China DOS Union

The China DOS Union Forum has been established for many years. The original purpose when it was founded was to bring together all DOS enthusiasts, and by combining it with the supporting DOS website, build a paradise belonging to DOS and DOS enthusiasts, in order to promote the development of DOS. In the early days of the DOS forum, the DOS discussion area contained only DOS topics, while non-DOS topics (such as WIN, etc.) were restricted to discussion in the forum’s service area. As time went on and the forum kept developing, many topics began to appear discussing command-line environments of non-DOS operating systems such as CMD. Although command-line environments like CMD are similar to DOS in some respects, they are undoubtedly not real DOS. Originally, in the forum’s DOS discussion area, only the “DOS Batch Files & Script Technology (Batch File Room)” section allowed discussion of scripts under CMD as well, but gradually some non-DOS topics also started appearing in the other sections of the DOS discussion area, especially topics under the CMD environment. Because of this, some voices have appeared in the forum hoping to clean up the DOS discussion area; for example, the opinions of people like DOSforever are representative. If these sections are cleaned up, then the forum will clear out non-DOS topics from all sections in the DOS discussion area except the Batch File Room. Since this decision is of great significance, we are holding a vote here in order to hear everyone’s opinions. We hope everyone will actively participate and express their views. Thank you!

By the way, if you choose “Other opinion,” please leave your opinion. Thank you for your cooperation!

I suggest putting the DOS discussion area into the chatter area as a subforum. The other sections can keep discussing whatever they’re supposed to discuss, just not DOS.

It really is messy enough. If we really want to clean it up, it would indeed be very difficult, and it would require long-term management.
As for the mixed topics, it’s mainly because most newbies simply don’t know that DOS and CMD are two different concepts, and another portion don’t even think about which section they should post in and just post randomly. So I think it’s necessary to add a required posting category option (a title checkbox), and if necessary automatically redirect to the appropriate section (I don’t know whether Discuz! 2.5 can do that). That would make things easier both for moderator management, and for repliers and readers, who could tell at a glance from the title what it is. For example:
[CMD Question Collection].....
[DOS Question Collection].....
[CMD Tutorial].....
[DOS Tutorial].....

Also, can the forum’s search function be improved?
http://www.cn-dos.net/forum/search.php?find=关键词

I strongly agree with brother fastslz’s opinion. DOS is DOS, but completely excluding CMD is also not advisable. Adding categories is the best solution!

Hehe, I didn’t expect my post to actually start an argument
I feel that as long as the sections are divided a bit more clearly, it’ll be OK
The DOS area should only talk about DOS, and then add a subforum inside for 2000/XP/VISTA
In fact, CMD under XP is much more complicated than under DOS. Last time I borrowed a book from the library and found that almost all operations under Windows can be completed in CMD, and it’s even stronger in some ways. Microsoft is no joke after all.
As for the rest, just roughly divide things up like this

But I’m worried that later the forum’s popularity won’t stay on DOS, since other commands are also very powerful (even more powerful)

[ Last edited by jsjcjsjc on 2008-3-8 at 10:49 PM ]

Without rules, nothing can be accomplished.
If DOS and CMD are tolerated just because they are close relatives,
we will only be peacefully transformed.

Freedom and openness are relative.
Otherwise they have no meaning in existing.

Cooperation must be built on an equal or stronger position.
Looking at the current traffic and increase in posts,
that is obviously not the case.

For the better development of DOS,
maintaining the status quo is just sitting there waiting to die.

I suggest making the DOS discussion area a semi-closed discussion area.
Ordinary members can only browse and cannot post new threads or reply.
Intermediate members can reply.
Advanced members are allowed to post new threads and reply.

This can only preserve the relative purity of the DOS forum,
but maintaining its vitality is what matters most.
Without high-quality topic discussions,
any other work is useless.

Holding onto the backbone members and recruiting new people is the basic policy.
Regularly launching themed discussion salons
and holding prize competitions from time to time
can serve as auxiliary means.

Finally, what is needed is an active, sharp leader and organizer
who can play the key role in gathering scattered grains into a tower.

Ask people who have never used DOS to bring up a problem they ran into while using DOS? Impossible! Just like most of us couldn’t come up with a problem we ran into while using MAC OS either.

At most they’ll ask things like what DOS is for, what DOS means, and other questions you can find in history books, or they’ll post some exclamations like wow, DOS is so powerful, and so on.

There probably aren’t many people working under DOS nowadays, except engineers who make a living with DOS, and those engineers aren’t going to come here.

Do CMD and DOS have things in common? Sure. But going through all the trouble of installing a “pure DOS” that you don’t actually need just to do something CMD can also do, and do better? That’s just ridiculous.

Right now, the biggest use of DOS for them is to boot the computer and smoothly install Windows on it.

The operations I most often perform under DOS now are:
1. Partitioning under DOS;
2. Running GHOST under DOS;
3. When Windows has a problem, doing hardware detection under DOS can quickly determine whether it is a hardware failure or a software failure;
4. Hard disk maintenance or repair under DOS;
5. Virus scanning under DOS (when the antivirus software under Windows has been killed by a virus).
6. Copying or recovering data under DOS.
Once (February 7, 2008) my machine would not boot. I suspected a hard disk failure. After booting with a self-made boot disk (combining various systems and tools from online: WinPE, WINPE2.0, Linux, DOS), I found that two hard disk partitions could not be recognized or entered. In the end, only under DOS could I enter the partitions and read the data. This was the third time I had encountered this kind of thing; the other two times were on other people’s machines. So I think DOS is still very practical, and definitely not just for installing Windows!!

There probably aren’t many people working under DOS nowadays, except engineers who make a living with DOS, and those engineers aren’t going to come here.

How many engineers are still making a living with DOS?
Who can know whether they have ever come here?
If they rarely come, then what is the reason?

Everyone’s discussion has been good, and all of it has points worth taking, but one strange thing is that DOSforever, who has always been actively calling for cleanup, hasn’t said a word about this. I wonder whether he’s disappeared or is just lurking?

Many thanks to little Wen for thinking of me. I’ve been very busy lately. Originally I wanted to calm down and say a whole lot, but after thinking about it, there’s actually not much to say, because this is an old issue that I used to bring up again and again. I’m tired of always saying the same things about the same problem. Fine, I’ll keep it short then, basically just bringing out what I said before and saying it again.

1. As for always talking about non-DOS issues in the DOS sections, my attitude is just one word—get lost!

2. As for the practicality of DOS, whenever this issue is brought up, many people will produce “high-sounding” and “fully confident” reasons, namely that DOS is basically useless now. My attitude is this: DOS can be as useless as you say, but I didn’t come to a DOS forum for practicality. I use DOS in order to “play with” DOS, and there’s also a bit of nostalgia in it. Since you think DOS is useless, then there’s no need for you to come to a DOS forum either—of course, that assumes this is a real DOS forum.
As for posting “high”-quality DOS topics, I don’t know what counts as high quality. I once posted some threads about questions I had “accumulated” over many years before. Some were solved, and some remain unsolved to this day.

3. Sometimes I think I’ve just been wasting my energy. Ever since I saw many people self-righteously posting "DOS" question threads without any control, I felt that if things kept going in this direction, it would be bad. I originally thought that when I had time I could sort some of it out myself, but it proved to be wasted effort.
This is also the last time I will express my opinion on this kind of issue.

As for the poll question, I’m inclined to choose 1, but I think batch files should also be separated into DOS and other environments.

Strange, everyone doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about this voting activity~