I am reviewing this book because I was amazed by its publication. I thought that somehow an old book had got listed in a catalogue by accident. Microsoft have done nothing to MSDOS for years (exactly how many I cannot say, but I think it is six) that means that MSDOS is stable and you need have no fear that what you learn here will have to be updated when Microsoft release the next version. MSDOS 6.22 was the last free standing version from MS. Windows 95 and Windows 98 both sit on top of MSDOS and some tinkering was done for those releases. There are third party versions form the likes of IBM (PCDOS 2000 was released if I remember correctly). However one of the places I disagree with the author of his book is his assertion that Windows ME is based on MSDOS, in any real sense it is not, there is no accessible DOS sitting under Windows ME (something that is a cause of problems for software such as Partition Magic that needs some form of DOS).

So the basic question is whether you need to understand the workings and utilities available in MSDOS. Many do not, but a surprising number of people still do. For those people this updated and revised edition will be a valuable reference book which will remain of use to them for as long as they are doing DOS based work. I doubt that there will be further books on this subject, and I must admit to being surprised that there was even this one.

It is well written, comprehensive and a good reference for those that are still using MSDOS/PCDOS on their hardware.