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Bad command or filename.

 

Please view my Notices page before viewing this area, it is not complete!
This is work in progress.

 

This message means that you've typed something in that the command interpreter doesn't understand. This could be for several reasons, the most likely being that you typed in a command incorrectly. For instance if you typed "DRI" instead of "DIR" it would generate this message.

If you are sure that you have typed in a valid DOS command there are several conceivable reasons it could be rejected.

  1. The command may not be available in the particular version of DOS you are using.
  2. If you are attempting to use a command which falls into the external category and you do not have it available. External commands work just like an ordinary program so you need to make sure that they are present in your DOS directory. It's not unknown for some of the external commands to be deleted to save space.
  3. Trying to run an external command which is not in your path can also cause this message. For instance if you are in C:\, the DOS files are in C:\DOS, and you have not set the path variable no external commands will be available.

To fix the second problem simply copy across the external commands from the same version of DOS.
The third can be fixed by setting the path variable in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file (or temporarily from the command line). To do this you add the line:
PATH C:\DOS
Assuming that your DOS directory is DOS.

 


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Copyright © Jonathan Fox 2000-2002.