CONFIG.SYS


CONFIG.SYS

(operating system)A text file containing special systemconfiguration commands. It is found in the root directoryon an MS-DOS computer, typically on drive C (the hard disk). It is read by MS-DOS at boot time, after thesetup has been read from CMOS RAM and before runningAUTOEXEC.BAT. It can be modified by the user.

Some example commands which CONFIG.SYS might contain are:

DEVICE=C:\\DOS\\HIMEM.SYS /testmem:off

Load the extended memory manager.

DEVICE=C:\\DOS\\EMM386.EXE RAM

Load the expanded memory manager.

BUFFERS=10,0

Specify memory for disk buffers.

FILES=70

Set the number of files that can be open at once.

DOS=UMB

DOS is located in UppeMemoryBlock.

LASTDRIVE=Z

Disk drives are A: to Z:.

FCBS=16,0

Set the number of file control blocks.

DEVICEHIGH /L:1,12048 =C:\\DOS\\SETVER.EXE

Report the DOS version to older programs.

DOS=HIGH

DOS should maintain a link to UMB.

COUNTRY=358,437 C:\\DOS\\COUNTRY.SYS

Set the country code for some programs.

STACKS=9,256

Set dynamic stacks for hardware control.

SHELL=C:\\DOS\\COMMAND.COM C:\\DOS\\ /E:1024 /p

Set the location of the command interpreter.

CONFIG.SYS

(CONFIGure SYStem) A text file that contained commands to load drivers and establish settings in a DOS PC. Along with AUTOEXEC.BAT, it resided in the root folder. CONFIG.SYS was included in Windows versions for DOS compatibility and was replaced with CONFIG.NT in 32-bit versions of Windows starting with Windows NT. Users could easily make changes, and installation programs sometimes modified CONFIG.SYS for their own purposes.

The following CONFIG.SYS example primarily loads memory managers that were essential to squeeze programs into every byte of what little RAM there was at the time. See AUTOEXEC.BAT, UMA, HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE.
 Driverdevice=c:\\dos\\himem.sys RAM > 1MB device=c:\\dos\\emm386.exe ram EMS memory device=c:\\dos\\ansi.sys screen/KB device=c:\\mouse\\mouse.sys mouse files=30buffers=40dos=high,umb