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DOS, most people of the 21^st century have no clue what your parents are talking about when they say we used to work in DOS. Well, you’re about to find out. A brief explanation of DOS is a black screen with irritating commands. Although the commands are irritating they are easy to learn.  So lets begin…

            IBM created DOS,

            Lets start with the basics, when you enter DOS, you should either see C:\WINDOWS or just C:\. Now that means your either in the windows directory or just the straight C drive. (Note: your main drive may not necessarily be C it could be a variety, but most commonly its C) This is your starting point, you can decide what to do from there.

            To open a file in DOS, use cd xxxxx (xxxxx is the file that you would like to open.) Such as C:\cd windows, then your prompt will look like C:\WINDOWS> then you can look at the entire windows directory.

            Opening a directory, this command has many different ways to open files. dir is the beginning of the file, it is followed by a / and then a switch, there are many types of switches, most commonly,  w or m, these all show the directory in different types. When you use the command dir/w you open up a list of files.

            To delete a file in DOS, this will NOT UNINSTALL the program, it will simple either remove the directory or the individual file. To delete the file you will need to know the exact directory of the file, like C:\WINDOWS\DESKTOP. After you find the file,  the DOS command is simple del xxxxxx. (xxxxx is the file that you want to delete) After giving hitting enter, the prompt will ask if you would like to confirm the delete. Hit y or n to complete this operation. (y is yes, and n is no.) You should have now successfully deleted a file.

            Usually people go into DOS for one reason, when their computer wont start, this is a huge problem. You will need a way to stop Windows from booting. When you first install Windows, if asks you if you would like to create a boot disk, hopefully you said yes, because this is the first way to start the computer. The other way, which is slightly more complex is insert the disk and press SHIFT-F5 now the screen should pause for a moment, and then enter the command prompt. Lets assume for the course that windows is totally messed up, beyond repair, so you need to reinstall it. If you want, you can format the hard drive, and clear all the data, not a great idea, unless you sure you want that. Because you most likely entered the command prompt through the a drive. You will want to enter the D:\ drive to install windows, (D is the common letter for CD-ROM drives. Simply hit d: followed by enter. Now the prompt should have gone from A:\ to D:\.Type setup and then press enter. This should start the reinstallation of Windows, if not try install, then enter. If you are still having problems contact your system administer, or tech support.

            Perhaps you have disk partitions, this is a very irritating problem, it is not as simple as just renaming the drives, you actually must erase them, so if removing partitions is not vital then you may want to steer clear of this. The first step is to enter into DOS. Clear the C:\WINDOWS\ by cd\. Enter in the prompt, type fdisk, this will open the disk partition menu. Hit Y and then choice 3. choice one is the most common choice you will then be prompted to then choice what drive that you will want to de-partition. Follow the directions on your screen, this is a complex thing if you do not read and follow directions.

Here is a short list of DOS commands:

Cd\                  - Clears the extisting information in the prompt.

cd…                - Also clears the existing information in the prompt.
dir/x                 - Opens a directory.

Format x:            - Formats the selected drive.

Fdisk                - Allows for changes in disk partitions.

Netstat -x­         - Shows the connection status and other IP related things (when connected to the internet).

Setup               - Installation starter.

Install               - Also and installation starter.

Cls                   - Clears the DOS prompt.

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