# DOS as an OS???



## roblooman (May 17, 2011)

hey guys i have been wondering for a long time....

can you have a command line sow up at start up and nothing else. no windows
no nothing.

just the CMD...........would there be a speed boost by doing this?
no explorer.exe to load

hmmmm.... is there a way to do this through MSCONFIG

wanted to make a really cool hacker leetish OS using windows xp pro and command prompt...
green on black coolors and everything

sorry just some random idea.


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## Squashman (Apr 4, 2003)

Your only option to get that functionality with Windows XP is to boot into Safe Mode with command prompt and I don't believe you would get any Network functionality with this.

If you really want to run a cmd shell based Operating System then run DOS 6.22 or a variant (FreeDOS or PC DOS) of it. Or run a version of Linux that only boots to a cmd shell. I was a Linux administrator for two years and all my servers could only boot to the cmd prompt. I had no Windows Environments even installed on my Linux servers. That is the nice thing about Linux. You have that option to not install any graphical user interface components.

I also understand that Windows 2008 server has the ability to boot into the cmd shell only. But do really want to pay for Windows 2008 server just to brag to your friends.


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## peterh40 (Apr 15, 2007)

Get hold of the Windows PE disk or make one using the Windows AIK toolkit from Microsoft Downloads. That includes the core OS and networking and a command line and a few apps like Notepad etc but no GUI etc.

http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php?topic=87312.0


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## roblooman (May 17, 2011)

this is what i came up with so far.

i am able to kill explorer.exe with a simple batch and load up a moded version of CMD

so that gets me my cool matrix looking gui as a command line i got notepad.exe converted to a command line "note" batch call to get that so all my batch needs are now taken care of from that interface..


so xp loads goes to main desktop and loads all settings...blah, blah

ok but to get to my kewl matric stuff i got to clik a .bat to start the process....i have also coverted it over to a simple key call......(control+alt+keypad 0) to start the batch

but how do i get it to start that way in the cmd enviroment i have created???


kinda cluless at this stage


Rob


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## namenotfound (Apr 30, 2005)

Windows XP doesn't use DOS, it uses NT code. Windows 98 and below used DOS as the underlining code. The command prompt in XP isn't DOS.


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## roblooman (May 17, 2011)

hmmm...ok i am really certain running things like this dosent interfer with any processes exept explorer...the question is once i got this all going is there a way to start my batch as soon as the computer starts and bypass all the loading of explore altogether... and just load my batch and CMD interface?


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## DoubleHelix (Dec 10, 2004)

The computer has to boot up an operating system. A batch file is not an operating system. It's a program.


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## Ent (Apr 11, 2009)

roblooman said:


> hmmm...ok i am really certain running things like this dosent interfer with any processes exept explorer...the question is once i got this all going is there a way to start my batch as soon as the computer starts and bypass all the loading of explore altogether... and just load my batch and CMD interface?


Most programs that are set to run on boot are started by windows explorer, so essentially the answer is no. There is a registry key that starts explorer itself, and you could change that to make it run something else such as cmd. You can see how it can be done, with a legitimate use, here. However I'd strongly advise against touching that. It would be incredibly inconvenient if something went wrong and you were left without an interface at all. It certainly isn't worth it if all you want is to show off.


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## Alex Ethridge (Apr 10, 2000)

Microsoft DOS 6.2 or 6.22


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## scrfix (May 3, 2009)

This is a work-a-round however you could do a couple of things.
1. In the startup menu, you can place your batch file.
2. If that doesn't work, you can put a different batfile with START <YOUR BATCH FILENAME HERE> and place that in the start up menu.
3. You can still edit the autoexec.bat file and utilize that to start the batch file.
4. You can utilize the config.sys file to start it up.

This essentially would start up windows and then kill everything to start your batch.

Hopefully this helps answer your question.


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