Hey all, For awhile now, I have been tinkering and using MS-DOS on a need-to-basis. But now, I was kinda thinking of learning the in's and out's of it as a whole. I was wondering if there are any advantages in this...or is it like a waste of time to learn it.
HHHmm, sounds interesting. Ok, well, what about using it to take care of files and stuff. I looked online about learning DOS, and it was all pretty much the same. I know of some people who can do almost anything in DOS, i.e.copy, format, etc. And just recently, I tried it out with wiping out my cookies through Safe Mode in Windows using DOS and used it for NetSend because the computer security is kinda tight around here. Also, and I know this is kind of a touchy subject, but what about hacker capability (not going to do that) but is it a tool they use, or do they mainly use like VB or C++? I know it doesn't have much practical use with the OS's out now, but is there anything else that you can do? Like hidden tricks or so forth? Thanks ddp for you reply, it was helpful.
depends on the file format, fat32 or ntfs. i use dos to fix problems like viruses & such in fat32 but can't do that in ntfs
Cool...thanks for the reply. I didn't know you could find out viruses in there. I know you can ping an address to cross-reference a "bad site," but not that. Thanks.
sometimes the antivirus program finds the virus(es) but can't delete them even in safe mode. so now know virus(es) name(s) & location(s) boot to the command prompt & delete the virus(es).
venomX05 I think that you will be amazed at what dos is really all about. Way before Windows was cool, that is what we used to make our own batch files, (bat), to do what we needed or help us move about in dos. Move, copy, tree, type, del, format, etc etc etc are all dos commands. Before Windows changed the name to “Folders” they were called directories hence cd command or change directory; cd\ c:\windows\temp which would change directory to c:\windows and then its subdirectory “temp”. For example go into “run” and type cmd which will give you a dos command window. When you get there type in dir/p This will list all the directories and also pause at each screen level until you hit a key to continue. Or type in cd\windows and then hit enter which will take you to the folder of windows and then type in dir/p to see a listing of all the folders within windows folders. It’s the building block of all commands and gives insight into what might be a problem or even how to cure one. It sure helps when windows is out and you need dos commands to move around. Bottom line, it sure won’t hurt you to learn it!
Man! Thats pretty cool...I didn't know about the dir/p. Well I got some great responses, so I think I am going to learn it. Plus, I kinda like the idea of knowing all the commands, just like you said, if windows goes out. Thanks to both of you!
These days there is little practical use in learning Dos - I would try to learn Linux or BSD if you are interested in running things from a command line. Every once in a while it is handy to know the commands to do a repair or whatever though. I still use Dos a lot myself, but I still maintain a couple old PCs for playing old games such as Magic Carpet, Crusader No Regret/No Remorse, and many old Dos based RPGs. I found many don't run 100% properly in anything but a pure DOS environment. The emulators keep getting better though. DosBox http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/ keeps running more old games with every release. VMWare isn't bad either for running DOS as a virtual machine inside your existing OS. DOS can be a pain, and it takes a while to learn the ins and outs such as configuring drivers or setting up memory managers to help with the 640K barrier.
Try the dir/w command. This gives a wide view of the directory you're in. There's also a help command that lists many of the other commands that you can use. I think it's /? or something. Dos, for me, was a necessity years ago. Even with Windows 98. Through 98, Windows was pretty much a graphical interface for DOS. Dos was still the core operating system. After 98, I think that Windows became a standalone operating system (no longer with MS DOS at the core). Nowadays, with XP, you can still use a command prompt, but it's not the same as it was with Windows 98 and back. Many older programs were written for DOS and couldn't be used with Windows. Wish I could have gotten that old version of Dragon's Lair to work. LOL
Thats pretty cool... For the last couple of days I have been looking around the net at different sites, including the ones that you all have put up on this thread, and I must say...there is a world of learning there. I even tried the command "pathping" while I was using my p2p program. I guess it does a trace route or something from what I can see. I didn't know much about it but got the name of the isp that was being used, because I used it like 20 times. It was cool though to look around and stuff. I know that I had to use DOS to install my OS this last time, cause I had a total crash. But it all worked well in the end.
