MS-DOS
Ranked 16 of 87 operating systems by recommenders
People recommend MS-DOS for its simple, well-organized API, its third-party software and the control it gave users; critics call it insecure and obsolete.
People recommend MS-DOS for its simple, well-organized API, its third-party software and the control it gave users; critics call it insecure and obsolete.
81 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 47
- criticize it
- 34
- approval share
- 58%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 32 years
Median of the 3 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 47 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Simple, compartmentalized API
“MS-DOS was on a nice trajectory to having complete enough (and reasonably simple and non-bloated!) APIs for everything important”
Comment from 11 Dec 2025 in “Booting Linux in QEMU and Writing PID 1 in Go to Illustrate Kernel as Program” “Easy to understand and well compartmentalized DOS/BIOS Interrupt API, small functions doing small things.”
Comment from 25 Apr 2026 in “Only One Side Will Be the True Successor to MS-DOS – Windows 2.x” “MS-DOS was quite simple if you think about it.”
Comment from 25 Apr 2026 in “Only One Side Will Be the True Successor to MS-DOS – Windows 2.x” Stable and reasonably reliable
“we kind of dodged a bullet and had a pretty reasonable experience with DOS 6”
Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Microsoft patches Windows and Excel – breaks audio, remote access, and paste” “I don't remember DOS 6.22 blue screening on me. Maybe it wasn't so bad.”
Comment from 19 Jul 2026 in “LG monitors silently install software through Windows Update without consent” “DOS 5 was awesome. I can't recall a single bug?”
Comment from 14 Sep 2026 in “Microsoft patches Windows and Excel – breaks audio, remote access, and paste” Cheap, cloned IBM hardware standard
“The MS-DOS world solved the problem by everyone just cloning the IBM hardware down to the disk format.”
Comment from 16 Sep 2026 in “Sony's First Computer – The SMC-70 from 1982 [video]” “DOS was priced correctly and there was no exclusivity to IBM”
Comment from 13 Jan 2026 in “CP/M-86's delay handed Microsoft the keys to the kingdom” “The PC with DOS was both powerful and cheap.”
Comment from 23 Jun 2026 in “8086 Segmented Memory was a good idea” Full control over your computer
“You were in full control of your computer and you decided how it could be used”
Comment from 20 Apr 2026 in “OpenClaw isn't fooling me. I remember MS-DOS” “it was still the best in terms of giving you freedom to organize”
Comment from 18 Aug 2026 in “The Road to MS-DOS 2.0”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Obsolete, missing basic features
“MS-DOS was clearly obsolete, but it hung around for like 10 years too long because people couldn't quit it”
Comment from 3 Aug 2026 in “CP/M-386 – CP/M for 386 protected mode, derived from CP/M‑68K” “MS-DOS 2.0 was a huge improvement, the first release didn't even support subdirectories or hard drives.”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: I spent 3 years reverse-engineering a 40 yo stock market sim from 1986” “could not be bothered to update MS-DOS and Windows with some features required in modern computers”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “I Ported Coreboot to the ThinkPad X270” - Comment from 5 May 2026 in “IBM didn't want Microsoft to use the Tab key to move between dialog fields”
- Comment from 4 Nov 2025 on Hacker News
Insecure, virus-prone, poor networking
“MS-DOS simply wasn't a good choice for networking, and not just because of the lack of security.”
Comment from 20 Apr 2026 in “OpenClaw isn't fooling me. I remember MS-DOS” “DOS and Windows always remained poor-to-mediocre - buggy, unreliable, messy, not secure”
Comment from 24 Jul 2026 in “The IBM PC, Part 1: Arrival” “Yeah, we had viruses and that meant untold bloat with anti-Virus shame-wear.”
Comment from 7 May 2026 in “Grand Theft Oil Futures: Insider traders keep making a killing at our expense” Kept alive by Microsoft lock-in
“forced to use MS-DOS when so many better options were killed off by Microsoft's monopolistic and anti-consumer underhanded business tactics”
Comment from 29 May 2026 in “GitHub bans security researcher who posted zero-day Windows exploits” “MS-DOS was clearly obsolete, but it hung around for like 10 years too long because people couldn't quit it”
Comment from 3 Aug 2026 in “CP/M-386 – CP/M for 386 protected mode, derived from CP/M‑68K” “People would have rather not had DOS either if the IBM brand had just included a ROM OS”
Comment from 3 Feb 2026 in “50 years ago, a young Bill Gates took on the 'software pirates'” Weak command interpreter and interface
“their command interpreter sort of sucks in comparison to what basic could have brought to the table”
Comment from 4 Jun 2026 in “Summer of '85: DOSBOS is rejected by ANALOG Computing” “You could make the same complaint against most of the progress bars in MsDOS.”
Comment from 6 Jan 2026 in “Vienam Bans Unskippable Ads, Requires Skip Button to Appear After 5 Seconds”
Other operating systems people recommend
The four most recommended other operating systems, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 87 operating systems, rankedWhat people said
40 of the 91 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“late 90s/early 00s DOS was surprisingly decent with tons of cool thirdparty apps.”
“The shift+insert,delete etc. are from MSDOS as far as I used them”
“The MS-DOS world solved the problem by everyone just cloning the IBM hardware down to the disk format.”
“we kind of dodged a bullet and had a pretty reasonable experience with DOS 6”
“DOS 5 was awesome. I can't recall a single bug?”
“it was still the best in terms of giving you freedom to organize”
“It was so much fun getting a color block to display on CGA.”
“the professional applications that were available for MS-DOS”
“MS-DOS truly beat CP/M-86 when it extended the APIs and features in PC/MS-DOS 2.0”
“MS-DOS was clearly obsolete, but it hung around for like 10 years too long because people couldn't quit it”
“DOS and Windows always remained poor-to-mediocre - buggy, unreliable, messy, not secure”
“I don't remember DOS 6.22 blue screening on me. Maybe it wasn't so bad.”
“The PC with DOS was both powerful and cheap.”
“their command interpreter sort of sucks in comparison to what basic could have brought to the table”
“forced to use MS-DOS when so many better options were killed off by Microsoft's monopolistic and anti-consumer underhanded business tactics”
“thanks MS! DOS just got them the contract with IBM.”
“Yeah, we had viruses and that meant untold bloat with anti-Virus shame-wear.”
“The DEV issue is specially annoying because DOS 1 didn't have directories”
“DOS was my starting point (and a most fond memory)”
“The technology behind pulling together this is fantastic”
“Easy to understand and well compartmentalized DOS/BIOS Interrupt API, small functions doing small things.”
“MS-DOS was quite simple if you think about it.”
“You were in full control of your computer and you decided how it could be used”
“we improved it until it had all the security and capabilities we needed”
“MS-DOS simply wasn't a good choice for networking, and not just because of the lack of security.”
“DOS was a relic from the end of single-process single-user era.”
“I loved the look of the fonts on DOS after I upgraded from a C64”
“It started OK with DOS — because CP/M was not great either.”
“loving devotion to MS-DOS, old EGA Sierra games, TSR programs, TUIs, GeoWorks”
“could not be bothered to update MS-DOS and Windows with some features required in modern computers”
“Thinking how cautious one has to be, particularly on an MS-DOS machine, you have to be knowing one misstep, one stuck loop, and you're reloading from disk again.”
“I think Windows and DOS do have good documents.”
“MS-DOS 2.0 was a huge improvement, the first release didn't even support subdirectories or hard drives.”
“People would have rather not had DOS either if the IBM brand had just included a ROM OS”
“DOS was priced correctly and there was no exclusivity to IBM”
“You could make the same complaint against most of the progress bars in MsDOS.”
“MS-DOS was on a nice trajectory to having complete enough (and reasonably simple and non-bloated!) APIs for everything important”
“what was common in the day (MS-DOS and Windows 3.1) ran fine.”
“you didn't get any cool stuff like that. Couldn't even see hidden files!”
“MS-DOS was a reasonable bootloader for Linux and Windows 95”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.