MS-DOS 5.0

Originally 86-DOS, written by Tim Paterson of Seattle Computer Products, DOS was a rough clone of CP/M for 8086 based hardware. Microsoft purchased it and licensed it to IBM for use with Microsoft's IBM PC language products. In 1982, Microsoft began licensing DOS to other OEMs that ported it to their custom x86 hardware and IBM PC clones.

For IBM-specific releases, please see the IBM PC-DOS product page.



Screenshots

Release notes

MS-DOS 5 introduced numerous new features and was a flagship release for Microsoft. A full screen text editor EDIT has replaced the former line editor EDLIN supplied since the early days of DOS. Microsoft QBasic also shipped in DOS 5 replacing GW-BASIC. MS-DOS 5 also supported 2.88MB 3.5" floppy disks as well as hard disks up to 2GB in size. The memory management was rewritten to allow DOS to utilize the High Memory Area and Upper Memory Area to reduce its usage of conventional memory. Numerous bugs were noticed shortly after launch which lead to the 5.0a update.

This release of DOS was the last of the collaboration between Microsoft and IBM and as a result will be the last result where PC-DOS and MS-DOS are near-identical. This was also the version of DOS used in the OS/2 and Windows NT virtual DOS machine.

When MS-DOS 5 was released the entire market had become dominated by IBM and compatible systems, so specific OEM versions of DOS for machines not using an IBM BIOS were not shipped as in prior releases, with the exception of the still-popular NEC PC-98 series of IBM-incompatible systems.

Installation instructions

To Install: Insert the first disk into your PC or virtualization software and ensure your BIOS is set to boot from a floppy disk. The setup program will install and ask a few questions about your hardware and whether or not you want to install to floppy or hard disk. Applications will be installed into C:\DOS unless changed in setup.

Product type
OS
Vendor
Microsoft
Release date
1991
Minimum CPU
8088
User interface
Text
Platform
DOS
Download count
927 (94 for release)

Downloads

Download name Version Language Architecture File size Downloads
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 (3.5-720k) 5.00 English 1.23MB 28
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 (5.25-360k) 5.00 English 1.34MB 9
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 (Beta 5.0.224) 5.00 (Beta 5.0.224) Prerelease English 1.41MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 (Beta 5.0.333) (3.5-720k) 5.00 (Beta 5.0.333) Prerelease English 1.27MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 (Beta 5.0.409c) (3.5-720k) 5.00 (Beta 5.0.409c) Prerelease English 1.52MB 2
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 (Beta 5.0.432) (3.5-1.44mb) 5.00 (Beta 5.0.432) Prerelease English 1.2MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 (Beta RC10) (5.25-360k) 5.00 (Beta RC10) Prerelease English 1.62MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 Single Disk Version (3.5-1.44mb) 5.00 Single Disk English 1.26MB 11
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 Upgrade (3.5-720k) 5.00 Upgrade Upgrade English 1.77MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 Upgrade (5.25-360k) 5.00 Upgrade Upgrade English 1.62MB 3
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [AST Research OEM] (3.5-1.44mb) 5.00 [AST Research OEM] English 1.26MB 3
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [AST Research OEM] (5.25-1.2mb) 5.00 [AST Research OEM] English 1.31MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [BEC OEM] (5.25-360k) 5.00 [BEC OEM] English 1.28MB 1
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [BTI OEM] (1991) (3.5-720k) 5.00 [BTI OEM] English 2.3MB 2
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [Commodore OEM] (3.5-720k) 5.00 [Commodore OEM] English 1.23MB 2
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [Commodore OEM] (3.5-720k) (alt) 5.00 [Commodore OEM] English 1.36MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [Commodore OEM] [German] (3.5-720k) 5.00 [Commodore OEM] German 1.24MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [Compaq OEM rev a] (3.5-1.44mb) 5.00 [Compaq OEM rev a] English 1.24MB 3
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [Dutch] (3.5-720k) 5.00 Dutch 1.29MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [German] (3.5-720k) 5.00 German 1.27MB 1
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [German] (5.25-360k) 5.00 German 1.27MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [German] (Upgrade) (5.25-360k) 5.00 Upgrade German 1.67MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [HP Vectra OEM] [French] (3.5-1.44mb) 5.00 [HP Vectra OEM] French 1.34MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [ICL OEM Rel 2b] (3.5-720k) 5.00 [ICL OEM Rel 2b] English 1.62MB 2
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [Leading Edge OEM] (3.5-1.44mb) 5.00 [Leading Edge OEM] English 1.33MB 2
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [Leading Edge OEM] (5.25-1.2mb) 5.00 [Leading Edge OEM] English 1.68MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [NEC PC-9800] [Japanese] (3.5-1.23mb) 5.00 [NEC PC-9800] [Japanese] Japanese 3.12MB 2
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [NEC PC-9801] [Epson OEM] [Japanese] (3.5-1.23mb) 5.00 [NEC PC-9801] [Epson OEM] Japanese 1.38MB 1
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [Northgate OEM] (5.25-360k) 5.00 [Northgate OEM] English 1.23MB 2
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [Packard Bell OEM] (1991-05-30) (3.5-1.44mb) 5.00 (1991-05-30) [Packard Bell OEM] English 1.23MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [Packard Bell OEM] (1991-05-30) (5.25-1.2mb) 5.00 (1991-05-30) [Packard Bell OEM] English 1.23MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [Packard Bell OEM] (1991-07-23) (3.5-1.4mb) 5.00 (1991-07-23) [Packard Bell OEM] English 1.23MB 1
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [Packard Bell OEM] (1991-07-23) (5.25-1.2mb) 5.00 (1991-07-23) [Packard Bell OEM] English 1.23MB 0
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [Tandy 1000RLX RLX-HD B] (3.5-1.44mb) 5.0 [Tandy 1000RLX RLX-HD B] English 947.19KB 2
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00 [Virtual PC VHD] 5.00 English 871.08KB 5
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00a (3.5-720k) 5.00a English 2.66MB 4
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00a [Amstrad OEM] (3.5-720k) 5.00a [Amstrad OEM] English 1.38MB 2
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00a [French] (3.5-1.44mb) 5.00a French 1.26MB 1
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00a [HP Vectra OEM] (3.5-1.44mb) 5.00a [HP Vectra OEM] English 1.31MB 2
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00a [MIC OEM] (5.25-1.2mb) 5.00a [MIC OEM] English 5.82MB 1
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00a [Toshiba OEM] (3.5-1.44mb) 5.00a [Toshiba OEM] English 1.99MB 1
Microsoft MS-DOS 5.00a-h [NEC PC-9800] [Japanese] (3.5-1.23mb) 5.00a-h [NEC PC-9800] Japanese 3.15MB 1

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