Other names | MSD, MSD.EXE |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Microsoft |
Operating system | MS-DOS, OS/2, Windows |
License | Proprietary commercial software |
Microsoft Diagnostics (MSD) was a software tool developed by Microsoft to assist in the diagnostics of 1990s-era computers. Users primarily deployed this tool to provide detailed technical information about the user's software and hardware and to print the gathered information, usually for use by support technicians in troubleshooting and resolving problems. [1] [2] [3] The assumptions made by the program were valid until the late 1990s: it does not handle plug-and-play USB or other new technologies that appeared around 2000.
In PC DOS 6.1 and above, QCONFIG.EXE
provides similar functionality. [4] [5] Commercial alternatives include Manifest MFT.EXE
from Quarterdeck's QEMM.
MSD.EXE
first shipped with Microsoft Word for Windows, and was later included in Windows 3, [1] MS-DOS 6, [1] [2] [3] and on the Windows 9x CD-ROMs. Because OS/2 and Windows NT contain code forked from DOS at the DOS 5 level, the versions of MSD.EXE
included here correspond to that of that era (i.e. version 2.0).
Windows NT 3 and NT 4 have WINMSD
, a program with similar features. [6] However, the DOS/Windows specific functions were replaced by similar Windows NT concerns. [6] WINMSDP.EXE
, included in the resource kits, provides the print functionality of MSD.EXE
for WINMSD
. Since NT 5 (Windows 2000), WINMSD.EXE
has been a loader for MSINFO32.EXE
.
Users generally started the program from the DOS Command Prompt using the command MSD.EXE
. [1] Starting the program under a DOS window in either Windows or OS/2 shows only the DOS details allocated for that DOS session, not for the machine in general. [1]
Aspects of the system for which MSD.EXE
provided technical information:
Microsoft replaced MSD.EXE
with MSINFO32.EXE
. [7] This has similar features, but targets more recent machines. It first appeared in MS-Word, and later was distributed with Plus! for Windows 95 and Windows 98. [7] MSINFO32.EXE
under Windows XP stores system history from WMI in the XML files in Windows\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Datacoll
. [8] In the interest of backward compatibility, WINMSD
became a loader for MSINFO32
.
IBM PC DOS, an acronym for IBM Personal Computer Disk Operating System, is a discontinued disk operating system for IBM PC compatibles. It was manufactured and sold by IBM from the early 1980s into the 2000s. Developed by Microsoft, it was also sold by that company as MS-DOS. Both operating systems were identical or almost identical until 1993, when IBM began selling PC DOS 6.1 with new features. The collective shorthand for PC DOS and MS-DOS was DOS, which is also the generic term for disk operating system, and is shared with dozens of disk operating systems called DOS.
4DOS is a command-line interpreter by JP Software, designed to replace the default command interpreter COMMAND.COM
in Microsoft DOS and Windows. It was written by Rex C. Conn and Tom Rawson and first released in 1989. Compared to the default, it has a large number of enhancements.
Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) consists of a set of extensions to the Windows Driver Model that provides an operating system interface through which instrumented components provide information and notification. WMI is Microsoft's implementation of the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) and Common Information Model (CIM) standards from the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF).
Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, and was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail on August 24, 1996. It was Microsoft's primary business-oriented operating system until the introduction of Windows 2000. Workstation, server and embedded editions were sold, and all editions feature a graphical user interface similar to that of Windows 95, which was superseded by Windows 98 and could still be directly upgraded by either Windows 2000 Professional or Windows Me.
Norton Utilities is a utility software suite designed to help analyze, configure, optimize and maintain a computer. The latest version of the original series of Norton Utilities is Norton Utilities 16 for Windows XP/Vista/7/8 was released 26 October 2012.
Virtual DOS machines (VDM) refer to a technology that allows running 16-bit/32-bit DOS and 16-bit Windows programs when there is already another operating system running and controlling the hardware.
Microsoft ScanDisk is a diagnostic utility program included in MS-DOS and Windows 9x. It checks and repairs file systems errors on a disk drive, while the system starts.
Take Command Console (TCC), formerly known as 4DOS for Windows NT (4NT), is a command-line interpreter by JP Software, designed as a substitute for the default command interpreter in Microsoft Windows, CMD.EXE.
System File Checker (SFC) is a utility in Microsoft Windows that allows users to scan for and restore corrupted Windows system files.
The booting process of Windows NT includes Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. In Windows Vista and later, this process has changed significantly; see Windows NT 6 startup process for information about what has changed.
Criticism of Windows XP deals with issues with security, performance and the presence of product activation errors that are specific to the Microsoft operating system Windows XP.
The line-oriented debugger DEBUG.EXE
is an external command in operating systems such as DOS, OS/2 and Windows.
Microsoft Drive Optimizer is a utility in Microsoft Windows designed to increase data access speed by rearranging files stored on a disk to occupy contiguous storage locations, a technique called defragmentation. Defragmenting a disk minimizes head travel, which reduces the time it takes to read files from and write files to the disk. As a result of the decreased read and write times, Microsoft Drive Optimizer decreases system startup times for systems starting from magnetic storage devices such as a hard drive. However, defragmentation is not helpful on storage devices such as solid state drives, USB drives or SD cards that use flash memory to increase speeds, as these drives do not use a head. Defragmentation may decrease lifespan for certain technologies, e.g. solid state drives. Microsoft Drive Optimizer was first officially shipped with Windows XP.
In Microsoft Windows, cacls
and its replacement, icacls
, native command-line utilities capable of displaying and modifying the security descriptors on folders and files. An access-control list is a list of permissions for securable object, such as a file or folder, that controls who can access it. The cacls
command is also available on ReactOS.
Resource Kit is a term used by Microsoft for a set of software resources and documentation released for their software products, but which is not part of that product. Resource kits offer supplementary resources such as technical guidance, compatibility and troubleshooting information, management, support, maintenance and deployment guides and multipurpose useful administrative utilities, which are available separately.
In computing, help
is a command in various command line shells such as COMMAND.COM
, cmd.exe
, Bash, qshell, 4DOS/4NT, Windows PowerShell, Singularity shell, Python, MATLAB and GNU Octave. It provides online information about available commands and the shell environment.
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few operating systems attempting to be compatible with MS-DOS, are sometimes referred to as "DOS". MS-DOS was the main operating system for IBM PC compatibles during the 1980s, from which point it was gradually superseded by operating systems offering a graphical user interface (GUI), in various generations of the graphical Microsoft Windows operating system.
In computing, recover
is a primitive file system error recovery utility included in MS-DOS / IBM PC DOS versions prior to DOS 6.0 and a number of other operating systems.
The command-line tool exe2bin
is a post-compilation utility program available on MS-DOS and other operating systems.
System Information in Windows XP provides a new view of changes to the computer. ... History Information is provided by WMI, and is stored in the Extensible Markup Language (XML) data files located in Windows\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Datacoll
.