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Any recommendations for a good DOS file manager?

Exactly. I suspect (but haven't tried it) that one of these file managers would exhibit the same behavior when running on Windows NT+ with an NTFS volume under the command prompt window--or perhaps no long files would show at all.
 
If you are using a DOS FIle Manager then ideally you should be running an all DOS system to begin with. No long filenames. Until of course if someone ever (likely never) actually produces a DOS clone that handles FAT32 and LFN properly. FreeDOS originally had aspirations of this but I think they have been cut way back. None of the TSRs were ever full proof or they didn't work in every situation.

That being said it all depends on the system and how much resources you have. I personally use Directory Magic to this day and supplement with Norton Commander and Norton Desktop for DOS on my higher end (i.e. 486) systems.
 
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Chuck(G) said:
I'm curious--what doesn't work with DOSLFN under MSDOS 7.x? I've been using it for years and haven't run into any problems.
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Chuck,

Off the top of my head MS Client. I can not see LFNs w/ DOSLFN over mapped drives using DIR command. I know there were other issues as well that made me put the whole thing aside long time ago. I just run DOS 6.22 on my "DOS" systems and avoid LFNs like the palgue. Now to be fair this is probably not just a DOSLFN problem but the interaction between the DOS Kernel, third party program, and DOSLFN.

Also the fact that DOSLFN had to be loaded as a a TSR not be part of the kernel from the get go. It makes me think that if it was bulletproof it would be built in.

EDIT: Also this "Windows 3.11 with enabled 32 bit file access" will not work with it.
 
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Shadow Lord said:
AO,

QDOS will work with what? DOSLFN? If so how does that deal with the fact that DOSLFN and Win 3.11 32bit disk access won't work together?
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QDOS works with 8/16 bit systems and does not do LFN. There may be some late to the party DOS file managers that do but I'm not familiar with any. Disregard may comment about 3.11 as I was wrong and thinking 3.1. Anyway, why would you need a DOS file manager for any Windows system?

Late edit - this one may do the job:

https://www.ghisler.com/featurel.htm
 
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How is MSDOS 7.1 or PCDOS 7.1 not "DOS"? I can format a boot floppy with it and run quite happily.

FWIW, this page claims that Volkov 5.99 is LFN-aware.

And LFN has nothing to do with FAT32. It's perfectly possible to have long names on FAT12 and FAT16 volumes.
 
Chuck(G) said:
How is MSDOS 7.1 or PCDOS 7.1 not "DOS"? I can format a boot floppy with it and run quite happily.

FWIW, this page claims that Volkov 5.99 is LFN-aware.

And LFN has nothing to do with FAT32. It's perfectly possible to have long names on FAT12 and FAT16 volumes.
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I never said anything about MSDOS or PCDOS not being DOS. Also, the LFN in DOS file managers that I'm familiar with just weren't offered as a feature regardless of what FAT was out there. Those old DOS file managers stopped with Windows.
 
Just my point--they were ignorant of the DOS 71xxh API. It would be interesting, however, to see the Volkov 5.99 display since the page I linked to claims that it has LFN support.
 
The majority of DOS applications and file managers does not support long file names, so I simply don't use them in DOS.

Windows 3.x does not run in MS-DOS 7.1, but it does run in MS-DOS 7.0.
 
Exceter said:
Can someone explain the appeal of a dos file manager to me? Is the dos command line really that hard to use?
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Can you compare two directories side by side using a DOS command line? ;)
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​

As inefficient as it may sound - I used to FTP into my XT machine to clean up directories so I could use my FTP client to open up multiple windows and drag and drop, etc.
 
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NoPizzaTonite said:
Can you compare two directories side by side using a DOS command line? ;)
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Depends on what you've got installed for DOS, but it's certainly possible with *nix. But try this for DOS (I believe that fc was part of the standard IBM distrio, but I'm not sure aobut MSDOS):

Code: 
DIR /B dir1 >x1
DIR /B dir2 >x2
FC x1 x2

should produce a list of differences.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Depends on what you've got installed for DOS, but it's certainly possible with *nix. But try this for DOS (I believe that fc was part of the standard IBM distrio, but I'm not sure aobut MSDOS):

Code: 
DIR /B dir1 >x1
DIR /B dir2 >x2
FC x1 x2

should produce a list of differences.
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That's pretty creative. :) Yes - it would work for that, but I should have clarified my response instead of being a little sarcastic ;) - The question was why the appeal of file manager when DOS is capable - the side by side remark from me had more to do with the GUI showing two folders side by side and moving things around between them - that's why I would use a file manager instead of DOS. Ease of use really. I used to locally FTP into my AT and XT systems and handle all my file management with a modern FTP client like WinSCP strictly for the purposes of easily cleaning up my folders and their contents :)
 
A lot of GUI stuff in Linux is just a graphic front end to a command line implementation.

GUIs can be useful or horrible. For an example of the latter, consider the STMicro IDE for the CubeMx. No provision is made for screen resolution or size and a lot of space (like the software for this forum) just clutters up space that could be used for information. Some of the menus for the STM Cube MX IDE are so tiny on a 27" WQHD display that you need a magnifying glass to read them. (Users have complained endlessly about this).
 
IMHO: All GUI programs should be frontends for command line tools because that makes it easy to automate repetitive GUI tasks.
 
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