You've might have heard it somewhere or seen it in a book and not even have known what it is. DOS stands for Disk Operating System. It's a command-line operating system that can be run from within windows. Learning DOS is like learning a piece of history, since it is Window's predecessor. Learning DOS can also help you learn more about Windows.

     "Well, what can you do with DOS?" You can make, move, edit and delete files, create batch files that allow you to bundle DOS commands together into an easy to use script, and FTP files to servers. It isn't exactly required knowledge but it's still good to know. Just in case you're trapped on a desert island with an old 486, an acoustic coupler and DOS.

     Lets get started. First, let's show you how to get to DOS in the first place. Go to your "Start" menu and select "Run...". Now type, "command" in the text box and hit enter. This should have opened a window with a black background and white text. This is the command prompt. This is where you do all your stuff in DOS. From here, you can type in commands that the command processor (DOS) interprets and executes. The prompt, which probably looks like this "C:\WINDOWS>", is a constant reminder of where you currently are in the directory structure of your computer. For example, "C:\WINDOWS>" specifies that you're in the "C:" drive within the "WINDOWS" folder.

     Now let's try a command. Type "exit" and hit return. The window should have closed. This command tells DOS that we want to leave, or exit. What happens is when you press return, whatever is on the command line is given to DOS to look at. DOS then checks to see if there is a command called "exit" and executes it, in this case, exiting DOS. In the next section, we'll go over some basic DOS commands.

Head on to:
Introduction to DOS
Basic DOS Commands
Redirecting And Piping