MS-DOS 5

MS-DOS 5
Replaces
Version of MS-DOS

Version	5.x
Codename	Lifeboat
Release date	1991-06
MS-DOS 4
Replaced by
MS-DOS 6

MS-DOS 5 is a family of versions of MS-DOS, initially released in June 1991.

History[edit | edit source]

MS-DOS 5.00[edit | edit source]

MS-DOS 5.00 was released in June 1991. Various bugs from version 4.01 have been fixed. It added additional utilities for working with memory and disks. A full screen text editor EDIT has replaced the former line editor EDLIN supplied since the early days of DOS.^[1] The SELECT installation program has been replaced with a new setup that further streamlined the installation procedure. Also, it was first version to support 3.5-inch, 2.88 MB floppy drives and diskettes and have support up to four DOS primary partitions, despite FDISK cannot create more than one.

This version includes the HIMEM.SYS driver and load portions of the operating system into the upper and high memory areas.

MS-DOS 5.00a[edit | edit source]

MS-DOS 5.00a was released in November 1991 and fixed bugs in the initial release, mainly pertaining to FORMAT and FDISK commands.

MS-DOS 5.00A[edit | edit source]

MS-DOS 5.00A (note the capital letter A) was only released for the Japanese NEC PC-98x1 series computers.

MS-DOS 5.00A-H[edit | edit source]

MS-DOS 5.00A-H was only released for the Japanese NEC PC-98x1 series computers. It was pre-installed on/bundled with the original PC-9821 computers, and never had a retail release.^[2] Some PC-98 games require this specific version of MS-DOS; most notably Policenauts, which is known as being hard to install (for non-Japanese speakers) for this reason.^[3]^[4]

MS-DOS 5.50[edit | edit source]

MS-DOS 5.50 is the version, which is the base of NTVDM subsystem for Windows NT 32-bit versions. Some files are directly copied from it. Initially, this version is shown on NTVDM to make able running more programs than intended.