I would say MS-DOS 5 set a baseline and MS-DOS 6.x was just an evolution. Most features MS-DOS 6.x brought were already common with MS-DOS 5 and third party programs. Just think about QEMM, Stacker/DoubleDisk, Norton Sysinfo/Speeddisk/DiskDoctor.
So the new features in MS-DOS 6 were not really new and most people had the third party software running already before.
Some tools that were in MS-DOS 6 were stripped down version bought from other companies, like defrag. So at the release of MS-DOS 6 the actual third party software was still better than the tools that came with DOS.
A lot of people that were running such a MS-DOS 5 installation were reluctant with upgrading to DOS 6, since there was no real gain.

Does MS-DOS 6.xx support larger partition sizes than version 5, or are they about the same? I know that neither supports FAT32, since they introduced that in Win95 OSR2.

Both have the same hard disk limitations - FAT16, Total 8GB recognized, 2GB max single partitions, etc.

elianda wrote:

I would say MS-DOS 5 set a baseline and MS-DOS 6.x was just an evolution. Most features MS-DOS 6.x brought were already common w […]
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I would say MS-DOS 5 set a baseline and MS-DOS 6.x was just an evolution. Most features MS-DOS 6.x brought were already common with MS-DOS 5 and third party programs. Just think about QEMM, Stacker/DoubleDisk, Norton Sysinfo/Speeddisk/DiskDoctor.
So the new features in MS-DOS 6 were not really new and most people had the third party software running already before.
Some tools that were in MS-DOS 6 were stripped down version bought from other companies, like defrag. So at the release of MS-DOS 6 the actual third party software was still better than the tools that came with DOS.
A lot of people that were running such a MS-DOS 5 installation were reluctant with upgrading to DOS 6, since there was no real gain.

Some people had third party software running already, but I think it's a stretch to say most people. I seem to recall it was a pretty attractive package, even if things like defrag were stripped down.

This is how Microsoft tried to sell MS-DOS 6.2 on the Computer Chronicles. They get asked if there is any reason to upgrade or not. Basically it boils down to what have been mentioned in this thread. Nice clip from 1993:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zd5Bqxa5Gfw

By the way, there's a rather thoughtful discussion of DOS 4.0 at http://www.os2museum.com/wp/?page_id=759 . (Note that IBM DOS and MS-DOS were basically the same thing until version 5.0a.)

The 3rd party applications like those from Norton and Quarterdeck were not common over here in Asia those days, and most were quite expensive at that time. Not all were willing or able to purchase separate 3rd party programs due to the cost. Some of us were lucky to have them installed in new PCs by the vendors themselves. MS-DOS 6.22 was seen as a boon since it finally came with some essential tools.

(Of course, now it's different. Things are cheaper in Asia now. Locally replicated software, 'Asian' distributions and outsourcing helped a lot.)

And with the advent of internet, enthusiasts-created utilities, command line tools and device drivers are also available for free.

I'm still using defrag and scandisk in my 486 and other Pentium I & II classic systems. Partly due to nostalgia and the rest, because they are still helpful and functional, even though all I'm doing is just re-living those days on my 486 and the said Pentium systems, instead of them being my main working machines.

iirc the selling point of MSDos 6.x over MSDos 5.x was the bundling programs, which mostly stripped down version from the original non-MS software.
Defrag derived from Norton Speeddisk,
MSAV (microsoft antivirus) derived from CPAV (central point antivirus)

I remember CPAV being DOS antivirus program that having the best looking GUI compared to other DOS antivirus of its time,
probably because its using the DOS-Shell technology in exchange for allowing MSFT to use their virus scanning technology.

And thus when finally upgrading to win9x, I find it odd that MS doesn't have its own working-antivirus software for win9x environtment.

Undelete was pretty handy too, even though Norton Unerase had a much, much better interface.

Jorpho wrote:

By the way, there's a rather thoughtful discussion of DOS 4.0 at http://www.os2museum.com/wp/?page_id=759 . (Note that IBM DOS and MS-DOS were basically the same thing until version 5.0a.)

So from the sounds of it, MS-DOS 4 wasn't actually that bad, save for some ram issues on non-IBM systems.

I wonder though, before MS-DOS 5 came out in 1991, were most people still using version 3.3? I could swear that hard drives bigger than 32MB (like around the 40MB range) were starting to become popular around this time. Did non-IBM users with these systems just get their friends to pirate IBM DOS 3.31 for them or something? 🤣

I was using MS-DOS 3.3 for quite some time, beginning from my XT. It's not until I got my 286 that I upgraded to MS-DOS 5. Skipped 4.0.

My XT had a 10 or 20 MB hard drive. My 286 had a 40MB drive.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I wonder though, before MS-DOS 5 came out in 1991, were most people still using version 3.3? I could swear that hard drives bigger than 32MB (like around the 40MB range) were starting to become popular around this time.

Yeah, that's pretty much what people were using. The DOS 3.x limit was 32MB per partition, not disk, so larger HDDs were fine as long as you created multiple partitions. I can echo Malik's recollection though - in practice, those large drives (along with post-XT systems and >640KB RAM counts) only became baseline when DOS 5 was already out.

There were also those odd OEM versions of MS-DOS 3.3x which had their own hackish FAT "extensions" for large HDDs, but they were anything but standard... I never used 4.x, and come to think of it I don't even recall seeing anyone using it back in the day.

VileRancour wrote:

Anyone ever used IBM's PC-DOS 2000 and/or its update (PC-DOS 7.10)? Apparently it supports FAT32 and other such things, but probably not very useful to have if you're running Windows... I'm wondering how it measures up as a standalone pure DOS though.

Who said PC-DOS 2000 supports FAT32? It won't support it. PC-DOS 7 released before first Windows 95.
PC-DOS 2000 is PC-DOS 7's millennium-bug fix release. The PC-DOS 7 also have update disk for this.(Version changed to 7.00B)

If you can find PC-DOS 2000's ISO or floppy images googleing, open the realme.txt, it still have ver 7 documents. (only change text to 2000)

What the PC-DOS actually different to MS-DOS in regular use. (PC-DOS developed by only IBM after version 5.01)
1. Though version 7, no VFAT, FAT32 support. Similar as MS-DOS 6.2. Still 2G partitioning in FDISK.
2. Instead of Doublespace has "Staker" which developers sued Microsoft.
3. A little addition in dos command. (In config.sys, can hold up more Conv. memory with using EMM386. (almost 627-628K while MS-DOS can do 617K, but my config.sys would not usable to my friend's MS-DOS.)
4. Annoying version 7.00 confused some programs reporting using windows 95. Need Setver to fix this issue.
5. In default, smartdrive doesn't do writecache. (Need C+D+E+... parameter for activate write cache.)
6. Very Good VGA CJK support than MS-DOS.

(Edit) photo shot of PC-DOS 2000 included. I use it to my retro machine.

I know some PC-DOS 7.10 files pulled by some embedded machines, But only those, I can't make boot sectors to my disks.

The other alternative is DR-DOS/OpenDOS/EDR-DOS, which definitely has FAT32 support in its later incarnations (in fact, you can apparently use the FAT32 driver with MS-DOS), but I can never quite figure out what's going on with its legal status or even what the best version to use is. It's probably better to go with FreeDOS.