DOS is a very powerful and practical operating system with the largest number of users. However, after installing DOS, we found that the commands provided by DOS cannot complete all the functions required by everyone. At this time, we need some other software to implement those functions. There are many practical software under DOS, so which tools should we choose as essential tools to use? Let’s discuss it in categories below.
When the operating system is installed, the hardware of the entire computer must first make the hardware of the entire computer perform its own functions, such as mouse, optical drive, sound card, etc. At this time, you need to have corresponding drivers, and these drivers are essential tools under DOS. These drivers can be downloaded in the "DOS Software" of this website. Please refer to the "Usage and Settings of Hardware Devices under DOS" in this column.
After all the hardware can work normally, DOS needs to complete the required functions. DOS is both a convenient and practical operating system and a basic operating system. Many interface enhancement programs (such as Windows /9x) are implemented based on it, that is, DOS is their kernel. Therefore, it is very suitable to manage some systems and disks under DOS, such as copying disks, partitioning, formatting, etc. At this time, disk tools such as GHOST, FDISK, FORMAT and PQMAGIC can show off their skills and can be regarded as essential tools under DOS. Of course, other system maintenance tools (such as disk inspection tools, etc.) are also very important. You can see it in the "DOS System Maintenance" of this column.
As we all know, in order to save space, many files are accessed using compression. Therefore, it is very important to compress and decompress the tools under DOS. Commonly used compression formats include ZIP, RAR and ARJ, etc., and the DOS tools that can create and expand these compression formats are PK(UN)ZIP, (UN)RAR and (UN)ARJ. Their operations are very convenient and fast. For example, PKUNZIP *.ZIP can expand all ZIP files in the current folder. The same is true for RAR and ARJ formats, and corresponding compressed documents can be created or expanded. However, it should be noted that since RAR has adopted the new RAR compression format in version 3.0 in recent years, many new RAR files are decompressed using the latest version of RAR (i.e. version 3.0) and can be downloaded in the "Compression Tool" of this site. As for the specific usage methods of the above PKZIP/PKUNZIP and RAR, you can see the "Use of Commonly Used Compression and Decompression Tools under DOS" in the "DOS Articles" column of this website. In addition to compressing general files, executable files can also be compressed, that is, the executable files can be reduced in size. The best executable file compression tool is UPX, which is very powerful and can be used as a must-have tool.
There are some files called image files, such as IMG files. Many of them are generated using HD-COPY, and of course there are other tools. The best way to decompress these files is to use UNDISK (which can be downloaded on this site), which can expand image files very efficiently and can be used as a must-have tool. It is best not to use tools such as HD-COPY to decompress these files, because this tool is not only old, but can only expand the files onto a soft disk, which is very inconvenient. The UNDISK mentioned just now is much easier to use.
So what if you don’t know what compressed format some files are (especially when the extension is lost)? At this time, GetType, a very powerful tool under DOS, can be downloaded from this site. It can display the information in compressed/image/encrypted files in very detailed detail, and can even display all the contents in it without any other software. Not only that, it can also display information in executable files (including Windows files) and other files, which is very powerful and supports long file names. You can use it as a must-have tool, because once you have it, it will be much more convenient to operate.
As you all know, Windows' file manager is very intuitive to operate, and there are many such tools under DOS that can be found in the "File Management" of this site. They are also operated in graphical ways. Usually, in addition to basic file management functions, they can also implement many other functions, such as the built-in file editor, which can view the contents in compressed files, etc. In recent years, file management tools under DOS have also added functions to support long file names and FAT32. Among these tools, Volkov Commander is the more practical one. They have good interfaces and strong functions. You can use them as essential tools.
Using DOS will naturally deal with files and folders frequently, so it is very important to use these files and folders well. Commonly used file operations such as creation, deletion, editing, etc., can use both the commands provided by DOS and many enhancement tools, which can greatly improve the efficiency of file operations. These tools can be downloaded in the "File Tools" of this site. Most of the file tools of this site support long file names and FAT32 partitions. MS-DOS 7.10 can not only use short file names, but also long file names. Usually there are two ways to use long file name drivers and directly operate long file names. It is very practical and can be used as a necessary tool. For specific methods, please refer to the articles in the "DOS Articles" column of this website.
With the development of computers, more and more people have begun to use it, so many things in daily life (such as writing articles, listening to music, watching images, etc.) are carried out on computers. So, how to do these operations under DOS? Let’s talk about writing an article first. DOS comes with an EDIT command, which can edit multiple files and binary files, but the function is not very powerful (such as not being able to set fonts, etc.), and can be completed using other special text processing tools. The famous of these tools are MS-Word, CCED, WPS, etc., which can be downloaded in the "Text" tool of this website. Some people like to listen to music while typing, which can be achieved under DOS. Taking SETEDIT as an example, this is a very powerful and practical DOS word processing software. It not only has word processing functions, but also allows you to listen to MP3 music while writing articles. How great! Therefore, they can be used as a must-have tool.
After talking about the document processing under DOS, the next step is to listen to music and watch images. There are many softwares for listening to music and watching images under DOS, such as listening to music in WAV, MID, MP3 and other formats, and the functions and effects are very good (absolutely not the playback effect of DOSAMP, the oldest and worst MP3 player). You can see it in the "Multimedia under DOS" in this column. For example, QuickView is very small in size but has very powerful functions, so you can use it as a must-have tool. It is also very convenient to see images under DOS. There are usually two ways, one is the command line method and the other is the graphical interface method. Taking PictView (can be downloaded in the "graphics software" of this site) as an example, it can play more than 40 graphic formats, such as JPG, GIF, BMP, TGA, ICO, GIF, etc. Not only is it fast, with good quality and effect, but it is also very small, only more than 100 K! Therefore, it can be used as a must-have tool. However, some image software, especially old image software, such as NV, are not only slow, poor playback quality, but also very large in size, so it is best not to use it.
There are many very powerful and practical software under DOS, which can also be used as essential tools. DOS software is usually very small and practical, which naturally makes it very convenient for everyone to use. For example, commands such as SHUTDOWN and POWEROFF can easily implement soft shutdown in the DOS command line. Not only is it very convenient to operate, but it is also very small in size. You can use them as essential tools. There are also some DOS command enhancements that can greatly enhance the external functions that come with DOS, such as XXCOPY, XMSDSK, etc., which can be downloaded in this site. In order to facilitate everyone's use, I have created a "DOS common tool set", including the direct running version of the above types of software (such as command line tools, drivers, system tools, disk tools, compression tools, multimedia software, etc.), and placed in the "DOS System" in the "DOS Software" column of this website. Everyone is welcome to download and use it.
Since everyone's habits and hobbies are different, the main operations performed by everyone are also different. For example, if some people like to program programs or batch files, they can use some practical programming tools (can be downloaded in the "Script Tools" of this website) as essential tools; if some people like to play games, they can use some game modification software or emulators (can be downloaded in the "Game Software" of this website) as essential tools. Therefore, you can also choose the necessary tools that suit you according to your preferences. However, everyone should try to use the newly launched DOS software in recent years, because these software not only have stronger overall functions, but also support the latest computer technologies (such as FAT32 partitions, large hard drives, long file names, PCI/USB devices, etc.). In short, as long as we are good at choosing and using DOS software, we can make DOS very powerful and make DOS play its due functions.