MS-DOS Summary

A Survival Guide
The DOS Prompt

To let you know it is ready to accept your commands, DOS displaysa "prompt" on the screen. This
prompt can be set tobe just about anything, but 99% of the time it follows this standardformat:

Example: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM>

C:
the default disk drive
\
the root directory
WINDOWS
name of a subdirectory in the root
SYSTEM
name of a directory in the WINDOWS subdirectory
>
Ready for your command!

The prompt means that your command will affect files in the Systemdirectory under the Windows
directory at the root of the C: drive,unless you specify a different path.

Getting and Interpreting File and Directory Listings

Listing a Directory:

Simple:
dir
File:
dir filename.typ
All files with one extension:
dir *.ext
All files with one name:
dir name.*
Files the same except for one letter:
dir nam?.ext
All files in a specific directory
dir c:\web\site\*.*
Wide:
dir /w
Order by name:
dir /o
Include subdirectories:
dir /s
Send listing to printer:
 dir > prn
Putting features together:
dir *.ext /w /o /s > prn

Interpreting a Directory Listing:

- The Listing...

Volume in drive A is MINI_BOOT Volume Serial Number is 4106-18E9 Directory of

A:\ COMMAND COM 52925 03-10-93 6:00a DEFRAG EXE 75033 03-10-93 6:00a
DEFRAG HLP 9227 03-10-93 6:00a 3 file(s) 137185 bytes 1188352 bytes free

- The Details...

Volume in drive A is MINI_BOOT

Volume label can be given when formating a disk, or byusing the label command

Volume Serial Number is 4106-18E9

Serial number is assigned automatically when formatting

Directory of A:\
This disk is in A: drive, and we're looking at the "root"directory

COMMAND COM 52925 03-10-93 6:00a

This file is the DOS program that interprets your typed commands.
When giving commands dealing with this file, write it command.com(no spaces!)
This file occupies 52,925 bytes and was last modified 03-10-93at 6:00 AM.

DEFRAG EXE 75033 03-10-93 6:00a

This is a program that can be run by typing defragat the DOS prompt.
Executable DOS programs have extensions .com or.exe

DEFRAG HLP 9227 03-10-93 6:00a

This file probably has "on-line help" informationfor the Defrag program

3 file(s) 137185 bytes

There are three files occupying a total of 137,185 bytes inthis directory

1188352 bytes free

You could store another 1,188,352 bytes on this disk

Using "Wildcard" Characters

DOS commands that deal with files allow you to specify files byname, or to approximate names by
using special characters, calledwildcard characters, that match several file names.

Wildcards can be used just about any commands that deal with files:dir, copy, rename, xcopy, and
more.

Matching any group of letters:

* (star, or asterisk) matches any group of lettersin the file name after the asterisk
Matching any single letter:
? (question mark) matches any single letter in thefile name.

Examples:

dir *.*
List all files
dir *.exe
List all files with extension exe
dir prog1.*
List all files with the name prog1 regardless of theirextension
dir q*.*
List all files beginning with the letter q
copy *.bat b:
Copy all files with the extension .bat to drive b:
dir budget?a.dat
List files whose name begins with budget, has any singlecharacter, ends with a and has the
extension .dat- for example,
budget1a.dat
budget2a.dat
budget3a.dat
dir ???????x.dat
List files whose eighth character is an x and whoseextension is .dat. This will find
abcdefgx.dat andhijklmnx.dat but not abcedfx.dat (where thereis an x but not in the eighth
position).
Note 1: This will not work with * - for example,if you type
dir *x.dat
you will get a list of all files with .dat extension- in other words, anything after the * in the
name or extensionis ignored.
Note 2: DOS provides no way to list all files whose nameends with x regardless of how
many characters are in thename - for example, there is no simple way to find all these files:
x.dat
ax.dat
abx.dat
abcx.dat
etc.

Changing Default Drive and Directory

Make C: the default:

c:
Make the root default
cd \
Change to the Winword directory
cd \msoffice\winword
Change to the parent directory (one up)
cd ..

Handling Files: Copying, Deleting, and Renaming

Copy from default to A:\

copy file.ext a:\
Copy from A:\ to default
copy a:\file.ext
Copy all files in a directory to default
copy c:\msoffice\windows\template\*.*
Delete one file
del a:\file.ext
Delete all files in a directory
del c:\temp\*.*
Delete all files in the current drive and directory whosename begins with the letter q
del q*.*
Rename a file.abc to be file.xyz
rename file.abc file.xyz
Rename all files ending .abc
rename *.abc *.xyz

DOS Disk Concepts

Computers using MS-DOS have access to files stored on one or moredisk. Here are some facts
about how DOS handles its disks:

• Each disk drive is assigned a letter, beginning with A, foridentification.

• A colon : after the drive-letter identifies it as adrive name, as opposed to a file name.
• The letter is associated with the drive, not with a particulardisk. You can change the disk in
a diskette drive, and the drivestill has the same letter.
• Certain drive-letters are customarily associated with particulartypes of drives:
o A: is for a diskette (floppy) drive. If there is more thanone diskette drive on a
computer, the A: drive is usually theupper one, or the one on the left. When you start
DOS computers,most of them will try to use a disk in A: as the boot-disk - thatis,
they will look for startup instructions first on A:
o B: is for a second diskette drive, if any. Computers thathave only one diskette drive
will not have a B: drive.
o C: is for the primary hard disk drive. Even if there is onlyone diskette drive, hard
disk drives are not called B:. If thereis no diskette in the A: drive when you turn
them on, most DOScomputers will try to use hard disk C: as the boot-disk.
o D: and E: are generally some form of high-capacity storageon the local computer.
They may be:

a second hard drive

a CD-ROM drive

a "partition" of another hard drive. (A partitionis a large section of a hard
disk that has been formatted separatelyand is treated as a different disk.)
 o On many networked computers, the letters F-Z are used to represent"logical disks"
on a network server. (A logical diskis one which may be either a real disk, a
subdirectory that "behaves"like a disk, or a partition.)

Directories
A directory is a part of a disk whose files can be handledas a separate group. What the Macintosh
calls "folders"are the "directories" of DOS. This concept is usefulbecause disks can hold such large
numbers of files that, withoutsome way of organizing them into groups, it would be nearly
impossibleto deal with them rationally.

Directory background

• Every disk has at least one directory: the root directory.

• The root directory can contain a large number of other directories,as well as files.
• A directory contained in another directory is called a subdirectory.
• Subdirectories can contain a large number of other directories,as well as files.
• Because of this, directories form a structure like the branchesof a tree. This is sometimes
called a "hierarchical"structure.

DOS Directory Rules

• On DOS computers, the root is symbolized by a backslash immediatelyafter the drive letter:
A:\ or C:\ would be the root directories of A: andC:.
• DOS subdirectories must have names that follow the same rulesas DOS files (see below)
• When they are used in commands, directory names are separatedfrom one another and from
file names by the backslash \character. Ex:
 C:\web\site\q02cd.htm
In this example, C:\ is the root, web is onesubdirectory, site is another, and q02cd.htm
isprobably the name of a file - but it could be a directory instead.DOS leaves this
ambiguous.
• The complete listing of drive and all the directories neededto reach a file is called a "path".
A long "path"is:
c:\msoffice\winword\template\normal.dot
• Special directory names:
. is the symbol for the current directory
.. is the symbol for the "parent" directory.The parent of site is web, because site islisted
(contained) in web.
\ is the symbol for the "root" directory.

Default Drive and Directory

Since we have to type all DOS commands, any way of shorteningcommands is helpful. One such
technique is by defining a defaultdrive and directory - a disk drive and (sub)directory whichDOS
assumes you want to use. That way, you don't have to typeit out every time you refer to its files.
You can think of DOSas always "looking at" the default disk and directory.

• The default drive and directory are usually shown in the DOSprompt - the string of
characters that indicates DOS is readyto accept a command. For example:
C:\WEB\SITE>_
• The default drive can be changed by typing the letter of thedisk you're aiming for, followed
by a colon. Ex:
A: <Enter>
should get you the prompt
A:\>_
• The default directory is changed by giving the cd command.You can cd to any directory in
the current directory, or if youlist the entire path, you can cd to any directory on the
defaultdisk drive. However, you need to change the default drive firstif the directory you
want is on another drive.

DOS File Name Rules

DOS file names are restricted by several rules - mainly constrainingtheir length and the characters
they can have in them. Here arethe basics:

Parts

Overall:
DOS file names consist of a name and an extension.
Name:
Every file must have a name, 1-8 characters long. Names areuseful for explaining what the
contents are about. Examples:
a
taxes
 budget94
96income
slurp
Extension:
Extensions are optional, but very useful. They may be 1-3characters long. They usually give
information about the typeof file - for example, whether it is a program, a text file, agraphic
image, or a word processing document. There are severalstandard extensions, and hundreds
of extensions used by specificprograms. Many programs automatically add extenstions to
yourfile names, and you should let them do this. Examples:
autoexec.bat - a batch file contains a group of DOS commands(standard)
word.exe - an executable (runnable) program file (standard)
q02c.doc - a document file, usually either Word Perfector Microsoft Word format (used by
several word processing programs)
q02c.htm - an HTML (HyperText Markup Language) file, foruse on the World Wide Web
q02c_f1.gif - an image file using the GIF (Graphic InterchangeFormat) technique for storing
images.
Separator:
File names and extensions must always be typed with a period. between, though when DOS
lists a directory, space is used toseparate them.

Characters

• DOS is not sensitive to case. You can type ABC.DOCor abc.doc or Abc.Doc or any other
combination ofupper and lower case letters, and DOS won't care.
• You can combine letters and numbers in any order. These areall OK:
123abc.xyz
def567.9yz
34.8
• Some special characters are OK to use, but others are not.Generally, the characters that have
a special meaning in DOS commandsare not OK in names.
OK ~ ` ' ! @ # $ % ^ & ( ) _ - { }
Not allowed * + = | \ [ ] : ; " < , > ? / .but period is OK for separating name and extension.