX or consumer versions of Windows can launch character-mode sessions. The command session permits running various supported command-line utilities from Win32, MS-DOS, OS/2 1.x and POSIX. The emulators for MS-DOS, OS/2 and POSIX use

5687-517: The IBM 5150 or the IBM PC . Within a year, Microsoft licensed MS-DOS to over 70 other companies. It was designed to be an OS that could run on any 8086-family computer. Each computer would have its own distinct hardware and its own version of MS-DOS, similar to the situation that existed for CP/M , and with MS-DOS emulating the same solution as CP/M to adapt for different hardware platforms. To this end, MS-DOS

5808-470: The MS-DOS Prompt, or, in later versions, Command Prompt . This could run many DOS and variously Win32, OS/2 1.x and POSIX command-line utilities in the same command-line session, allowing piping between commands. The user interface, and the icon up to Windows 2000, followed the native MS-DOS interface. The Command Prompt introduced with Windows NT is not actually MS-DOS, but shares some commands with MS-DOS. The 16-bit versions of Windows (up to 3.11) ran as

5929-434: 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 . (Competitors released compatible DOS systems such as DR-DOS and PTS-DOS that could also run MS-DOS applications.) In the former Eastern bloc , MS-DOS derivatives named DCP ( Disk Control Program  [ de ] ) 3.20 and 3.30 (DCP 1700, DCP 3.3) and WDOS existed in

6050-405: The NTVDM and can therefore no longer natively run DOS or 16-bit Windows applications. There are alternatives such as virtual machine emulators such as Microsoft's own Virtual PC , as well as VMware , DOSBox etc., unofficial compatibility layers such as NTVDMx64, OTVDM (WineVDM), Win3mu and others. The introduction of Windows 3.0 in 1990, with an easy-to-use graphical user interface , marked

6171-454: The OS/2 desktop. The process containing Windows was given fairly extensive access to hardware, especially video, and the result was that switching between a full-screen WinOS/2 session and the Workplace Shell could occasionally cause issues. Because OS/2 only runs the user-mode system components of Windows, it is incompatible with Windows device drivers ( VxDs ) and applications that require them. Multiple Windows applications run by default in

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6292-499: The OS/2 team, as Cutler did not think much of the OS/2 technology and wanted to build on his work on the MICA project at Digital rather than creating a "DOS plus". His NT OS/2 was a completely new architecture. IBM grew concerned about the delays in development of OS/2 2.0. Initially, the companies agreed that IBM would take over maintenance of OS/2 1.0 and development of OS/2 2.0, while Microsoft would continue development of OS/2 3.0. In

6413-549: The PC hardware without using standard operating system calls ran much faster, but on true PC-compatibles only. Non-PC-compatible 808x machines were too small a market to have fast software written for them alone, and the market remained open only for IBM PCs and machines that closely imitated their architecture, all running either a single version of MS-DOS compatible only with PCs, or the equivalent IBM PC DOS. Most clones cost much less than IBM-branded machines of similar performance, and became widely used by home users, while IBM PCs had

6534-514: The Windows GUI; this capability was retained through Windows 98 Second Edition. Windows Me removed the capability to boot its underlying MS-DOS 8.0 alone from a hard disk, but retained the ability to make a DOS boot floppy disk (called an "Emergency Boot Disk") and can be hacked to restore full access to the underlying DOS. On December 31, 2001, Microsoft declared all versions of MS-DOS 6.22 and older obsolete and stopped providing support and updates for

6655-424: The background for loading Windows 9x . MS-DOS was a renamed form of 86-DOS  – owned by Seattle Computer Products , written by Tim Paterson . Development of 86-DOS took only six weeks, as it was basically a clone of Digital Research 's CP/M (for 8080/Z80 processors), ported to run on 8086 processors and with two notable differences compared to CP/M: an improved disk sector buffering logic, and

6776-442: The beginning of the end for the command-line driven MS-DOS. With the release of Windows 95 (and continuing in the Windows 9x product line through to Windows Me ), an integrated version of MS-DOS was used for bootstrapping , troubleshooting, and backwards-compatibility with old DOS software, particularly games, and no longer released as a standalone product. In Windows 95, the DOS, called MS-DOS 7, can be booted separately, without

6897-648: The board in the Personal Systems Division as well as across IBM as a whole. This resulted in a decision being made at a level above the Division to cut over 95% of the overall budget for the entire product line, end all new development (including Workplace OS), eliminate the Boca Raton development lab, end all sales and marketing efforts of the product, and lay off over 1,300 development individuals (as well as sales and support personnel). $ 990 million had been spent in

7018-660: The code under the MIT License on September 28, 2018, making these versions free software . Microsoft later released the code for MS-DOS 4.00 on April 25, 2024, under the same license. As an April Fool's Day joke in 2015, Microsoft Mobile launched a Windows Phone application called MS-DOS Mobile which was presented as a new mobile operating system and worked similar to MS-DOS. Microsoft licensed or released versions of MS-DOS under different names like Lifeboat Associates "Software Bus 86" a.k.a. SB-DOS , COMPAQ-DOS , NCR-DOS or Z-DOS before it eventually enforced

7139-644: The command line or Run dialog. It could be used as the default shell by specifying the Shell value in Windows Registry at either HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon (per machine) or HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon (per user). Microsoft replaced Program Manager in Windows XP Service Pack 2 with a compatibility stub that simply redirects to Windows Explorer. In Windows Vista and later, PROGMAN.EXE

7260-725: The consumer and stand-alone desktop PC segments; there were reports that it could not be installed properly on IBM's own Aptiva series of home PCs. Microsoft made an offer in 1994 where IBM would receive the same terms as Compaq (the largest PC manufacturer at the time) for a license of Windows 95, if IBM ended development of OS/2 completely. IBM refused and instead went with an "IBM First" strategy of promoting OS/2 Warp and disparaging Windows, as IBM aimed to drive sales of its own software as well as hardware. By 1995, Windows 95 negotiations between IBM and Microsoft, which were already difficult, stalled when IBM purchased Lotus SmartSuite , which would have directly competed with Microsoft Office . As

7381-545: The end, Microsoft decided to recast NT OS/2 3.0 as Windows NT, leaving all future OS/2 development to IBM. From a business perspective, it was logical to concentrate on a consumer line of operating systems based on DOS and Windows, and to prepare a new high-end system in such a way as to keep good compatibility with existing Windows applications. While it waited for this new high-end system to develop, Microsoft would still receive licensing money from Xenix and OS/2 sales. Windows NT's OS/2 heritage can be seen in its initial support for

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7502-518: The executable's default icon embedded as data inside the .EXE file. Additionally, the Windows Setup program, which populated Program Manager with the standard icons of a fresh install, could also be used to add new icons in bulk after installation. Using SETUP /P from the command line , a standard layout could be installed on many machines in an enterprise using a single SETUP.INF configuration file. Beginning with Windows 3.1, Program Manager contained

7623-412: The existence of both systems and promoted OS/2 as the system of the future. The collaboration between IBM and Microsoft unravelled in 1990, between the releases of Windows 3.0 and OS/2 1.3. During this time, Windows 3.0 became a tremendous success, selling millions of copies in its first year. Much of its success was because Windows 3.0 (along with MS-DOS) was bundled with most new computers. OS/2, on

7744-511: The feature remained in the shipped version. In later versions of Microsoft Windows , starting with Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 , Program Manager was replaced by Windows Shell . The Start menu , the Desktop , and the Taskbar took over program organization and launching duties. Program Manager was still included in later versions of Windows, and could be accessed by executing PROGMAN.EXE from

7865-427: The first version of their OS/2-based operating system in 2017 as ArcaOS. As of 2023, there have been multiple releases of ArcaOS, and it remains under active development. Many people hoped that IBM would release OS/2 or a significant part of it as open source . Petitions were held in 2005 and 2007, but IBM refused them, citing legal and technical reasons. It is unlikely that the entire OS will be open at any point in

7986-401: The fully-licensed MS-DOS 5.0, which had been patched and improved upon. For the first time, OS/2 was able to run more than one DOS application at a time. This was so effective that it allowed OS/2 to run a modified copy of Windows 3.0, itself a DOS extender , including Windows 3.0 applications. Because of the limitations of the Intel 80286 processor, OS/2 1.x could run only one DOS program at

8107-531: The future because it contains third-party code to which IBM does not have copyright, and much of this code is from Microsoft. IBM also once engaged in a technology transfer with Commodore , licensing Amiga technology for OS/2 2.0 and above, in exchange for the REXX scripting language. This means that OS/2 may have some code that was not written by IBM, which can therefore prevent the OS from being re-announced as open-sourced in

8228-531: The future. On the other hand, IBM donated Object REXX for Windows and OS/2 to the Open Object REXX project maintained by the REXX Language Association on SourceForge . There was a petition, arranged by OS2World, to open parts of the OS. Open source operating systems such as Linux have already profited from OS/2 indirectly through IBM's release of the improved JFS file system , which

8349-503: The host's window in the same way that Win16 applications use the Win32 explorer. Using the host's window allows one to pipe output between emulations. The MS-DOS emulation takes place through the NTVDM (NT Virtual DOS Machine). This is a modified SoftPC (a former product similar to VirtualPC ), running a modified MS-DOS 5 (NTIO.SYS and NTDOS.SYS). The output is handled by the console DLLs, so that

8470-678: The introduction of FAT12 instead of the CP/M filesystem . This first version was shipped in August 1980. Microsoft, which needed an operating system for the IBM Personal Computer , hired Tim Paterson in May 1981 and bought 86-DOS 1.10 for US$ 25,000 in July of the same year. Microsoft kept the version number, but renamed it MS-DOS. They also licensed MS-DOS 1.10/1.14 to IBM, which, in August 1981, offered it as PC DOS 1.0 as one of three operating systems for

8591-560: The last full year. Warp 4 became the last distributed version of OS/2. Although a small and dedicated community remains faithful to OS/2, OS/2 failed to catch on in the mass market and is little used outside certain niches where IBM traditionally had a stronghold. For example, many bank installations, especially automated teller machines , run OS/2 with a customized user interface; French SNCF national railways used OS/2 1.x in thousands of ticket selling machines. Telecom companies such as Nortel used OS/2 in some voicemail systems. Also, OS/2

8712-693: The late 1980s. They were produced by the East German electronics manufacturer VEB Robotron . The following versions of MS-DOS were released to the public: Support for IBM's XT 10 MB hard disk drives, support up to 16 MB or 32 MB FAT12 -formatted hard disk drives depending on the formatting tool shipped by OEMs, user-installable device drivers, tree-structure filing system, Unix-like inheritable redirectable file handles, non-multitasking child processes an improved Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) API, environment variables, device driver support, FOR and GOTO loops in batch files, ANSI.SYS . Microsoft DOS

8833-402: The limits of their contemporary hardware. Very soon an IBM-compatible architecture became the goal, and before long all 8086-family computers closely emulated IBM's hardware , and only a single version of MS-DOS for a fixed hardware platform was needed for the market. This version is the version of MS-DOS that is discussed here, as the dozens of other OEM versions of "MS-DOS" were only relevant to

8954-483: The major code quality issues in the existing OS/2 product (resulting in over 20 service packs, each requiring more diskettes than the original installation), and the ineffective and heavily matrixed development organization in Boca Raton (where the consultants reported that "basically, everybody reports to everybody") and Austin. That study, tightly classified as "Registered Confidential" and printed only in numbered copies, identified untenable weaknesses and failures across

9075-608: The marketplace, partly due to strategic business measures imposed by Microsoft in the industry that have been considered anti-competitive . Following the failure of IBM's Workplace OS project, OS/2 Warp 4 became the final major release in 1996; IBM discontinued its support for OS/2 on December 31, 2006. Since then, OS/2 has been developed, supported and sold by two different third-party vendors under license from IBM – first by Serenity Systems as eComStation from 2001 to 2011, and later by Arca Noae LLC as ArcaOS since 2017. The development of OS/2 began when IBM and Microsoft signed

9196-477: The new code base would eventually include replacement of the OS/400 operating system by Workplace OS, as well as a microkernel product that would have been used in industries such as telecommunications and set-top television receivers. A partially functional pre-alpha version of Workplace OS was demonstrated at Comdex, where a bemused Bill Gates stopped by the booth. The second and last time it would be shown in public

9317-455: The number of OS/2 users, in the belief that this would increase sales and demand for third-party applications, and thus strengthen OS/2's desktop numbers. This suggestion was bolstered by the fact that this demo version had replaced another which was not so easily cracked, but which had been released with trial versions of various applications. In 2000, the July edition of Australian Personal Computer magazine bundled software CD-ROMs, included

9438-469: The older VCPI interface, unlike the Standard mode of Windows 3.1; it only supported programs written according to DPMI . (Microsoft discouraged the use of VCPI under Windows 3.1, however, due to performance degradation.) Unlike Windows NT, OS/2 always allowed DOS programs the possibility of masking real hardware interrupts, so any DOS program could deadlock the machine in this way. OS/2 could, however, use

9559-509: The open hardware system approach that contributed to its success on the PC. IBM sought to use OS/2 to drive sales of its own hardware, and urged Microsoft to drop features, such as fonts , that IBM's hardware did not support. Microsoft programmers also became frustrated with IBM's bureaucracy and its use of lines of code to measure programmer productivity . IBM developers complained about the terseness and lack of comments in Microsoft's code, while Microsoft developers complained that IBM's code

9680-553: The operating system dropped support for 32-bit processors in favor of being solely offered in 64-bit versions only. This effectively ended any association of MS-DOS within Microsoft Windows after 36 years. MS-DOS 6.22 was the last standalone version produced by Microsoft for Intel 8088 , Intel 8086 , and Intel 80286 processors, which remains available for download via their MSDN , volume license, and OEM license partner websites, for customers with valid login credentials. MS-DOS

9801-421: The operating system installation. A personal version of Lotus Notes was also included, with a number of template databases for contact management, brainstorming, and so forth. The UK-distributed free demo CD-ROM of OS/2 Warp essentially contained the entire OS and was easily, even accidentally, cracked , meaning that even people who liked it did not have to buy it. This was seen as a backdoor tactic to increase

9922-456: The operating system. The OS/2 software vendor Stardock made such a proposal to IBM in 1999, but it was not followed through by the company. Serenity Systems succeeded in negotiating an agreement with IBM, and began reselling OS/2 as eComStation in 2001. eComStation is now sold by XEU.com, the most recent version (2.1) was released in 2011. In 2015, Arca Noae, LLC announced that they had secured an agreement with IBM to resell OS/2. They released

10043-597: The other hand, was available only as an additional stand-alone software package. In addition, OS/2 lacked device drivers for many common devices such as printers, particularly non-IBM hardware. Windows, on the other hand, supported a much larger variety of hardware. The increasing popularity of Windows prompted Microsoft to shift its development focus from cooperating on OS/2 with IBM to building its own business based on Windows. Several technical and practical reasons contributed to this breakup. The two companies had significant differences in culture and vision. Microsoft favored

10164-589: The period when Digital Research was competing in the operating system market some computers, like the Amstrad PC1512 , were sold with floppy disks for two operating systems (only one of which could be used at a time), MS-DOS and CP/M-86 or a derivative of it. Digital Research produced DOS Plus , which was compatible with MS-DOS 2.11, supported CP/M-86 programs, had additional features including multi-tasking, and could read and write disks in CP/M and MS-DOS format. While OS/2

10285-513: The peripheral hardware of the IBM PC architecture. This design would have worked well for compatibility, if application programs had only used MS-DOS services to perform device I/O. Indeed, the same design philosophy is embodied in Windows NT (see Hardware Abstraction Layer ). However, in MS-DOS' early days, the greater speed attainable by programs through direct control of hardware was of particular importance, especially for games, which often pushed

10406-450: The platform without Microsoft and sold it as the alternative to DOS and Windows. As a response to Digital Research 's DR DOS 6.0 , which bundled SuperStor disk compression, Microsoft opened negotiations with Stac Electronics , vendor of the most popular DOS disk compression tool, Stacker. In the due diligence process, Stac engineers had shown Microsoft part of the Stacker source code. Stac

10527-518: The previous GUI. Rather than merely providing an environment for program windows (such as the Program Manager), the Workplace Shell provided an environment in which the user could manage programs, files and devices by manipulating objects on the screen. With the Workplace Shell, everything in the system is an "object" to be manipulated. OS/2 2.0 was touted by IBM as "a better DOS than DOS and a better Windows than Windows". It managed this by including

10648-492: The program at the prompt ( CMD.EXE , 4NT.EXE , TCC.EXE ), can see the output. 64-bit Windows has neither the DOS emulation, nor the DOS commands EDIT, DEBUG and EDLIN that come with 32-bit Windows. The DOS version returns 5.00 or 5.50, depending on which API function is used to determine it. Utilities from MS-DOS 5.00 run in this emulation without modification. The very early beta programs of NT show MS-DOS 30.00, but programs running in MS-DOS 30.00 would assume that OS/2

10769-594: The release: IBM claimed that it had used Star Trek terms as internal names for prior OS/2 releases, and that this one seemed appropriate for external use as well. At the launch of OS/2 Warp in 1994, Patrick Stewart was to be the Master of Ceremonies ; however Kate Mulgrew of the then-upcoming series Star Trek: Voyager substituted for him at the last minute. OS/2 Warp offers a host of benefits over OS/2 2.1, notably broader hardware support, greater multimedia capabilities, Internet -compatible networking, and it includes

10890-671: The same generation change release as IBM's " Personal System/2 (PS/2)" line of second-generation PCs. OS/2 was intended as a protected-mode successor of PC DOS targeting the Intel 80286 processor. Notably, basic system calls were modeled after MS-DOS calls; their names even started with "Dos" and it was possible to create "Family Mode" applications – text mode applications that could work on both systems. Because of this heritage, OS/2 shares similarities with Unix , Xenix , and Windows NT . OS/2 sales were largely concentrated in networked computing used by corporate professionals. OS/2 2.0

11011-424: The same requests from customers that we have." – (Schulman et al. 1994). The pact between Microsoft and IBM to promote OS/2 began to fall apart in 1990 when Windows 3.0 became a marketplace success. Many of Microsoft's further contributions to OS/2 also went into creating a third GUI replacement for DOS, Windows NT . IBM, which had already been developing the next version of OS/2, carried on development of

11132-511: The shared features of its "single-user OS" and "the multi-user, multi-tasking , UNIX -derived operating system", and promising easy porting between them. After the breakup of the Bell System , however, AT&T Computer Systems started selling UNIX System V . Believing that it could not compete with AT&T in the Unix market, Microsoft abandoned Xenix, and in 1987 transferred ownership of Xenix to

11253-539: The shell in an integrated fashion not available on any other mainstream operating system. WPS follows IBM's Common User Access user interface standards. WPS represents objects such as disks, folders, files, program objects, and printers using the System Object Model (SOM), which allows code to be shared among applications, possibly written in different programming languages. A distributed version called DSOM allowed objects on different computers to communicate. DSOM

11374-401: The system. As MS-DOS 7.0 was a part of Windows 95, support for it also ended when Windows 95 extended support ended on December 31, 2001. As MS-DOS 7.10 and MS-DOS 8.0 were part of Windows 98 and Windows ME, respectively, support ended when Windows 98 and ME extended support ended on July 11, 2006, thus ending support and updates of MS-DOS from Microsoft. In contrast to the Windows 9x series,

11495-519: The systems they were designed for, and in any case were very similar in function and capability to some standard version for the IBM PC—often the same-numbered version, but not always, since some OEMs used their own proprietary version numbering schemes (e.g. labeling later releases of MS-DOS 1.x as 2.0 or vice versa)—with a few notable exceptions. Microsoft omitted multi-user support from MS-DOS because Microsoft's Unix -based operating system, Xenix ,

11616-421: The two companies beginning in 1990 resulted in Microsoft leaving development exclusively to IBM, who continued development on their own. OS/2 Warp 4 in 1996 was the last major upgrade, after which IBM slowly halted the product as it failed to compete against Microsoft's Windows ; updated versions of OS/2 were released by IBM until 2001. The name stands for "Operating System/2", because it was introduced as part of

11737-474: The use of Win32 console applications and internal commands with an NTCMDPROMPT directive. Win32 console applications use CMD.EXE as their command prompt shell. This confusion does not exist under OS/2 because there are separate DOS and OS/2 prompts, and running a DOS program under OS/2 will launch a separate DOS window to run the application. All versions of Windows for Itanium (no longer sold by Microsoft) and x86-64 architectures no longer include

11858-474: The version customized for their hardware, or face trying to get all of their proprietary hardware and software to work with the new system. In the business world, the 808x-based machines that MS-DOS was tied to faced competition from the Unix operating system; the latter ran on many different hardware architectures. Microsoft itself sold a version of Unix for the PC called Xenix . In the emerging world of home users,

11979-600: The version number and the VER internal command reports as "Windows Millennium" and "5.1", respectively, and not as "MS-DOS 8.0" (which was used as the base for Windows Me but never released as a stand-alone product), though the API still says Version 8.0. The creation of the MS-DOS startup disk was then carried over to later versions of Windows, with the majority of its contents remaining unchanged from its introduction in Windows XP. When creating

12100-453: The x86 platform. Initially, MS-DOS was targeted at Intel 8086 processors running on computer hardware using floppy disks to store and access not only the operating system, but application software and user data as well. Progressive version releases delivered support for other mass storage media in ever greater sizes and formats, along with added feature support for newer processors and rapidly evolving computer architectures. Ultimately, it

12221-656: Was bloated . The two products have significant differences in API. OS/2 was announced when Windows 2.0 was near completion, and the Windows API already defined. However, IBM requested that this API be significantly changed for OS/2. Therefore, issues surrounding application compatibility appeared immediately. OS/2 designers hoped for source code conversion tools, allowing complete migration of Windows application source code to OS/2 at some point. However, OS/2 1.x did not gain enough momentum to allow vendors to avoid developing for both OS/2 and Windows in parallel. OS/2 1.x targets

12342-545: Was "a complete, modern, multi-tasking, pre-emptive operating system", itself hosting Windows instead of running on it. Available on CD-ROM or 18 floppy disks, the product documentation reportedly suggested Windows as a prerequisite for installing the product, also being confined to its original FAT partition, whereas the product apparently supported the later installation of Windows running from an HPFS partition, particularly beneficial for users of larger hard drives. Windows compatibility, relying on patching specific memory locations,

12463-540: Was at an OS/2 user group in Phoenix, Arizona ; the pre-alpha code refused to boot. It was released in 1995. But with $ 990 million being spent per year on development of this as well as Workplace OS, and no possible profit or widespread adoption, the end of the entire Workplace OS and OS/2 product line was near. In 1996, Warp 4 added Java and speech recognition software. IBM also released server editions of Warp 3 and Warp 4 which bundled IBM's LAN Server product directly into

12584-458: Was available through the Ctrl-Esc hotkey combination, allowing the user to select among multitasked text-mode sessions (or screen groups; each can run multiple programs). Communications and database-oriented extensions were delivered in 1988, as part of OS/2 1.0 Extended Edition: SNA , X.25 / APPC /LU 6.2, LAN Manager , Query Manager , SQL. The promised user interface, Presentation Manager ,

12705-450: Was designed with a modular structure with internal device drivers (the DOS BIOS ), minimally for primary disk drives and the console, integrated with the kernel and loaded by the boot loader, and installable device drivers for other devices loaded and integrated at boot time. The OEM would use a development kit provided by Microsoft to build a version of MS-DOS with their basic I/O drivers and

12826-518: Was especially painful in providing support for DOS applications. While, in 1988, Windows/386 2.1 could run several cooperatively multitasked DOS applications, including expanded memory (EMS) emulation, OS/2 1.3, released in 1991, was still limited to one 640 kB "DOS box". Given these issues, Microsoft started to work in parallel on a version of Windows which was more future-oriented and more portable. The hiring of Dave Cutler , former VAX/VMS architect, in 1988 created an immediate competition with

12947-506: Was fully multi-user. The company planned, over time, to improve MS-DOS so it would be almost indistinguishable from single-user Xenix, or XEDOS , which would also run on the Motorola 68000 , Zilog Z8000 , and the LSI-11 ; they would be upwardly compatible with Xenix, which Byte in 1983 described as "the multi-user MS-DOS of the future". Microsoft advertised MS-DOS and Xenix together, listing

13068-552: Was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in various generations of the graphical Microsoft Windows operating system. IBM licensed and re-released it in 1981 as PC DOS 1.0 for use in its PCs. Although MS-DOS and PC DOS were initially developed in parallel by Microsoft and IBM, the two products diverged after twelve years, in 1993, with recognizable differences in compatibility, syntax and capabilities. Beginning in 1988 with DR-DOS , several competing products were released for

13189-595: Was in control. The OS/2 emulation is handled through OS2SS.EXE and OS2.EXE, and DOSCALLS.DLL. OS2.EXE is a version of the OS/2 shell (CMD.EXE), which passes commands down to the OS2SS.EXE, and input-output to the Windows NT shell. Windows 2000 was the last version of NT to support OS/2. The emulation is OS/2 1.30. POSIX is emulated through the POSIX shell, but no emulated shell; the commands are handled directly in CMD.EXE. The Command Prompt

13310-501: Was introduced with OS/2 1.1 in October 1988. It had a similar user interface to Windows 2.1 , which was released in May of that year. (The interface was replaced in versions 1.2 and 1.3 by a look closer in appearance to Windows 3.0 .) The Extended Edition of 1.1, sold only through IBM sales channels, introduced distributed database support to IBM database systems and SNA communications support to IBM mainframe networks. In 1989, Version 1.2 introduced Installable Filesystems and, notably,

13431-404: Was permanently removed from the operating system. OS/2 OS/2 is a proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers . It was initially created and developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft , under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci , intended as a replacement for DOS . The first version was released in 1987; a feud between

13552-627: Was ported from the OS/2 code base. As IBM didn't release the source of the OS/2 JFS driver, developers ported the Linux driver back to eComStation and added the functionality to boot from a JFS partition. This new JFS driver has been integrated into eComStation v2.0, and later into ArcaOS 5.0. Release dates refer to the US English editions unless otherwise noted. The graphic system has a layer named Presentation Manager that manages windows, fonts, and icons. This

13673-401: Was released in 1992 as the first 32-bit version as well as the first to be entirely developed by IBM, after Microsoft severed ties over a dispute over how to position OS/2 relative to Microsoft's new Windows 3.1 operating environment. With OS/2 Warp 3 in 1994, IBM attempted to also target home consumers through a multi-million dollar advertising campaign. However it continued to struggle in

13794-467: Was released in April 1992. At the time, the suggested retail price was US$ 195 , while Windows retailed for $ 150 . OS/2 2.0 provided a 32-bit API for native programs, though the OS itself still contained some 16-bit code and drivers. It also included a new OOUI (object-oriented user interface) called the Workplace Shell . This was a fully object-oriented interface that was a significant departure from

13915-1203: Was released through the OEM channel, until Digital Research released DR-DOS 5.0 as a retail upgrade. With PC DOS 5.00.1, the IBM–Microsoft agreement started to end, and IBM entered the retail DOS market with IBM DOS 5.00.1, 5.02, 6.00 and PC DOS 6.1, 6.3, 7, 2000 and 7.1. Localized versions of MS-DOS existed for different markets. While Western issues of MS-DOS evolved around the same set of tools and drivers just with localized message languages and differing sets of supported codepages and keyboard layouts, some language versions were considerably different from Western issues and were adapted to run on localized PC hardware with additional BIOS services not available in Western PCs, support multiple hardware codepages for displays and printers, support DBCS, alternative input methods and graphics output. Affected issues include Japanese ( DOS/V ), Korean, Arabic (ADOS 3.3/5.0), Hebrew (HDOS 3.3/5.0), Russian ( RDOS 4.01 / 5.0 ) as well as some other Eastern European versions of DOS. On microcomputers based on

14036-400: Was reportedly broken by the release of Windows 3.11, prompting accusations of arbitrary changes to Windows in order to perpetrate "a deliberate act of Microsoft sabotage" against IBM's product. Released in 1994, OS/2 version 3.0 was labelled as OS/2 Warp to highlight the new performance benefits, and generally to freshen the product image. "Warp" had originally been the internal IBM name for

14157-507: Was seen as the legitimate heir to the "kludgy" DOS platform. MS-DOS had grown in spurts, with many significant features being taken or duplicated from Microsoft's other products and operating systems. MS-DOS also grew by incorporating, by direct licensing or feature duplicating, the functionality of tools and utilities developed by independent companies, such as Norton Utilities , PC Tools ( Microsoft Anti-Virus ), QEMM expanded memory manager, Stacker disk compression , and others. During

14278-460: Was the key product in Microsoft's development from a programming language company to a diverse software development firm, providing the company with essential revenue and marketing resources. It was also the underlying basic operating system on which early versions of Windows ran as a GUI. MS-DOS went through eight versions, until development ceased in 2000; version 6.22 from 1994 was the final standalone version, with versions 7 and 8 serving mostly in

14399-502: Was under protracted development, Digital Research released the MS-DOS compatible DR-DOS 5.0, which included features only available as third-party add-ons for MS-DOS. Unwilling to lose any portion of the market, Microsoft responded by announcing the "pending" release of MS-DOS 5.0 in May 1990. This effectively killed most DR DOS sales until the actual release of MS-DOS 5.0 in June 1991. Digital Research brought out DR DOS 6.0, which sold well until

14520-577: Was unwilling to meet Microsoft's terms for licensing Stacker and withdrew from the negotiations. Microsoft chose to license Vertisoft's DoubleDisk, using it as the core for its DoubleSpace disk compression. MS-DOS 6.0 and 6.20 were released in 1993, both including the Microsoft DoubleSpace disk compression utility program. Stac successfully sued Microsoft for patent infringement regarding the compression algorithm used in DoubleSpace. This resulted in

14641-535: Was used for the host PC used to control the Satellite Operations Support System equipment installed at NPR member stations from 1994 to 2007, and used to receive the network's programming via satellite. Although IBM began indicating shortly after the release of Warp 4 that OS/2 would eventually be withdrawn, the company did not end support until December 31, 2006, with sales of OS/2 stopping on December 23, 2005. The latest IBM OS/2 Warp version

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