When buying a new computer, it may happen that it does not include the usual Microsoft Windows. Obviously if you have not paid for the license, the supplier or manufacturer of the equipment will not provide it to us. Hence, in these cases we normally find the free operating system known as FreeDOS.
Basically what we find here is a open source operating system based on the old DOS. If there is one thing that characterizes this software, it is that it is a lightweight system for running legacy applications on more modern hardware. At this point many may wonder about incorporating this software on a new computer.
Well, it is important to know that it is normally used to test that the computer itself starts by the user. In addition, it is very useful in order to update bugs found by hardware suppliers. Therefore, if you find yourself faced with this situation in which your new computer that arrives with FreeDOSit may be interesting that you know how to navigate it.
That does not mean that you are going to use this operating system forever, but it will never hurt to know the most basic concepts and commands to carry out some tasks from here. For example, we can use it to recover storage drives of a damaged PC, or simply to install another more advanced system. Next, we are going to show you some of the essential commands that you need to know to work and move in a FreeDOS system.
Essential commands to use FreeDOS
When talking about basic commands, these will help us manage files and folders on a PC with this software, or format a drive to install another system.
- MKDIR or MD. It will be very useful for us to create new folders on the hard drive.
- RMDIR. Delete existing folders on drives.
- CHDIR or CD. This command helps us to move between different directories of the structure.
- DELTREE. Delete a folder and all subfolders within it.
- DIR. It shows us a list with the contents of the current folder.
- FORMAT. Completely format the drive that we indicate to the command.
- COPY. This order helps us copy both files and foldersand to verify the integrity of the contents during the copy we can use the /V parameter.
- XCOPY. This command is very similar to the previous one, but we use it to copy entire folders, including all their contents.
- EDIT. This command gives us the possibility of editing text files thanks to the internal editor that the system includes.
- HELP. This allows us to see the important commands of the operating system in addition to the parameters of each of them.
- TYPE. Using this command we will be able to see the content of a certain file on the screen.
- CLS. This is one of the most basic options since it is responsible for empty all content that we have in view on the monitor.
- DATE and TIME. The main function of this other command is to allow us to set the date and time of the operating system respectively.
- SEE. With this order we will have the possibility of displaying on the screen the FreeDOS version.
- VOL. Through this command we can see the name of the disk unit.