Internal and External Commands Used in MS-DOS

Things to remember

• Internal command are built in the COMMAND.COM files. It can be executed from any DOS prompt because each of the internal commands are memory resident. Some of the examples of internal commands are: DIR, CLS, COPY etc.
• DIR  displays files, directories and sub-directory.
• COPY CON creates a text file.
• TYPE displays the content of a file.
• COPY copies file(s) from one location to another.
• REN renames a file.
• RD removes directory, but the directory must be empty
• Commands that need an external additional file with command.com are external commands. Example: XCOPY, CHKDSK, LABEL, TREE etc.