Below is a listing of MS-DOS commands that are not listed in any available help manual or in the commands syntax or are commonly unknown commands. Many of these commands that are known can be very useful when using MS-DOS, while some of the other commands are unknown and/or appear to do nothing.
ATTRIB , |
The command is short for ATTRIB -a -h -r - s *.* (removes all attributes of a file). |
BACKUP /HP |
Unknown |
DIR , |
This lists all files including hidden files, does not work in Windows 95 / 98 / NT / 2000. |
DIR ... |
Lists all directories that do not have extensions . In Windows 95 / Windows 98 will list the contents of the directories previous to the directory currently in. |
DOSKEY /APPEDIT |
Unknown |
DOSKEY /COMMAND |
Unknown |
DOSKEY /PERMANENT |
Unknown |
DOSKEY /SCRSIZE |
Unknown |
DOSKEY /XHISTORY |
Unknown |
FDISK /MBR |
Recreates the Master Boot Record See CH000175 for additional information. |
FDISK /PRI |
See FDISK Page for additional information. |
FDISK /EXT |
See FDISK Page for additional information. |
FDISK /LOG |
See FDISK Page for additional information. |
FDISK /Q |
Prevents fdisk from booting the system automatically after exiting fdisk. |
FDISK /STATUS |
Shows you the current status of your hard drives. |
FORMAT /AUTOTEST |
Formats the hard drive without any prompting. |
FORMAT /BACKUP |
Like /AUTOTEST but it will ask you for a volume label. |
FORMAT /Z:n |
Command used with FDISK supporting FAT32 , used to specify the cluster size in bytes where n is multiplied by 512. |
MEM /A or /ALL |
Adds a line into the MEM command tells the available space in HMA . |
RESTORE /Y |
Unknown |
RESTORE /Z |
Unknown |
SET DIRCMD=0 |
Will make all directories hidden however still accessible, to get them back SET DIRCMD= |
SHARE /NC |
Unknown |
TRUENAME |
When placed before a file, will display the whole directory in which it exists. |
VER /R |
Tells you the Revision and if DOS is in HMA . |
