DOS (Disk Operating System) is seen by many as yesterdays OS, which it in fact is. But the reality of everything is that operating systems like Windows are built on the DOS platform. That means DOS runs under Windows so that we are able to acees the DOS prompt from within Windows and perform other behind the scenes operations. The younger generation of today, for the most part, are not familiar with the various commands that the once popular DOS uses. It is important to know them because from time to time we may have to go to the DOS prompt to perform certain operations, like traceroute or pinging.

Here are some of the more commonly used DOS commands:

copy - copy files from one place to another. For example, “copy file.exe c:\test” means that ‘file.exe’ is being copied from the root directory, viz ‘c:\”, to a directory named ‘test’.
del - delete a file. For example, “del c:\file.exe” will delete ‘file.exe’ from its location on the ‘c:\’.
cd - clear (open) directory. For example, “cd filer” opens the directory named ‘filer’.
rd - remove (delete) directory. For example, “rd filer” deletes the directory named ‘filer’.
md - make (create) directory. For example, “md filer” makes or creates the directory named ‘filer’.
ping - ping (send and receive info from) a particular IP address. For example, “ping 192.0.0.3″ will send packets of information to IP address ‘192.0.0.3′. If the IP address is active, it will respond by sending back a reciprocal ping to the requesting computer.
move - move a file. For example, “move c:\filer d:\” will move the ‘filer’ directory from the ‘c:\” and put it on the ‘d:\”.
xcopy - fast copy (thus ‘xcopy’ means speed copy) a file. For example, “xcopy c:\*.* d:\pool” copies all the files on the root (c:\) to a directory named ‘pool’ on the ‘d:\”.
dir - directory structure. For example, “dir c:\” will show all the non-hidden files on the ‘c:\’.

There are many more DOS commands that exist. You can do a search for DOS commands using Google or any other search engine of your choice.