DOS shell
.jpg)
The DOS Shell is a file manager that was first available with MS-DOS and PC DOS 4.0 in June 1988. The program was no longer developed after MS-DOS version 6.0. Microsoft continued to deliver it on the “Supplemental Disk” up to DOS version 6.22. It was retained by IBM in PC-DOS until PC DOS 2000 .
Features
Like other file managers, the DOS shell can be used to copy, move and rename files and to start applications with a double click . The program can be started with the command line command dosshell . It is possible to use simple colors and styles. The DOS Shell was one of the first successful attempts to create a GUI file manager in DOS, since graphical modes were available on computers using VGA . But it is still more of a character-oriented user interface or a Character Oriented Windows ( COW ). The DOS shell looks like a DOS version of the Windows file manager .
The shell has a help function, a program list, task switching and TSR support. It is able to display two directory hierarchies and two file lists. A mouse is supported, but as with other DOS applications, a suitable device driver is required.
A great feature is that all files on a hard drive can be displayed in a single alphabetical list, along with the path and other attributes. This allows the user to compare versions of a file in different directories with their attributes and to easily discover redundancies.
Problems
There are several reasons why the DOS shell was no longer used:
- Multitasking was not supported. You could switch between programs running in memory (task switching), but the system became significantly slower. All running programs had to share the conventional memory area , as there was no support for paging or swapping on the hard disk.
- Windows 3.1, with its own graphical user interface, has become much more popular among computer users. Windows was multitasking and more stable. Its system performance was much higher with access to the entire system RAM .
See also
swell
- Manuals PC-DOS, MS-DOS, Windows 3.1