This is by no means a complete description of these commands, nor is it a list of all MS-DOS commands. More detailed information can be found at http://www.computerhope.com/msdos.htm. See also the pages on batch files and DOS variables.

A drive is specified by a single letter followed by a colon. Usually, C: refers to the primary hard drive, A: is the "floppy" drive, and E: is the CD-ROM drive.

Each drive has a root directory, which might contain (sub)directories. Each directory consists of a list of filenames, or subdirectories, or both. Directory names follow the same conventions as filenames (see the next paragraph), separated by backslashes "\". For example, \ specifies the root directory of the current drive, C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM is the WINDOWS\SYSTEM subdirectory of the root directory of drive C:, and DATA is the DATA subdirectory of the current directory.

A filename consists of up to eight letters or numbers (no spaces), optionally followed by a period and an extension with up to three characters. Any filename can be optionally preceded by a drive letter and/or a directory. Note: Some punctuation marks are allowed in file names, but others are not. If you must use something other than numbers or letters, other valid characters are:

A wildcard is a pattern that matches one or more filenames. A "?" will match any single character, while "*" matches any sequence of characters. For example, *.txt matches all files with the extension "txt", ab*.* matches all files whose names begin with "ab", and ab??.? matches all files whose name consists of "ab" followed by exactly two more letters and a one-letter extension.

Where filespec appears below, it can be replaced by either a filename or a wildcard.

• dir [/options] [filespec]
  By itself, shows a listing of all files and subdirectories in the current directory. If a filespec is given, only that file (or those files) will be listed.
• md directory-name
  Creates a subdirectory.
• cd directory-name
  Changes the current directory.
• rd directory-name
  Removes (deletes) the specified directory. This command fails if the directory is not empty.
• copy filename1 filename2
  Makes a copy of filename1. If filename2 already exists, you will prompted to confirm that you want to overwrite its contents.
• copy filespec drive/directory
  Makes a copy of the file(s) in the new location (drive or directory), with the same name(s) as the original(s).
• move ...
  Operates in a similar manner as copy, except that the original file is deleted.
• move directory1 directory2
  Rename a directory.
• ren filename1 filename2
  Changes a file's name.
• del filespec
  Deletes the file(s).
• type filename
  Displays the contents of the file on the screen.
• more filename
  Displays the contents of the file on the screen, pausing when the screen is full.
• echo text
  Displays the given text on the screen.
• pause
  Displays "Press any key to continue" and waits until a key is pressed.

• command > filename
  Sends the output of command (which would ordinarily be sent to the screen) to the specified file. If the file already contains data, it is lost.
• command >> filename
  Sends the output of command (which would ordinarily be sent to the screen) to the specified file. If the file already contains data, the new text is appended to the end.
• command < filename
  Processes the given command using input (which would otherwise come from the keyboard) from the specified file. Note: Entering pause < filename, where filename is empty (contains no data) will "freeze" DOS, since the computer will never receive the keypress it is waiting for.
• command1 | command2
  Takes the output of command1 (which would ordinarily be sent to the screen) and uses it as the input for command2.