MS DOS Interview Questions and Answers - DoAnswers.com

MSDOS is a disk operating system for the IBM range (or compatibles) of computers. The MSDOS system resides on diskette (3.5" or 5.25") and the system files may be transferred to a hard disk unit. An operating system is a program which allows competing programs to share the resources of the computer (memory, disk, devices like printers and modems, and processing time). The operating systems first job is to initialise the hardware of the computer system, before running application programs. For personal computers, MSDOS is a single user, single tasking operating system. Single user means only one person uses the computer at a time. Single tasking means that it essentially only runs one application program at a time, and has no inherent support for running more than one application program simultaneously. An operating system provides mechanisms for running programs, handling errors, controlling devices, configuring the computer system, and for MSDOS, a user interface (sometimes called a shell).

MS DOS Interviews are getting tough these days as the technology grows faster. To get through the MS DOS interview one needs to update him/herself in a regular manner. Having said that, just before the interview, it is very important to have a quick glance of the reputed MS DOS questions and answers to make yourself comfortable during the interview process. This is where DoAnswers.com helps you in renewing yourself on MS DOS and various other technologies interview preparation.

First of all, you need a DOS compatible modem or ISDN card. I advise to use the Arachne browser, a great DOS webbrowser with PacketDriver and dialer. It's not difficult to set it up.

You can do that using an ansi-driver like ansi.sys (load it in config.sys: DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS). Let's assume that you want to start Windows by pressing the F1-key. To start Windows with the F1 key, you have to modify/create the prompt-section in your autoexec.bat: PROMPT $e[0;59;"C:\WINDOWS\WIN.COM";13p$P$G The last $P$G tells command.com to show your active working directory (e.g. C:\DOS>) on the prompt. With the number 59 you can use the key F1, with 60 F2, 61 F3 and so on. With the code 133 you reach the key F11 and with 134 the key F12.

13. How can I enable support for long file names (LFN), like the ones Windows 95 offers?

You can get a LFN driver at http://www.sylpher.com/dosuser/. I haven't tested it yet, it would be nice if someone could tell me her/his opinion about it.

Many drivers etc. are loaded into conventional memory by default setting. You only have to tell them to load themselves high, that means in the higher memory area. How to do this? Simply tell them in the autoexec.bat or config.sys somthing like LH (=load high, only use in autoexec.bat) or devicehigh / installhigh (in config.sys). As an example: If you want to load a CD-ROM driver in higher memory, simply add to your config.sys the line DEVICEHIGH=C:\CDROM\IDE_CD.SYS /D:CD0001 and to your autoexec.bat LH MSCDEX.EXE /D:CD0001 (assuming that C:\CDROM\IDE_CD.SYS is the location of your cd-rom driver and that you loaded a memory manager before in config.sys). Before you can do this, you need a memory manager (I suggest QEMM386.SYS instead of himem.sys and emm386.exe, it uses not as much memory as the others). Add the line DEVICE=QEMM386.SYS to your config.sys before you load any other drivers in the higher memory area. Note: QEMM386.SYS is not compatible with Windows 9x/ME!

If you like DOS and want to discuss your problems or the experiences you made, then sign up to the OpenDOS mailing list at mailto:opendos@delorie.com (to subscribe, send an e-mail to listserv@delorie.com with the text add opendos or add opendos-digest in the body. If you subscribe to opendos-digest, you'll get all e-mails every sunday in a digest form). If you can program, make a few free programs for the FreeDOS project or help people with their problems. Please buy your DOS versions legally (only commercial ones, sure:)) ), because then you support the manufaturers and -hopefully- the producers will get so much money that they will continue to develop DOS.

VERIFY ON, BREAK OFF, FILES=40, BUFFERS=10 CACHE: write-thru, 700 to 1024k, A=OFF, B=OFF, XMS ANSI.COM not ANSI.SYS, use 28-line screen, shadow BIOS and Video BIOS HD data at 0:300, get the fastest possible Video Card don't use that extra video memory for RAM Do NOT use EMS unless forced, FRAME=OFF/NO, EMS=NO Use LH(LOADHI/HIGHLOAD), DOS=HIGH,UMB, devicehigh is possible Don't use FASTLOAD, do use CACHE: PC-TOOLS, NORTON, NWCACHE Avoid TSRs (or load them high) Parity memory is preferred, tune the BIOS for speed. Use QCRT 3.1 or Zeno 2.74 for much faster screen writes. Don't use deep directory structures, that will increase the reading speed.

That's fairly easy: You simply need to add a line to your CONFIG.SYS file, for example: DEVICE=C:\CDROM\IDE_CD.SYS /D:CD0001 Please change C:\CDROM\IDE_CD.SYS to your cd driver for DOS. You can get the driver with the drive on a diskette or try to use a different one from www.simtel.net.After that, you need to add this line to your AUTOEXEC.BAT:MSCDEX /D:CD0001 (The example shown above is for MS DOS, for FreeDOS it would be FDEX /D:CD0001 and for DR DOS it would be NWCDEX /D:CD001).

In version 2000 from PhysTechSoft exists a built-in cd-rom driver. In former versions you can use MSCDEX.EXE or NWCDEX.EXE from MS-DOS/PC-DOS or DR-DOS if the drive doesn't work correctly with the PhysTechSoft files. I have got problems installing Windows 3.1x/95 on my machine running PTS-DOS. (First answer:) Start PTS-DOS with a CONFIG.PTS and an AUTOPTS.BAT containing only the most neccesary lines and the keyboard driver for installing Windows (minmal configuration). After the Windows installation, choose the "Windows compatible" option at startup. (second answer:) Some newer versions of PTSDOS offer a "Installation Mode" in the Boot-Menu. This should also work! Windows doesn't boot. The system crashes. Use himem.sys from Windows instead himemx86.sys from PTS DOS.

You just need to copy a himem.sys from a Windows 9x/ME system to your DOS system and load it before your emm386 (e.g.: add DEVICE=C:\DRDOS\HIMEM.SYS to your CONFIG.SYS). Might be that emm386 will print some errors, but you can ignore them.

Florian Xaver postet a list of intersting DOS network links to the FreeDOS mailing list: http://www.freedos.org/freedos/news/technote/157.html. Thanks a lot!