[4DOS.INFO]

DOS (all flavours)

This is my links farm for general "vanilla" DOS and batch programming related material: Usenet groups, file collections, personal web pages and related programs...

Listings are mostly in alphabetical order, no ranking intended.

Links that seem to be dead.

Topics

  DOS Batch Basics      DOS Batch Newsgroups      DOS Batch Help Sites   

  DOS Batch FAQs      Batch & DOS Related File Collections       Personal Homepages 

  Web Rings 

DOS Batch Basics

Some foundation laying first:

• MS-DOS: a definition  FOLDOC (Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing) definition... :-)
• MS-DOS Summary        What is DOS? Memory map, books...
• MS-DOS Version Info   Short MS-DOS Version history
• MS-Support            Microsoft has stopped supporting DOS and taken most pages, tools and knowledge base articles off their servers. On this page, you can search the few remaining KB articles dealing somehow with DOS (select "MS-DOS" in the left-hand box)
• Books about DOS       List of available books about DOS
• Books about Win CL    List of books about the Windows command line
• Neal Stephenson       In the beginning was the command line. Unauthorized online publication.
• Wikipedia             A wonderful list of operating systems, with most DOS versions.

DOS Batch Newsgroups

A good place to get help by knowledgeable people is the Usenet. Here are many DOS- and batch-related newsgroups, and people are glad to help as long as you post your question in the relevant newsgroup. Note that Google Groups (standard) or the new Google Groups Beta or News-Reader.org allows you to read all Usenet groups and older messages in case they are not found on your provider's news server. Also take a look at the Jargon File if unsure about the slang being used.

• alt.msdos             Usenet Group: MS-DOS and batch discussions and help
• alt.msdos.batch       Usenet Group: DOS batch discussions and help. Beware, some fossils here fight valiantly for the pureness (IOW unsoiled by NT) of their group, which results in slash fests regularly. A necessary resource not to be without here is found at Flame Warriors Home and Andrew Heenan's Guide to Flaming.
• alt.msdos.programmer  Usenet Group: General DOS programmer's  discussions and help, much batch related material.
• alt.msdos.batch.nt    Usenet group: NT batch discussions and help.
• comp.os.msdos.misc    Usenet Group: General DOS problems.
• comp.os.msdos.programmer  Usenet Group: General DOS programmer's  discussions and help, much batch related material.
• comp.unix.dos-under-unix  Usenet Group: DOS emulation under Unix
• de.comp.os.msdos      German Usenet Group: DOS and batch problems
• ger.pc.dos            German Usenet Group: DOS and batch problems
• microsoft.public.win3x_wfw_dos     Usenet Group: DOS problems under Win3.nn and Windows for Workgroups.
• ms.public.win2000.cmdprompt.admin  Usenet group: NT5 command line problems.

There are a few Internet forums, too, and mailing lists:

• Batch World (Yahoo eGroup)  A batch oriented mailing list. You have to register to participate. They have a (small) file area (members only) for utils written by members.
• Computing Net´sHelp Forum   DOS and other OS´s help fora.
• Deutsches DOS Forum   German DOS forum, managed by T. Antonis.
• DR DOS Forum          German (unofficial) DR-DOS forum, managed by C. Fuchs
• FidoNet Echomail      Read the FidoNet echomails. There are echos for DOS/Internet and 4DOS, as well as some popular applications.

DOS Batch Help Sites

• Admini               German batch tutorial and info
• Batch f. Einsteiger  German tutorial: BATCH für Einsteiger, erschienen im FIDO-Echo BATCH.GER, 1994 by Horst Schaeffer
• Bookcase             Lots of DOS apps and tools.
• CKNOW                Microcomputer and DOS Tutorial by Computer Knowledge
• Compulink Support    List of DOS error codes and their meaning. Another good source is here.
• Computer Hope        DOS command help, batch file info and batch help, a very complete and useful site by Computer Hope
• Computing Net        Active DOS help forum.
• Dynamic Directory    Extensive link list for DOS in general, batch questions, FAQs, tutorials etc. Search for "DOS". By MaximumEdge
• EasyDOS              DOS command help, active forum. By Everett Murdock
• ELA Productions      has a not very lovely DOS directory with links mostly found better ordered or documented elsewhere.
• FAQTS                FAQTs.com is a growing collection of high quality information. Interesting concept with an up to date limited scope for DOS and Batch related topics.
• HelpFixMyPC          DOS command help. Remnants only. in disrepair. 
• i24.com              German site: tips and tricks, programs, IDEs and more for DOS and Windows. By Stephen Großklass and Daniel Hauke
• JSI Reghacks         Help, tips and FAQs, mostly NT/XP oriented. Search for "batch" and "dos".
• Kilowatt Software    offers Poof (135 command line utils), Roo (an Object-Oriented Rexx), R4 (Rexx), and more. Go and see!
• LabMice.net          has a Batch File Command Reference for Windows 2000
• Lame Industries      has a lot of tutorials. Relevant here are DOS Tutorial and A Power User's DOS. At this time only reachable through the Wayback Machine, but promising to be back...
• LDP                  The Linux Documentation Project has a few tips for "Converting DOS Batch Files to Shell Scripts". - by Mendel Cooper
• Learnthat            DOS tutorials.
• Microsoft            MS on using batch files under Win XP. A XP command line reference from A-Z is here, additional commands for Windows Server 2003 are here.
• MUF17 MUF16 MUF15    Microsoft's  Undocumented "Features", a Batpower generated list, and other useful DOS information in these collections.
• Nukesoft.co.uk       DOS command reference, history, tools...
• Open Directory       Extensive link list for DOS in general, batch questions, FAQs, tutorials etc.
• PCXT-Micro           DOS utilities, tools and command help for people who are new to computing and would like to gain some knowledge of command line functions and the ability to create batch files for DOS and Windows based environments.
• ss64                 A guide to Windows XP commands, also BASH, Oracle 8i and Apple OS X. - by Simon Sheppard
• Mark D. Stotzer      Windows, Dos and Mac help. DOS memory optimization tips.
• Technet Archive      Microsoft Technet Archive, for older contents that is still of interest to some users... Articles and downloads.
• TechTutorials        Links to several good DOS batch tutorials.
• The Useful Site      DOS help, utils, links, dead forum.
• Simon Sheppard       Help index for Windows NT, links, books,...

DOS Batch FAQs

• T. Antonis' FAQs     Seven german DOS and Batch tutorials plus batch examples
• FIDO BatchFAQ        Download the official BatchFAQ from the FIDO BATPOWER echo.
• T. Salmi's BATFAQ    Prof. T. Salmi's BatFAQ is often referred to in the alt.masdos.batch usenet group. Many batch, Pascal and AWK solutions for batch problems. Each new version has a new name, so download from the ftp site, look for TSBAT??.zip. See my 4DOS FAQ answer to this here.
• Programmers FAQ      Huge 5-part FAQ with code, sources and links for all aspects of DOS life from the usenet group alt.msdos.programmers
• DOS FAQ              Another DOS FAQ by Christoph Fuchs
• FreeDOS DOS FAQs     Links to several FAQs and comparisons.
• Windows IT Pro FAQs  Lots of batch and scripting related FAQs by John Savill
• Win32 Scripting      FAQs, COM objects, scripts for all flavours of Win32 scripting. Nicely designed site! By C. Washington (?)

Batch and DOS Related File Collections

These links are by what seems to be mostly company sites...

• BBS Files            FIDO and freeware files of the old Fido BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems).
• BFDS Files           FIDO Batch File Distribution System: lots of batch utils and tools collected by the time-honored FIDO Batchpower group.
• B. Programming       Links for small command line utilities
• cMech                Collection of "hard to find" DOS utils (not tested)
• CNET DOS Downloads   Collection of DOS and batch tools, utils, drivers, games...
• Cyberia              Interesting collection of DOS software, with a few german programs.
• DOS-Only             All DOS site, with a DOS related discussion/help forum and an small freeware collection
• DOSWARE.DE           German site with a collection of interesting tools
• DOS Welt             German DOS pages for nostalgics: freeware programs for DOS. No longer maintained.
• Externet             A mirror of the SAC FTP server. Collection of useful utilities. This one´s from Hungary.
• FAQS.ORG            Immense list of anonymous FTP sites with content descriptions. Try this if all else fails :-)
• FreeDownloadsCenter Utility collection.
• Garbo PC collection One of the biggest and most useful PC file collections at the university of Vaasa
• GDS                  Goodie Domain Service Open Source Software collection.
• Intrastar            A well ordered freeware file collection by Alan Sawicki.
• Hackmans Realm       Introductions to several programming languages and other computer topics, the download area has some real goodies like Hacker 1.2, a batch enhancement utility, XOO 1.50, a fossil driver, 10 DOS fonts and HotDir Plus 7.50.
• Kostis               Batch helpers, network tools, character table tools... (German page)
• Landover BBS         has an amazing collection of old DOS abandonware, apps and progs in its ftp site, as well as interesting material for other OSs.
• MetaCollection       Good link collection for DOS and batching with much overlap to this site :-)
• Netwarefiles         DOS file management utilities and more
• NFBnet               The National Federation of the Blind has a huge file collection of interest not only to the blind.
• PC-Tools.net         DOS Freeware and batch utilities.
• Powerload            DOS Resources download at the Oldfiles Network
• Pricelessware        The best of the best in Freeware as determined by the readers of alt.comp.freeware with a few DOS progs.
• Rinet FTP Server     Lots of useful DOS progs is the msdos/ directory here.
• Simtel collection    Another huge and venerable collection of DOS freeware and batch utilities. Sadly Simtel has become very slow and riddled with ads. A mirror of their FTP server is here.
• Short.Stop           Reviews, descriptions, links to 800+ DOS programs (no games). Freeware and free-for-private-use shareware listed. See here for still more DOS programs.
• Slovak Antivir C.    Homepage of the Slovak Antivirus Center (SAC), non-commercial project of AVIR and ESET companies. You can find here the latest shareware and freeware programs from the collection on the SAC FTP server.
• TU Clausthal         Good collection of free drivers, utils, progs for DOS.
• Wendos               Wengiers amazingly interesting file and OS collection. Many versions of DOS, Windows, languages, tools, many of them hard to find, on this Chinese website by the author of Wengier DOS.

Personal Homepages

...while these links seem to be mostly by interested individuals. The distinction isn't always easy and may be in error in some cases.s

• William+Linda Allen   Interactive batch course. Excellent.
• Charles Angelich      DOS, the ghost in the machine: various DOS flavours, downloads, freeware, links... Awesome site by a true believer.
• Thomas Antonis        Excellent german site with tutorials, FAQs, downloads, links, forum and more. Also recommended for Quick Basic interests.
• Axcel216              MS-DOS "secrets", tools, links...
• Axel Beckert          A great german collection of useful DOS Software and links.
• Matthias Bockelkamp   Freeware utils like BIOS 1.35, a utility to read, save and restore the bios settings, and CPU 1.1 which displays info about your cpu, plus links.
• Brian Brown           A self paced self study guide on MS-DOS, available free online and you can print it out for your personal use.  
• Richard Bonner        Batch tutorial (from Dr. DOS Betamax), tips, links, examples, Dos related stuff incl. humour, ...
• George Campbell       DOS info, faqs, tutorials, help for thr students of the Dakota State University
• Carl                  Many useful batch links
• Mendel Cooper         Converting DOS batch to Unix bash shell scripts
• Ted Davis             Shell scripts on the PC: DOS batch, NT scripting and more
• Norman L. DeForest    A list of useful batch and utility tips
• Dirk van Deun         A TSR that provides copy/paste in DOS and a library for object-oriented Batch programming
• Charles Dye           A small freeware list
• Laura Fairhead        A nearly unreadable (thanks to idiosyncratic colour choices) site with really breathtaking DOS batches
• Vincent Fatica        Some utilities for NT. Mirror here.
• Jason Faulkner        is admin of OldOS.Org. Old OS tells the origins of DOS and other operating systems, has some downloads and how-tos, several forums.
• Joe Fischer           Pathtyper, a sort of keyboard user interface, with colored dirs, quick directory change supporting Long File Names and more. Info here is a bit cryptic...
• Markus Fischer        German DOS installation guide, command overview, 1st steps in batch programming...
• Vernon Frazee         Batch file programming links and files and MS-DOS 6.22 help
• Brian Friesen         Useful 16 and 32 bit console batch helpers
• Hermann Fritz         Batch programnming: some undocumented features and 2 pages of ingenious batch files.
• Christoph Fuchs       Unofficial DR-DOS resources with downloads, links to fora etc.
• Olaf Gobruen          The world of DOS, batch writing Tutorials for DOS and other script languages, Boolean Logic, and more.
• Fran Golden           Tutorial on how to use DEBUG.EXE
• Dan Gookin            is the guy who wrote DOS for Dummies. Here are the disks that were included in his other books:
  • Advanced Ms-Dos Batch File Programming: External commands and utils for batch programming
  • Enhanced Batch File Programming: the second edition archive works whether you have the first or second edition of the book. In a nutshell,the archive contains more interesting DOS utilities than the Advanced book's archive, plus a few batch file compiling utilities. Nifty, huh?
  • MS-DOS to the Max: a handful of interesting DOS utilites, batch files, plus the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS Wizard programs. Pretty keen, really.
  • The Concise PC Notebook and Laptop User's Guide: Cool DOS programs for older laptops. Note that many programs are out-of-date and may not be compatible with today's laptops.

A few back issues of his free formerly weekly newsletter are still online here.

• Bruce Guthrie         A number of commandline utils like AV, BFIND, CHANGE, CONVERT, COPSINCE, DATES, DIRCOMP, DIRTOTAL, EUMAIL, FILL, FILUPDAT, FIXTEXT, FORTUNE, HTMSTRIP, PAGINATE, READ, READY, READINIT and TXTABLE. Free for personal use.
• Henrik Haftmann       Interesting german freeware site with lots of proggies for DOS, programmers and a few Windows utilities.
• Manuel Handlin        The ancient art of DOS batch files: basics, ansi, commands, samples, extenders, resources...
• Steve Hardy           NT / Win 2000 scripting
• Russel D. Hoffmann    "Unauthorized and Unsanctioned Net Guide to DOS". A nice tutorial.
• Marcus Houlden        Marcus' Nukesoft website features a DOS command reference, some utilities and a DOS version listing.
• Jason Hood            DOS and Win32 command line tools
• Mitchell A. Hoselton  10-part batch text tutorial, batch file utility package
• Paul Hsieh            Batch links, DOS progs etc.
• Chris Jones           DOS User Home with pages for games, utilities, programming, articles, links etc.
• Kevtronics            Text file of undocumented DOS commands and switches.
• Burkhard Kirste       German basic DOS tutorial
• K. Phillips Konn      DOS Splutions, a very comprehensive link farm similar to this one :-)
• Art Kopp              Art's Dos programs, mainly D-Browse, a LFN-enabled DOS file and dir browser.
• Eva Maria Krause      A great german link farm, some links point to to many old and nearly forgotten DOS programs and games. Start at "Alles".
• Theodor Lauppert      Return to DOS. A small DOS overview with a few downloads
• Tom Lavedas           Batch tips 'n tricks by a master
• Ritchie Lawrence      Batch function library and utilities
• Benjamin David Lunt   Programming DOS with power: batch writing, undocumented DOS, Dos secrets, and NewBasic, a compiler / interpreter / assembler for DOS.
• Andrew Malek          The Malek Tips, general DOS hints and help.
• Craig McFetridge      How to make DOS menus
• Nick Metcalfe         The Useful Site :-) Utilities, links & tips...
• Prashant N. Mhatre    Another quite ambitious DOS link list
• Ashley J.S. Mills     Introduction to Win32 shell scripting.
• Dave Navarro          Very useful command line tools
• Terry Newton          Batch FAQ and batch related stuff, Batch Guide 
• Matthias Paul         German and english: DOS and 4DOS Resources, a huge tip collection and some of his programs.
• Benny Pedersen        A very complete help system for all DOS commands plus other batch help and utils, links,
• Eric Phelps           Windows 95 / DOS 7 batch  tips and tricks, examples etc.
• Leonardo Pignataro    Batch FAQ, simple and advanced, tips, edlin. Mirror here.
• Paul Quinn            Some useful FIDO BBS batches...
• RazTK                 Some interesting looking batch files on a site that looks a little sinister..., but the exe-files are only archives, and help texts seem to be chinese :-(
• Ben Ritchey           Collection of VERY hard to find (?) DOS utilities
• Gerd Roethig          German step by step howto for using a Windows/Linux net under DOS
• Alan Robinson         Welcome to edlin, the online resource of edlin users :-)
• Sebastian Röhl        German basic batch tutorial
• Clay Ruth             Another useful batch site
• Paul R. Sadowski      Some nifty command line utility programs
• Timo Salmi            Very comprehensive list of useful links
• Mike Sandells         Tutorial "Overview of Modular Batch Files".
• Horst Schaeffer       Famous german batch utils
• Frank-Peter Schultze  Batch collection, german howto, bookmarks, downloads, forums and Ultraedit syntax highlight code. Here's a  German translation of the howtos.
• Simon Sheppard        An A-Z Index of the Windows NT command line.
• Uwe Sieber            Utilities, drivers, tools for DOS and Windows and nice new DOS fonts here.
• Laurence Soucy(?)     Batfiles: The DOS batch file programming handbook & tutorial plus tips and tools and an awesome linklist. For a time the author took to trolling in unsenet batch groups under various names...
• Marc Stern            MS-Dos batch file tips and tricks, plus a few other useful links by the author of XSET, a tool to put info into environment variables.
• Bill Stewart          Windows Admin Script Tools is a set of utilities that to assist Windows system administrators with support for the legacy platform. Also a set of Batch Script Tools and miscellaneous other tools.

• John R. Stockton     Several useful pages:

  • Batch files

  • Batch programs

  • Batch introduction

  and some tools, all in a strange color and layout scheme :-)

• Gerhard Strangar      Useful DOS tool, eg. NOOFF.COM (prevent Windows 9x from turning off power after shutdown) and VBEHZ 2.22 which allows you to set your own refresh rates for DOS-progs that use VESA Video Modes.
• Dev A.Teelucksingh    "Dave Central", lot's of links to interesting DOS programs
• W+M Thelen            Nice DOS command help on the "Thelen Channel".
• Claus Tøndering       Everything and mor you ever wanted to know about calendars. Useful if you`re into programming these things.
• Michael E. Valdez     Basic batch file tutorial in PDF format.
• Bob Watson            Very complete help system for all MS-DOS 7 commands, drivers etc. Now maintained (?) by Laurence Soucy
• Wengier               Author of DOS 7.10, Miniwin, very nice file collection, DOS and Batch help. Ability to speak the Chinese language or a good translator is helpful :-)
• Rob van der Woude     Batch tips 'n tricks and examples, regular expressions, WSH etc. Rob also has a Wiki entry for Command.com here.
• John Zanette          The System Guard / Booming or fuming? Basically interesting site with over-the-edge hysterical-sounding religious overtones. Some cross-system batch scripts seemingly written by someone continually in overdrive :-)

Web Rings

• DOS Webring            WebRing for DOS related sites: DOS Internet client developers/authors, resource pages, fans/hobyists homepages, etc. Includes 7 sites.
• DOS Internet Webring   This links to the same 7 sites as the ring above :-(
• DOS Games Ring         This webring claims to contain the best sites about DOS games. Includes 16 sites.
• DOSNET                 This ring is not for a special DOS like FreeDOS or DR-DOS, it's for all DOS - related sites out in the web. Includes 41 sites.
• FIDONET WWWebring      Fidonet is the first and largest amateur dialup BBS network in the world! The Fidonet webring is open to active Fidonet sysops listed in the nodelist, points, ans BBS software authors and support sites. Sites must contain directly relevant Fidonet or BBS information. Includes 46 sites.
• Abandonware Ring       Good place to start looking for that old game or app you remember from way back. Includes 57 sites.
• Oldfiles Network       Collection of old DOS, Windows and PC sites, e. g. Lightspeeds reference page.

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