Favorite version of x86 DOS?

I use the term x86 DOS instead of PC DOS to let people know that I am focused on software that works on PC compatibles and semi-compatibles. Otherwise people may think I was solely focused on IBM products. I use x86 to avoid references to Apple DOS, Atari DOS, CBM DOS etc.

So, with explanations out of the way, what is your favorite version of DOS to use? For myself, I always gravitate towards MS-DOS 5.0. The golden standard of IBM PC Compatible Game compatibility, it is lean enough that it can install on virtually any compatible PC. (You need 6x360KB floppies or 3x720KB floppies for low density drives and the PCJr. requires patching). It supports 2GB partitions and 8GB drives. It does not have the buggy reputation of its predecessor or the bloat of its successor. It retains virtually all the old external commands from DOS 1.x and forward, whereas 6.x puts them on a supplemental disk. It has proper support for loading DOS in the HMA and DOS and device drivers in the UMB. With MSCDEX it can support CD-ROM drives. It takes less RAM in general than its successor and maybe even its predecessor. QBASIC and EDIT make their first appearances. Its not all rosy, as DOS 6 has useful commands like MOVE and DELTREE and supports multiple configurations. SCANDISK, MSD & even MEMMAKER can be useful programs. Even for the older systems, it can be useful if you do not want to be limited to 32MB drives or an alphabet soup of logical drives.

Yep, my all time favorite is also MS-DOS 5.0. It's the one I used for the longest time... EDIT.COM is the editor of my choice, still today on a DOS system (provided it's actually available).

Started off with 3.32 on my HeadStart and started using PC-TOOLS for a lot of things, as such I never got the hang of Edlin ;-) My first self bought 486-66 had MS-DOS 6.22 with it, I quite liked DEFRAG, SCANDISK etc. Tried MEMMAKER too, but I was always able to get more free conventional memory with QEMM 7.

Still, most of the computers in my collection have MS-DOS 5.0.

I agree, MS-DOS 5 is my favorite too. I have had batter luck with it accessing different disk drives. I perfer it over DOS 4.01 because 4.01 doesn't show the full directory path when you change directories. It always displays C:\ no matter what. And EDIT.COm with QBASIC is my favorite DOS editor. I have a feeling that MSWORD adds extra characters.

But then I have to give it to Compaq DOS 3.31 to get past the 32mb limit.

I'm with you on DOS 5.0, though I say this without having ever experienced DR-DOS 5/6, which I've been told by others that used them are also quite good. Ditto on 4-Dos, which I never used past an early version, but have also heard many good things about.

The commands that I liked most from DOS 6+, Deltree and Move, I have freeware alternatives for that work on DOS 3.3 and higher (dirdel.exe and both a batch script I wrote for Move, as well as a freeware substitute that I can't recall at the moment - I usually just use my batch script). While useful, I've no real need of MemMaker, as for most standard configurations, I can do as good or better than it by manually configuring. Scandisk and MSD are superfluous, as I've comparable utilities on several versions of PC Tools that seem to always find themselves floating around.

All that said.. DOS 3.3 and 5.0 are my go-to installations for 386's and lower; DOS 6.2 is my go-to for 486's and higher. I really can't offer a deeper explanation than "that's just how I've always done it"

MS-DOS 7.x, packaged with windows, but sans Windows. FAT32 and long file name support. A bit of a memory hog, but on a 386+, who cares? PC-DOS 2000 isn't bad either.

For low end 808x, it's MS-DOS 5.0 or 6.22.

Ditto everybody on 5.0... except I use DOS 5.00 RC 3a and have been since it was released.

I like MS-DOS 3.3 because my Tandy 1000RL has it in ROM.

But for anything which doesn't, I use IBM's PC DOS 2000 (a.k.a. PC DOS 7.0 Revision A). On top of that, I add a few essential utilities from Windows 98SE: EDIT (the self-contained version, not requiring QBasic -- but it does require at least a NEC V20 or 286; on a plain 8088 or 8086 it'll lock up!), SCANDISK, and MSD. And from MS-DOS 6.22, I add QBASIC and UNDELETE (instead of PC DOS's bloated full-screen Undelete utility), and finally from MS-DOS 4.01, I add GWBASIC (for the old tokenized BASIC programs which QBASIC won't run).

Maverick1978 said:

The commands that I liked most from DOS 6+, Deltree and Move, I have freeware alternatives for that work on DOS 3.3 and higher

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Tip: the versions of DELTREE and MOVE, etc., that come with IBM's PC DOS 7.0/2000 don't care which version of DOS you run them on, so they work just fine with MS-DOS/PC DOS 3.3.

Also from PC DOS, I love ACALC -- a command line calculator!

DRDOS 6. I found the task switcher very handy.

All my older vintage machines are loaded with MS-DOS 5.0 (it has a task switcher too, dosshell.exe, only found out about that last week!!), feels old but has enough useful functions to keep it happy. Not sure about my PC-XT though, screen is getting repaired and I never checked the DOS version!

I do miss some of the tools from MS-DOS 6.22 though :/ but then that's why I also have Norton 6.

My sealed copy of MS-DOS 6.22 with disks turned up last week, but the anti-virus coupon had expired

Toss up between 3.3 and 6.22 which are the versions I used the most (depending on system age and if they can use emm386 or not).

I don't have a favorite.

I like DOS 3.2 because that's what I found on the hard disk of my IBM XT system, when it was given to me. It uses very little conventional RAM.

I like DOS 5.0 because I have the original floppy disks for it, and the Texas-Instruments-branded manual for it, which I got with my Texas Instruments Travel Mate 3000 laptop. I like the EDIT full screen editor.

And then, I like the multiple-configuration option in CONFIG.SYS/AUTOEXEC.BAT of DOS 6.22.

Finally, I like DR-DOS 7.03 which I downloaded for free from the Internet in 1996, a freebie from Caldera (before it turned itself into Mr Hide / The SCO Group), which comes with an extended FDISK program with extra options.

All in all, I thing the multiple configuration option of DOS 6.22 is the best thing, as it makes life so very much easier if your are playing with different devices in the same machine.

Unknown_K said:

Toss up between 3.3 and 6.22 which are the versions I used the most (depending on system age and if they can use emm386 or not).

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That would be my answer as well. I use 6.22 daily and 3.3 on less capable machines. This is the same answer you will get from most serious DOS users - with the exception of a certain group who prefer 5.0 instead of 6.22. For vintage use I prefer to be historically correct for a specific time and consider recent versions to be uncool except for experimentation.

However, I got to thinking that the question was not what I used, or preferred to use, but which was my favourite. I think that would be 2.0, although I don't have an original disk yet. MS-DOS 2.0 is the first one that acted like the DOS we know and love.

Dig this: March 8, 1983 - IBM XT released along with DOS 2.0. Support for up to 360K floppies, hard disk support, hierarchical file structure, and something which kept it from being replaced by all sorts of patched versions - support for device drivers. DOS had arrived!

I grew up with DOS versions 3.2, 3.3, 5.0x, 6.20, 6.21, 6.22 and also DR-DOS 6 when they were new. DOS 5 isn't bad when coupled with QEMM (a must for gamers back then unless you booted from a bare DOS floppy). I think my new 286/12 came with DOS 3.2 or 3.3 forget which. Once you started using 386 and above you had so many things to configure in upper memory you basically tried all the DOS versions and all kind of memory managers. It was an interesting few years there in the 90's for the OS and 3rd party utils.

Indeed I loved Qemm 7.
I was a fanatic Falcon 3.0 flightsim player, and that needed something like 604K base memory free- but ofcourse also all the mouse, soundcard, CDrom and etc. drivers.

Ole Juul said:

That would be my answer as well. I use 6.22 daily and 3.3 on less capable machines. This is the same answer you will get from most serious DOS users - with the exception of a certain group who prefer 5.0 instead of 6.22.

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Most serious DOS users prefer PC DOS 7.0/2000! It runs just as well on my original IBM 5150 PC as it does on a Pentium.

And FYI, Microsoft's last version of MS-DOS was actually 6.25, but it was only available to government, military, and the banking industry. It is claimed to offer FAT32 support, but while there are numerous forum threads around the internet talking about it, nobody has been able to turn up an actual copy of it yet. MS-DOS 6.23 and 6.24 were also available prior to it.

vwestlife said:

Most serious DOS users prefer PC DOS 7.0/2000! It runs just as well on my original IBM 5150 PC as it does on a Pentium.

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Hmm, seems there are not many serious DOS users around here, then...
How much memory does it use?

vwestlife said:

Most serious DOS users prefer PC DOS 7.0/2000! It runs just as well on my original IBM 5150 PC as it does on a Pentium.

And FYI, Microsoft's last version of MS-DOS was actually 6.25, but it was only available to government, military, and the banking industry. It is claimed to offer FAT32 support, but while there are numerous forum threads around the internet talking about it, nobody has been able to turn up an actual copy of it yet. MS-DOS 6.23 and 6.24 were also available prior to it.

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Maybe true but I've never even heard of 6.23 or 6.24, let alone 6.25. Must not have been in the mainstream. I'd like to know more about it, however.

I don't have anything with a hard drive so old it can't run FreeDOS, so that's what I like to use. I do wonder if it'll boot in an 8086 though.

Jorg said:

Hmm, seems there are not many serious DOS users around here, then...
How much memory does it use?

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Less than MS-DOS 6.22, because you can load COMMAND.COM and most of the system data (buffers, file handles, stacks, etc.) into upper memory.