FreeDOS

Commercial uses

FreeDOS is used by several companies:

• Dell preloaded FreeDOS with its n-series desktops to reduce their cost. The firm has been criticized for making these machines not cheaper and harder to buy, than identical systems with Windows.^[15]
• Hewlett-Packard provided FreeDOS as an option in its HP Compaq dc5750 Small Form Factor PC, Mini 5101 netbooks and Probook laptops.^[16][17][18] FreeDOS is also used as bootable media for updating the BIOS firmware in HP systems.^[19]
• FreeDOS is included by Steve Gibson's hard drive maintenance and recovery program, SpinRite.^[20]
• Intel's Solid-State Drive Firmware Update Tool loaded the FreeDOS kernel.^[21]
• Many motherboard vendors recommend a bootable FreeDOS for running low level BIOS and firmware updates.

Non-commercial uses

FreeDOS is also used in multiple independent projects:

• FED-UP is the Floppy Enhanced DivX Universal Player.^[22]
• FUZOMA is a FreeDOS-based distribution that can boot from a floppy disk and converts older computers into educational tools for children.^[23]
• XFDOS is a FreeDOS-based distribution with a graphical user interface, porting Nano-X and FLTK.^{[24][25][26][27]}

Hardware

FreeDOS requires a PC/XT machine with at least 640 kB of memory.^[39] Programs not bundled with FreeDOS often require additional system resources.

MS-DOS and Win32 console

FreeDOS is mostly compatible with MS-DOS. It supports COM executables, standard DOS executables and Borland's 16-bit DPMI executables. It is also possible to run 32-bit DPMI executables using DOS extenders. The operating system has several improvements relative to MS-DOS, mostly involving support for newer standards and technologies that did not exist when Microsoft ended support for MS-DOS, such as internationalization, or the Advanced Power Management TSRs.^[40] Furthermore, with the use of HX DOS Extender, many Windows Console applications function properly in FreeDOS, as do some rare GUI programs, like QEMM and Bochs.^[41]

DOS-based Windows

FreeDOS is able to run Microsoft Windows 1.0 and 2.0 releases. Windows 3.x releases, which had support for i386 processors, cannot fully be run in 386 Enhanced Mode,^[42] except partially in the experimental FreeDOS kernel 2037.^{[citation needed]}

Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows Me use a stripped-down version of MS-DOS. FreeDOS cannot be used as a replacement because the undocumented interfaces between MS-DOS 7.0–8.0 and Windows "4.xx" are not emulated by FreeDOS; however, it can be installed and used beside these systems using a boot manager program, such as BOOTMGR or METAKERN included with FreeDOS.^{[citation needed]}

Virtualization

FreeDOS is designed to work well with virtualization software such as VirtualBox and VMware. The installation process is identical to real hardware. It is also possible to install FreeDOS on DOSBox and its derivatives. By doing so, it provides additional functionality not present in the emulator.^[43][44]

File systems

FAT32 is fully supported and is the preferred format for the boot drive.^[45] Depending on the BIOS used, up to four Logical Block Addressing (LBA) hard disks of up to 128 GB, or 2 TB, in size are supported.^[46] There has been little testing with large disks, and some BIOSes support LBA, but produce errors on disks larger than 32 GB; a driver such as OnTrack or EZ-Drive resolves this problem.^{[citation needed]} FreeDOS can also be used with a driver called LFNDOS to enable support for Windows 95-style long file names,^[47] but most pre-Windows 95 programs do not support long file names, even with a driver loaded. There is no planned support for NTFS, ext2 or exFAT, but there are several external third-party drivers available for that purpose. To access ext2 file systems, LTOOLS, a counterpart to Mtools, can sometimes be used to copy data to and from ext2 file system drives.^{[citation needed]}