Help in DOS

Starting with switches

So how do you get help with those DOS commands? The usual way is to type the command, followed by a space, a forward slash and a question mark. This will type the various parameters onto the screen:

MOVE /?

In the above example, the DOS command is MOVE.EXE and the forward slash is known as a switch or parameter. The switch modifies the DOS command in some way (note a forward slash slopes to the right - you read from left to right - so it slopes forwards). The /? function is itself a switch and tells the command to type out the allowed parameters.

Switches are usually unique to a particular DOS command. For instance, the /s switch when used with the DIR command [DIR /s] will tell it to search the subdirectories. However when used with the FORMAT command (FORMAT /s), the /s switch tell it to copy the system files across. You need to know how how some of the more popular switches modify some of the commonly-used DOS commands.

More Help

In the good old days before Windows 9.x came on the scene, DOS had its own dedicated help files.Simply by typing the word HELP or the DOS command followed by HELP [i.e. FDISK HELP] you could get a much more comprehensive description of a command and its parameters. Windows 9.x keeps most of its DOS commands in the C:\Windows\Command folder. However, one thing which is missing are the extended DOS help files.

To obtain the necessary DOS HELP files, click here (459KB). This is a zip file containing the three required files (help.com, help.hlp, qbasic.exe). Extract these to your Windows\command folder (Windows 9.x/2K/XP only) and you will able to use the DOS HELP features as mentioned above.