EDUCBA

EDUCBA

MENUMENU
  • Free Tutorials
  • Free Courses
  • Certification Courses
  • 360+ Courses All in One Bundle
  • Login
Home Data Science Data Science Tutorials Head to Head Differences Tutorial DOS vs Windows
Secondary Sidebar
Head to Head Differences Tutorial
  • Differences Tutorial
    • Scikit Learn vs TensorFlow
    • Azure Functions vs Logic Apps
    • Azure Data Factory vs Databricks
    • SHA1 vs MD5
    • Azure SQL Database vs Managed Instance
    • Azure SQL Database vs SQL Server
    • PostgreSQL vs MySQL
    • PostgreSQL vs MySQL Benchmark
    • ArangoDB vs MongoDB
    • Cloud Computing vs Big Data Analytics
    • T-SQL vs SQL
    • PostgreSQL vs MariaDB
    • Spark vs Impala
    • Datadog vs Splunk
    • Domo vs Tableau
    • Data Scientist vs Data Engineer vs Statistician
    • Big Data Vs Machine Learning
    • Predictive Analytics vs Business Intelligence
    • AI vs Machine Learning vs Deep Learning
    • Business Intelligence vs Data Warehouse
    • Apache Kafka vs Flume
    • Data Science vs Machine Learning
    • Business Analytics Vs Predictive Analytics
    • Data mining vs Web mining
    • Data Science Vs Data Mining
    • Data Science Vs Business Analytics
    • Analyst vs Associate
    • Apache Hive vs Apache Spark SQL
    • Apache Nifi vs Apache Spark
    • Apache Spark vs Apache Flink
    • Apache Storm vs Kafka
    • Artificial Intelligence vs Business Intelligence
    • Artificial Intelligence vs Human Intelligence
    • Al vs ML vs Deep Learning
    • SQL vs SQLite
    • Assembly Language vs Machine Language
    • AWS vs AZURE
    • AWS vs Azure vs Google Cloud
    • Big Data vs Data Mining
    • Big Data vs Data Science
    • Big Data vs Data Warehouse
    • Blu-Ray vs DVD
    • Business Intelligence vs Big Data
    • Business Intelligence vs Business Analytics
    • Business Intelligence vs Data analytics
    • Business Intelligence VS Data Mining
    • Business Intelligence vs Machine Learning
    • Business Process Re-Engineering vs CI
    • Cassandra vs Elasticsearch
    • Cassandra vs Redis
    • Cloud Computing Public vs Private
    • Cloud Computing vs Fog Computing
    • Cloud Computing vs Grid Computing
    • Cloud Computing vs Hadoop
    • Computer Network vs Data Communication
    • Computer Science vs Data Science
    • Computer Scientist vs Data Scientist
    • Customer Analytics vs Web Analytics
    • Data Analyst vs Data Scientist
    • Data Analytics vs Business Analytics
    • Data Analytics vs Data Analysis
    • Data Analytics Vs Predictive Analytics
    • Data Lake vs Data Warehouse
    • Data Mining Vs Data Visualization
    • Data mining vs Machine learning
    • Data Mining Vs Statistics
    • Data Mining vs Text Mining
    • Data Science vs Artificial Intelligence
    • Data science vs Business intelligence
    • Data Science Vs Data Engineering
    • Data Science vs Data Visualization
    • Data Science vs Software Engineering
    • Data Scientist vs Big Data
    • Data Scientist vs Business Analyst
    • Data Scientist vs Data Engineer
    • Data Scientist vs Data Mining
    • Data Scientist vs Machine Learning
    • Data Scientist vs Software Engineer
    • Data visualisation vs Data analytics
    • Data vs Information
    • Data Warehouse vs Data Mart
    • Data Warehouse vs Database
    • Data Warehouse vs Hadoop
    • Data Warehousing VS Data Mining
    • DBMS vs RDBMS
    • Deep Learning vs Machine learning
    • Digital Analytics vs Digital Marketing
    • Digital Ocean vs AWS
    • DOS vs Windows
    • ETL vs ELT
    • Small Data Vs Big Data
    • Apache Hadoop vs Apache Storm
    • Hadoop vs HBase
    • Between Data Science vs Web Development
    • Hadoop vs MapReduce
    • Hadoop Vs SQL
    • Google Analytics vs Mixpanel
    • Google Analytics Vs Piwik
    • Google Cloud vs AWS
    • Hadoop vs Apache Spark
    • Hadoop vs Cassandra
    • Hadoop vs Elasticsearch
    • Hadoop vs Hive
    • Hadoop vs MongoDB
    • HADOOP vs RDBMS
    • Hadoop vs Spark
    • Hadoop vs Splunk
    • Hadoop vs SQL Performance
    • Hadoop vs Teradata
    • HBase vs HDFS
    • Hive VS HUE
    • Hive vs Impala
    • JDBC vs ODBC
    • Kafka vs Kinesis
    • Kafka vs Spark
    • Cloud Computing vs Data Analytics
    • Data Mining Vs Data Analysis
    • Data Science vs Statistics
    • Big Data Vs Predictive Analytics
    • MapReduce vs Yarn
    • Hadoop vs Redshift
    • Looker vs Tableau
    • Machine Learning vs Artificial Intelligence
    • Machine Learning vs Neural Network
    • Machine Learning vs Predictive Analytics
    • Machine Learning vs Predictive Modelling
    • Machine Learning vs Statistics
    • MariaDB vs MySQL
    • Mathematica vs Matlab
    • Matlab vs Octave
    • MATLAB vs R
    • MongoDB vs Cassandra
    • MongoDB vs DynamoDB
    • MongoDB vs HBase
    • MongoDB vs Oracle
    • MongoDB vs Postgres
    • MongoDB vs PostgreSQL
    • MongoDB vs SQL
    • MongoDB vs SQL server
    • MS SQL vs MYSQL
    • MySQL vs MongoDB
    • MySQL vs MySQLi
    • MySQL vs NoSQL
    • MySQL vs SQL Server
    • MySQL vs SQLite
    • Neural Networks vs Deep Learning
    • PIG vs MapReduce
    • Pig vs Spark
    • PL SQL vs SQL
    • Power BI Dashboard vs Report
    • Power BI vs Excel
    • Power BI vs QlikView
    • Power BI vs SSRS
    • Power BI vs Tableau
    • Power BI vs Tableau vs Qlik
    • PowerShell vs Bash
    • PowerShell vs CMD
    • PowerShell vs Command Prompt
    • PowerShell vs Python
    • Predictive Analysis vs Forecasting
    • Predictive Analytics vs Data Mining
    • Predictive Analytics vs Data Science
    • Predictive Analytics vs Descriptive Analytics
    • Predictive Analytics vs Statistics
    • Predictive Modeling vs Predictive Analytics
    • Private Cloud vs Public Cloud
    • Regression vs ANOVA
    • Regression vs Classification
    • ROLAP vs MOLAP
    • ROLAP vs MOLAP vs HOLAP
    • Spark SQL vs Presto
    • Splunk vs Elastic Search
    • Splunk vs Nagios
    • Splunk vs Spark
    • Splunk vs Tableau
    • Spring Cloud vs Spring Boot
    • Spring vs Hibernate
    • Spring vs Spring Boot
    • Spring vs Struts
    • SQL Server vs PostgreSQL
    • Sqoop vs Flume
    • Statistics vs Machine learning
    • Supervised Learning vs Deep Learning
    • Supervised Learning vs Reinforcement Learning
    • Supervised Learning vs Unsupervised Learning
    • Tableau vs Domo
    • Tableau vs Microstrategy
    • Tableau vs Power BI vs QlikView
    • Tableau vs QlikView
    • Tableau vs Spotfire
    • Talend Vs Informatica PowerCenter
    • Talend vs Mulesoft
    • Talend vs Pentaho
    • Talend vs SSIS
    • TensorFlow vs Caffe
    • Tensorflow vs Pytorch
    • TensorFlow vs Spark
    • TeraData vs Oracle
    • Text Mining vs Natural Language Processing
    • Text Mining vs Text Analytics
    • Cloud Computing vs Virtualization
    • Unit Test vs Integration Test?
    • Universal analytics vs Google Analytics
    • Visual Analytics vs Tableau
    • R vs Python
    • R vs SPSS
    • Star Schema vs Snowflake Schema
    • DDL vs DML
    • R vs R Squared
    • ActiveMQ vs Kafka
    • TDM vs FDM
    • Linear Regression vs Logistic Regression
    • Slf4j vs Log4j
    • Redis vs Kafka
    • Travis vs Jenkins
    • Fact Table vs Dimension Table
    • OLTP vs OLAP
    • Openstack vs Virtualization
    • Cluster v/s Factor analysis
    • Informatica vs Datastage
    • CCBA vs CBAP
    • SPSS vs EXCEL
    • Excel vs Tableau
    • Cassandra vs MySQL
    • RabbitMQ vs Kafka
    • SAAS vs Cloud
    • RabbitMQ vs Redis
    • AMQP vs MQTT
    • Forward Chaining vs Backward Chaining
    • Google Data Studio vs Tableau
    • ActiveMQ vs RabbitMQ
    • Cloud vs Data Center
    • Cores vs Threads
    • Inner Join vs Outer Join
    • ZeroMQ vs Kafka
    • Mxnet vs TensorFlow
    • Redis vs Memcached
    • RDBMS vs NoSQL
    • AWS Direct Connect vs VPN
    • Cassandra vs Couchbase
    • Elegoo vs Arduino
    • Redis vs MongoDB
    • Chef vs Puppet
    • GSM vs GPRS
    • Keras vs TensorFlow vs PyTorch
    • Cloudflare vs CloudFront
    • Bitmap vs Vector
    • Left Join vs Right Join
    • IaaS vs PaaS
    • Blue Prism vs UiPath
    • GNSS vs GPS
    • Cloudflare vs Akamai
    • GCP vs AWS vs Azure
    • Arduino Mega vs Uno
    • Qualitative vs Quantitative Data
    • Arduino Micro vs Nano
    • PIC vs Arduino
    • PRTG vs Solarwinds
    • PostgreSQL vs SQLite
    • Metabase vs Tableau
    • Arduino Leonardo vs Uno
    • Arduino Due vs Mega
    • ETL Vs Database Testing
    • DBMS vs File System
    • CouchDB vs MongoDB
    • Arduino Nano vs Mini
    • IaaS vs PaaS vs SaaS
    • On-premise vs off-premise
    • Couchbase vs CouchDB
    • Tableau Dimension vs Measure
    • Cognos vs Tableau
    • Data vs Metadata
    • RethinkDB vs MongoDB
    • Cloudera vs Snowflake
    • HBase vs Cassandra
    • Business Analytics vs Business Intelligence
    • R Programming vs Python
    • MongoDB vs Hadoop
    • MySQL vs Oracle
    • OData vs GraphQL
    • Soft Computing vs Hard Computing
    • Binary Tree vs Binary Search Tree
    • Datadog vs CloudWatch
    • B tree vs Binary tree
    • Cloudera vs Hortonworks
    • DevSecOps vs DevOps
    • PostgreSQL Varchar vs Text
    • PostgreSQL Database vs schema
    • MapReduce vs spark
    • Hypervisor vs Docker
    • SciLab vs Octave
    • DocumentDB vs DynamoDB
    • PostgreSQL union vs union all
    • OrientDB vs Neo4j
    • Data visualization vs Business Intelligence
    • QlikView vs Qlik Sense
    • Neo4j vs MongoDB
    • Postgres Schema vs Database
    • Mxnet vs Pytorch
    • Naive Bayes vs Logistic Regression
    • Random Forest vs Decision Tree
    • Random Forest vs XGBoost
    • DynamoDB vs Cassandra
    • Looker vs Power BI
    • PostgreSQL vs RedShift
    • Presto vs Hive
    • Random forest vs Gradient boosting
    • Gradient boosting vs AdaBoost
    • Amazon rds vs Redshift
    • Bigquery vs Bigtable
    • Data Architect vs Data Engineer
    • DataSet vs DataTable
    • dataset vs dataframe
    • Dataset vs Database
    • New Relic vs Splunk
    • Data Architect and Management Designer
    • Data Engineer vs Data Analyst
    • Grafana vs Tableau
    • MySQL text vs Varchar
    • Relational Database vs Flat File
    • Datadog vs Prometheus
    • Neo4j vs Neptune
    • Data Mining vs Data warehousing
    • DocumentDB vs MongoDB
    • PostScript vs PCL
    • QRadar vs Splunk
    • Qlik Sense vs Tableau
    • DigitalOcean vs Google Cloud
    • PostgreSQL vs Elasticsearch
    • Redshift vs blueshift
    • Gitlab vs Azure DevOps

Related Courses

Online Data Science Course

Online Tableau Training

Azure Training Course

Hadoop Certification Course

Data Visualization Courses

All in One Data Science Course

DOS vs Windows

By Priya PedamkarPriya Pedamkar

DOS vs Windows

Difference Between DOS and Windows

  • DOS or Disk Operating Systems are the very initial operating systems of the computer world. This was an era when computers were not advanced graphically. There used to be a plain screen with a black/blue background and white textual commands written on it. This was the Disk Operating System.
  • Windows Operating System is the most advanced and modern version. It has all the fancy graphics to make the visuals more appealing. The textual commands have been replaced with colorful interactive icons that respond to mouse clicks, human touch and voice command as well.

Head to Head Comparison between DOS and Windows

Below are the top 11 differences between DOS vs Windows:

Dos vs Windows Comparison

Key Differences between DOS and Windows

Let us discuss some of the major differences between DOS vs  Windows.

  • The major difference between DOS and Windows is the interface. As stated above, DOS is a simple interface where you give text commands for everything. This is similar to the command prompt terminal in modern-day Windows OS.
  • Windows uses graphics to provide a more visually appealing interface. The introduction of the mouse made it easy to use. There was no longer any need to remember commands. All you had to do was click the mouse. Graphics also made it possible to play movies, images, games on the computer.
  • Of course, there were many other enhancements regarding storage systems, security, networking, etc. Windows was an advanced version of computing technology and this was supported with advancements in integrated circuits and compact memory chips.

   Fun Fact

  • After going through the complete article, did it make you wonder “Why the name Disk Operating System”? The nomenclature was so because it was considered a huge achievement to transfer commands from an external disk (floppy drive, hard disk, etc.) to computer memory (RAM) for execution. This was a radical advancement to its predecessor Tape Operating System (TOS), which involved magnetic tapes. Thus, the name DOS came into being. Today, any modern operating system is implicitly a disk operating system but isn’t explicitly named so.

DOS vs Windows Comparison Table

Let us discuss the top 11 differences between DOS vs Windows:

Start Your Free Data Science Course

Hadoop, Data Science, Statistics & others

All in One Data Science Bundle(360+ Courses, 50+ projects)
Python TutorialMachine LearningAWSArtificial Intelligence
TableauR ProgrammingPowerBIDeep Learning
Price
View Courses
360+ Online Courses | 50+ projects | 1500+ Hours | Verifiable Certificates | Lifetime Access
4.7 (86,527 ratings)
Basis of Comparison DOS Windows
Interface Command Line Interface – In DOS, every action was performed through commands. For e.g., cd my folder would go inside a folder named ‘myfolder’. Graphical User Interface – Windows follows the WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer) style of interaction. The click/scroll events of the mouse pointer perform the intended actions.
Primary Input Keyboard – DOS used commands for everything. These commands were typed in through the keyboard. Thus, the keyboard became the primary mode of input for DOS. Keyboard and Mouse – Windows introduced a pointer on the screen and a joystick/mouse to control that pointer. Now the pointer click/scroll events performed the majority of the non-text related tasks.
File System FAT16 – DOS used 16-bit File Allocation Table (FAT16) system. This meant that it used 16-bit identifiers to uniquely identify the memory location of each file. These identifiers were then stored in a table and hence the name File Allocation Table. This table is of utmost importance. If this table gets corrupt, file retrieval would not be possible. FAT32 / NTFS – Windows used FAT32 in earlier versions and later replaced it with New Technology File System (NTFS). In NTFS, information about each cluster is stored with the data in the cluster, thereby eliminating the File Allocation Table. It also uses a binary tree directory system so that retrieval and storage are faster.
Registry and Swap System Directory system – DOS uses a simple catalog framework for its registry information and swap framework. The entire information is contained in a specific index or sub-directory which makes it more vulnerable to attacks. Complex – Windows uses a complex directory-based system to store registry information. It is an entangled web of information storage system which makes it difficult to erase this crucial information.
Multi-tasking No – DOS was a single-tasking operating system. You had to wait for a command to finish before giving another command. Yes – Windows is multitasking. You can type a document while playing music and copying files at the same time.
Multi-user No – DOS could support only one user at a time. This means that a single computer could be used by only one user at a time. Yes – Using terminal services, Windows can support multiple users at a time. The best example of this is Windows Servers.
Security Limited – DOS was very less secure as it did not accommodate the concept of user roles. Any user who could log into the system was an Admin user and hence had full access rights. Extensive – Windows overcomes the DOS security flaw through the concept of authorization. To gain full access to the computer, one must have elevated permissions (admin rights). Only an admin can perform kernel level tasks such as registry modification, program execution, software installation, etc.
Networking External Feature – Networking in DOS was an add on functionality. A computer was rarely connected to a network. This made it difficult to share files between computers. Built-in Feature – Windows introduced built-in network connections of computers. This facilitated connection to shared disk storage shared devices (printers, scanners, etc.) and even shared memory.
Storage Size Less than 2GB – DOS had a limitation of disk storage capacity due to its 16-bit segmentation format. 16-bit segmentation cannot identify more than 65536 clusters. Thus, for 32 kB clusters, you could store a maximum of 32*1024*65536 = 2GB of data. In terabytes – Modern Windows OS has overcome this limit due to the advancement of memory chips and segmentation techniques.
Size of OS Small (in kilobytes) – Due to its highly simple interface and limited functionality, DOS was very lightweight. A typical DOS machine would require around 512 kB to 1MB for the operating system, application as well as data. Large (in GigaBytes) – Windows offers more graphics-rich features such as images, videos, games,  etc. This makes it heavy with minimum requirements of Windows 10 OS being 4GB RAM and 500GB disk space.
Ease of Use Low – With DOS, you would have to remember the various commands to perform the actions. High – This is certainly not the case with Windows. No need to remember any commands in Windows.

Conclusion

DOS is no longer used in personal computing. Windows has a majority of market share. Although, even the breakthrough concept of WIMP is now being challenged with more advancements such as touch-based OS, voice-based interfaces, gesture commands, etc. As technology advances, so does the human-computer interaction.

Recommended Articles

This has been a guide to DOS vs Windows. Here we also discuss the key differences with infographics and comparison table. You can also go through our other suggested articles to learn more –

  1. Smoke Testing vs Sanity Testing
  2. Windows Interview Questions
  3. Windows Operators | Types of Windows Operators
  4. What is Botnet and How Does it Work?
  5. What is Sanity Testing and How does it Work?
Popular Course in this category
Windows 10 Training (4 Courses, 4+ Projects)
  4 Online Courses |  4 Hands-On Projects |  26+ Hours |  Verifiable Certificate of Completion
4.5
Price

View Course

Related Courses

Data Scientist Training (85 Courses, 67+ Projects)4.9
Tableau Training (8 Courses, 8+ Projects)4.8
Azure Training (6 Courses, 5 Projects, 4 Quizzes)4.7
Hadoop Training Program (20 Courses, 14+ Projects, 4 Quizzes)4.7
Data Visualization Training (15 Courses, 5+ Projects)4.7
All in One Data Science Bundle (360+ Courses, 50+ projects)4.7
2 Shares
Share
Tweet
Share
Primary Sidebar
Footer
About Us
  • Blog
  • Who is EDUCBA?
  • Sign Up
  • Live Classes
  • Corporate Training
  • Certificate from Top Institutions
  • Contact Us
  • Verifiable Certificate
  • Reviews
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Privacy Policy
  •  
Apps
  • iPhone & iPad
  • Android
Resources
  • Free Courses
  • Database Management
  • Machine Learning
  • All Tutorials
Certification Courses
  • All Courses
  • Data Science Course - All in One Bundle
  • Machine Learning Course
  • Hadoop Certification Training
  • Cloud Computing Training Course
  • R Programming Course
  • AWS Training Course
  • SAS Training Course

ISO 10004:2018 & ISO 9001:2015 Certified

© 2022 - EDUCBA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THE CERTIFICATION NAMES ARE THE TRADEMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

EDUCBA
Free Data Science Course

SPSS, Data visualization with Python, Matplotlib Library, Seaborn Package

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

EDUCBA Login

Forgot Password?

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

EDUCBA
Free Data Science Course

Hadoop, Data Science, Statistics & others

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

EDUCBA

*Please provide your correct email id. Login details for this Free course will be emailed to you

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Let’s Get Started

By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

This website or its third-party tools use cookies, which are necessary to its functioning and required to achieve the purposes illustrated in the cookie policy. By closing this banner, scrolling this page, clicking a link or continuing to browse otherwise, you agree to our Privacy Policy

Loading . . .
Quiz
Question:

Answer:

Quiz Result
Total QuestionsCorrect AnswersWrong AnswersPercentage

Explore 1000+ varieties of Mock tests View more