Do you still use DOS or Disk Operating System?
By levite
@levite (1062)
Philippines
November 27, 2009 3:43am CST
Are you still familiar with DOS or disk opearting system? Before the advent of Windows, DOS was already the operating system used by many. Even Microsoft has its MS-DOS counterpart of PC-DOS from IBM.
When my PC gets some bugs and viruses in it which can't be removed even by updated antivirus, I find relief when I learned the basics of DOS for I can use it to troubleshoot my PC when windows does not work anymore.
For example at the C_ when I type "dir" without the quotes, files will scroll up and you can see the number of bytes used by the drive, and bytes available and the volume name of the drive. The counterpart of "dir" in Windows is the "folder" in the drive. You can use it in windows by clicking Start, Run and typing "cmd" without the quotes in the menu window that will appear.
How about you do you still use DOS today from time to time.
1 person likes this
19 responses
@aerous (13434)
• Philippines
28 Nov 09
As a computer technician sometimes I used DOS to see some missing file to locate the trouble and to analyze what is the best thing to do. Because some of the computer that I repair is old and should need DOS to run other program most especially partitioning...
@RawBill1 (8531)
• Gold Coast, Australia
1 Dec 09
I do not use DOS much at all, but I had to recently when I lost Windows XP from my computer. I remember my first computer had DOS only when I bought it and I had a friend install Windows 3.1 on it for me. Windows 95 was the newest Windows at the time! The whole computer was a massive 4MB! LOL 
@RawBill1 (8531)
• Gold Coast, Australia
2 Dec 09
Yeah, big difference! The same size as some photos are now!
@amshugonchikar (169)
• India
28 Nov 09
I still use DOS. When I plug in a new USB drive, I first open it with using DOS. It is the best way to avoid running autorun.inf which is the source of virus. Also, I like to perform some operations using DOS only. I am a JAVA programmer and for basic programs, you still have to use this command line to run java compiler and JRE to run your program. For that purpose, I still use this DOS.
@Richy2K9 (36)
• Mauritius
29 Nov 09
hello ...
being a techy i've used DOS since the beginning, still now & then when i need to do some minor software repairs i used a DOS boot-disk i customized with a menu & special keyboard short-cuts(ANSI codes). Nowadays the hardware makes it hard to continue using it, for no support for USD devices, even if i have an NTFS access utility, SATA disks are not supported, so i use some other bootable disk utility, BartPE with WinXP or Win2K3 base files, Linux Live Distros & WinPE with VISTA base files.
It is important to know where you need & want to use DOS, for my old (very old games) i found DOSBox which is an emulator that works fine under my windows XP ;)
you brought back some memory though ... thank you! ;)
cheers!
@smilejanica (50)
• China
28 Nov 09
My major is not computer, so my knowledge for computer is not so professional.I studied DOS whne I was a freshman in university( may later than many people). So now I have no knowledge about whether DOS is goood or not.I ever thought that MS-DOS is already out of date :-0
@lullaby2005 (175)
• China
30 Nov 09
When I started to learn computer, my teacher taught us DOS. That's interesting and wonderful memory.
@stormragetz (567)
• Singapore
27 Nov 09
Nope. But maybe in the future when I starts to learn programming.
@mariposaman (2959)
• Canada
29 Nov 09
DOS was horrible and user unfriendly. I learned how to use DOS but will gladly use Windows any day.
Windows has its own problems though, one is huge resources needed to operate it. The specs for using DOS were minimal compared to todays modern computers.
@May2k8 (18391)
• Indonesia
28 Nov 09
Yes I still use D.O.S. in Windows XP to check whether there are found an hidden files or not. All things cannot do just in the Windows, because might be you don't see any virus not detected in your computer. It's useful for fixed problem on PC, if we don't have D.O.S then we must search an CD or flash booting or any kinds which can use for booting.
@WBtheMP3guy (227)
• United States
27 Nov 09
I finally quit using DOS 2 years ago when my old faithful P2 computer finally bit the bullet for good. I was running windows 98 2nd on that. Now I'm running XP, which I love, and have linux. I've had some small issues with linux, but those are more like annoiances than real problems. In many ways, I miss DOS. Not to mention being more SCSI compatible, program issues were easier for me to fix.
@danitykane (3183)
• Philippines
27 Nov 09
DOS is really important, I think knowing the basic prompt is really cool. I really miss doing that again, hahaha...the last time was during high school days. clr, dir, cmd..etc. In work, we still use it for printing multiple file direct from the server, we still use it. Happy Lotting!
@denincool (36)
• China
28 Nov 09
i just know little about DOS system but sometime i have to use some tools which are useful when my windows system breakdown. i just know some simple commands as you mentioned.
i haven't used the DOS and could never in the future.
Rather than DOS, i appreciate the good looks of new OSes. Windows 7 , Leopard and the newest Snow leopard are all beautiful and are more humanized, i think.
But i recognized that DOS was just one of the the most excellent system and was the most important reformation in the history of pc systems. So people who have touched it will remeber it forever.
@kaylachan (71762)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
27 Nov 09
I don't make a habit of it, but I was taught a few base strings back in high school. I have been able to use it to restore my hard drive on several occassions, and when I still worked for Pizza Hut I had a completely dos-based computer. I would have to use the basics I knew to troubleshoot it every shift just about untill i finally gave up and told them to get rid of it. It wasn't worth the headache it caused because it was very unstable.
@anne25penn (3305)
• Philippines
28 Nov 09
I only use DOS when i need to tinker on my computer. But otherwise, I leave that command alone. The DOS command should only be used by people who know what they are doing.
@ram_cv (16513)
• India
27 Nov 09
Wow! That is nostalgia. I started playing with DOS in 1986 and since then I had used it till around 1996. Then I moved onto the Windows bandwagon. Even now sometimes I go the DOS prompt and type in some commands to get a feel of it every now and then.
I think that was the most stable OS from MS stable till date :)
Cheers!
Ram
@strawberry1012 (142)
• Philippines
27 Nov 09
It is very helpful to know the basics of DOS even if you are using windows OS. There are times that a task needed to be done is much simpler using the DOS command prompt. Say example creating batch files to do repetitive tasks.
But I would rather have a linux or unix type of console in windows OS rather than DOS.
@madteaparty (2748)
• Japan
27 Nov 09
Wow, DOS! That makes me nostalgic.
At work I still use DOS sometimes for networking stuff, as checking if the computer's internet is really working properly or not, check ip, etc.
At home I don't use it anymore, as I don't really need it here. Only when I feel a little nostalgic.
@arunkrishnan005 (262)
• India
27 Nov 09
DOS is very useful
But due to rapid changes in technology nobody prefers to use DOS
DOS is really a good operating system
