In computing , configuration files (commonly known simply as config files ) are files used to configure the parameters and initial settings for some computer programs or applications , server processes and operating system settings.
41-525: CONFIG.SYS is the primary configuration file for the DOS and OS/2 operating systems . It is a special ASCII text file that contains user-accessible setup or configuration directives evaluated by the operating system's DOS BIOS (typically residing in IBMBIO.COM or IO.SYS ) during boot. CONFIG.SYS was introduced with DOS 2.0. The directives in this file configure DOS for use with devices and applications in
82-532: A file named DCONFIG.SYS (with "D" derived from "DR DOS"), if present, will take precedence over CONFIG.SYS. Since DR DOS 6.0 this was used in conjunction with disk compression software, where the original boot drive C: would become drive D: after loading the compression driver (and the "D" in the file name came in handy as well), but it is commonly used to help maintain multiple configuration files in multi-boot scenarios. In addition to this, OpenDOS 7.01 and DR-OpenDOS 7.02 will look for
123-460: A file named ODCONFIG.SYS , whereas some issues of DR-DOS 7.02 and higher will instead also look for DRCONFIG.SYS . Further, under DR DOS 6.0 and higher, the SYS ;/DR:ext command can be used to change the default file extensions. For example, with SYS /L /DR:703 the written Volume Boot Record would look for a renamed and modified IBMBIO.703 system file (instead of
164-608: A filename of CCONFIG.INI instead, whereas REAL/32 is known to look for MCONFIG.SYS . These operating systems support many additional and different configuration settings (like INIT_INSTALL ) not known under MS-DOS/PC DOS, but they are stored in the binary repository named CCONFIG.BIN rather than in CCONFIG.INI . Both files are typically modified through a configuration utility named CONFIG.EXE only. Under DR DOS 3.31, PalmDOS 1.0, Novell DOS 7, OpenDOS 7.01, and DR-DOS 7.02 and higher,
205-446: A unique format, but there is a strong tradition of them being in human-editable plain text, and a simple key–value pair format is common. Filename extensions of .cnf , .conf , .cfg , .cf or .ini are often used. Almost all formats allow comments , in which case, individual settings can be disabled by prepending with the comment character . Often the default configuration files contain extensive internal documentation in
246-603: A wide variety of individual configuration files, most of them binary, proprietary and undocumented - and there were no common conventions or formats. The early Microsoft Windows family of operating systems heavily utilized plain-text INI files (from "initialization"). These served as the primary mechanism to configure the operating system and application features. The APIs to read and write from these still exist in Windows, but after 1993, Microsoft began to steer developers away from using INI files and toward storing settings in
287-413: Is bundled as Take Command Console. A light feature-reduced version of TCC is released as a free download. JP Software then released: This has been released from versions 9 to 12.1, corresponding to the underlying 4NT/TCC version. 4DOS features a number of enhancements compared to COMMAND.COM : Originally distributed as shareware , 4DOS has been later released as unsupported freeware . Currently,
328-704: Is located in the root directory of the drive from which the system was booted. The filename is also used by Disk Control Program [ de ] (DCP), an MS-DOS derivative by the former East-German VEB Robotron . Some versions of DOS will probe for alternative filenames taking precedence over the default CONFIG.SYS filename if they exist: While older versions of Concurrent DOS 3.2 to 4.1 did not support CONFIG.SYS files at all, later versions of Concurrent DOS 386 and Concurrent DOS XM , as well as Multiuser DOS , System Manager and REAL/32 will probe for CCONFIG.SYS (with "C" derived from "Concurrent") instead of CONFIG.SYS. Some versions of Multiuser DOS use
369-412: Is not found, versions of DOS before 6.0 will not start up. MS-DOS 6.0/PC DOS 6.1 and Novell DOS 7 and higher will instead display a prompt to enter the path and filename of a command processor. This recovery prompt is also displayed when the primary command processor is aborted due to faults or if it is exited deliberately. (In the case of COMMAND.COM, the internal EXIT command is disabled only when
410-638: Is released as open source. It appeared in the feature set of 2011's eComStation 2.10, in the freeware os2free project, and is included with ArcaOS . 4NT was first released as 4DOS for Windows NT (versions 1.x, 2.x), but became 4NT until the restructure after version 8. The program is a recompilation of 4OS2, and continues to have features of OS/2's command processor ( cmd.exe ), such as running REXX scripts, and EXTPROC support. A corresponding Take Command/32 exists for this, version 1 corresponding to 4NT 2.5. 4NT and Take Command/32 were released in both ANSI (Windows 9x) and Unicode (Windows NT) forms, with
451-415: Is used to customize the operating system for personal use. They also contain the requirements of different software application packages. A DOS system would require troubleshooting if either of these files became damaged or corrupted. If CONFIG.SYS does not contain a SHELL directive (or the file is corrupt or missing), DOS typically searches for COMMAND.COM in the root directory of the boot drive. If this
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#1732791411229492-586: The .config directory, a standardized subdirectory of the home directory. Some configuration files run a set of commands upon startup. A common convention is for such files to have " rc " in their name, typically using the name of the program then an " (.)rc " suffix e.g. " .xinitrc ", " .vimrc ", " .bashrc ", " xsane.rc ". See run commands for further details. By contrast, IBM 's AIX uses an Object Data Manager (ODM) database to store much of its system settings. MS-DOS itself primarily relied on just one configuration file, CONFIG.SYS . This
533-471: The Windows Registry , a hierarchical database to store configuration settings, which was introduced that year with Windows NT . The Property List is the standard configuration file format in macOS (as well as in iOS , NeXTSTEP , GNUstep and Cocoa applications). It uses the filename extension .plist . IBM's OS/2 uses a binary format, also with a .INI suffix, but this differs from
574-548: The syntax of their configuration files; these sometimes have graphical interfaces. For other programs, system administrators may be expected to create and modify files by hand using a text editor, which is possible because many are human-editable plain text files. For server processes and operating-system settings, there is often no standard tool, but operating systems may provide their own graphical interfaces such as YaST or debconf. Some computer programs only read their configuration files at startup . Others periodically check
615-558: The ANSI version dropped at version 5. A new Win32 program Tabbed Command Interface (TCI), was released at the time of 4NT version 7. This program allowed one to attach (thereby reducing screen clutter) and detach tabbed consoles to a single window. This program requires Windows XP or later. A new version of Take Command extends the original Tabbed Command Interface, expanded with extra windows to allow input to be composed, to graphically navigate directories and files, and extra features. 4NT
656-528: The CONFIG.SYS directive CHAIN=filespec can be used to continue processing in the named file, which does not necessarily need to reside in the root directory of the boot drive. DR-DOS 7.02 and higher optionally support an additional parameter as in CHAIN=filespec,label to jump to a specific :label in the given file. DR-DOS 7.03 and higher support a new SYS /A parameter in order to copy
697-509: The CONFIG.SYS file during the Windows boot process, loading environment variables from the Windows Registry instead: Under FlexOS , CONFIG.SYS is a binary file defining the resource managers and device drivers loaded. The system can still boot if this file is missing or corrupted. However, this file, along with AUTOEXEC.BAT , is essential for the complete bootup process to occur with the DOS operating system. These files contain information that
738-480: The JSON file format, where each entry comprises an attribute and its corresponding value. The sequence of attribute values is arbitrary, but each attribute must be unique and non-repetitive. The value assigned to each attribute aligns with the fundamental data types of JSON . HarmonyOS’ DevEco Studio provides two methods for editing config.json : the code editing view and the visual editing view. The `app` object holds
779-506: The Windows versions. It contains a list of lists of untyped key–value pairs. Two files control system-wide settings: OS2.INI and OS2SYS.INI. Application developers can choose whether to use them or to create a specific file for their applications. HarmonyOS and OpenHarmony -based operating systems uses “config.json” configuration file in the root directory of each HAP application. It contains three modules such as app , deviceConfig and Module . The config.json file adheres to
820-520: The Windows ;95 versions are made as CONFIG.W40 and AUTOEXEC.W40 files. When Caldera DR-DOS 7.02/7.03 is installed on a system already containing Windows 95, Windows' CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT retain those names. DR-DOS' startup files are installed as DCONFIG.SYS (a name already used in earlier versions of DR DOS) and AUTODOS7.BAT. OS/2 uses the CONFIG.SYS file extensively for setting up its configuration, drivers and environment before
861-406: The configuration files for changes. Users can instruct some programs to re-read the configuration files and apply the changes to the current process, or indeed to read arbitrary files as a configuration file. There are no definitive standards or strong conventions. Across Unix-like operating systems many different configuration-file formats exist, with each application or service potentially having
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#1732791411229902-508: The corresponding CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files along with the system files. FreeDOS implements a similar feature with its FDCONFIG.SYS configuration file. RxDOS 7.24 and higher use RXCONFIG.SYS instead. PTS-DOS uses CONFIG.PTS . Both CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT can be found included in the root folder of Windows 95 , and Windows 98 boot drives, as they are based on DOS. Typically, these files are left empty, with no content. Windows ME does not even parse
943-669: The default IBMBIO.COM ) and the IBMBIO.703 would look for IBMDOS.703 and [D]CONFIG.703 (instead of IBMDOS.COM and [D]CONFIG.SYS), so that multiple parallel sets of files can coexist in the same root directory and be selected via a boot-loader like LOADER, supplied with Multiuser DOS and DR-DOS 7.02/7.03. The SHELL directive is enhanced to provide means to specify alternative AUTOEXEC.BAT files via /P[:filename.ext] and in this specific scenario, COMMAND.COM will accept file extensions other than " .BAT " as well (both features are also supported by 4DOS ). Under DR DOS 6.0 and higher,
984-512: The default, it has a large number of enhancements. 4OS2 and 4NT are similar products that replace cmd.exe in OS/2 and Windows NT respectively. 4DOS is most often used as a command-line replacement for the following operating systems: Since Windows NT and Windows 2000 includes both COMMAND.COM and cmd.exe , 4DOS and 4NT and derivatives can both be installed. Earlier versions of 4OS2 can be run under Windows NT, and OS/2 can run
1025-416: The directives to be processed in a specific order (with device drivers always being loaded before TSRs), whereas DR-DOS interprets the file and executes most directives line-by-line, thereby giving full control over the load order of drivers and TSRs via DEVICE and INSTALL (for example to solve load order conflicts or to load a program debugger before a device driver to be debugged) and allowing to adapt
1066-506: The form of comments and man files are also typically used to document the format and options available. System-wide software often uses configuration files stored in /etc , while user applications often use a " dotfile " – a file or directory in the home directory prefixed with a period , which in Unix hides the file or directory from casual listing. Since this causes pollution, newer user applications generally make their own folder in
1107-443: The former F5 "skip" behaviour in order to allow recovery from problems with invalid SHELL arguments as well.) Also, if no SHELL directive could be found when skipping CONFIG.SYS processing via ( Ctrl +) F5 (and also with ( Ctrl +) F7 / F8 , when the default file extension has been changed with SYS /DR:ext ), the user is prompted to enter a valid shell file name before trying to load COMMAND.COM from
1148-479: The graphical part of the system loads. In the OS/2 subsystem of Windows NT , what appeared as CONFIG.SYS to OS/2 programs was actually stored in the registry. There are many undocumented or poorly documented CONFIG.SYS directives used by OS/2. CONFIG.SYS continues to be used by the OS/2 derivatives eComStation and ArcaOS . Configuration file Some applications provide tools to create, modify, and verify
1189-581: The length of the SHELL line was limited to 31 characters, whereas up to 128 characters are possible in later versions. DR-DOS even accepts up to 255 characters. CONFIG.SYS directives do not accept long filenames . When installing Windows 95 over a preexisting DOS/Windows install, CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT are renamed to CONFIG.DOS and AUTOEXEC.DOS. This is intended to ease dual booting between Windows 9x and DOS. When booting into DOS, they are temporarily renamed CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. Backups of
1230-404: The name of HAP package’s entrance ability. A number of general-purpose serialization formats exist that can represent complex data structures in an easily stored format, and these are often used as a basis for configuration files, particularly in open-source and platform-neutral software applications and libraries. The specifications describing these formats are routinely made available to
1271-472: The public, thus increasing the availability of parsers and emitters across programming languages. Examples include: JSON , XML , and YAML . 4DOS 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
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1312-457: The root. Pressing ↵ Enter without specifying a file will assume the former default. Depending on the version, the size of the CONFIG.SYS file is limited to a few kilobytes under MS-DOS/PC DOS (up to 64 KB in most recent versions), whereas the file's size is unlimited under DR-DOS. This is because the former operating systems (since DOS 3.0) will compile the file into some tokenized in-memory representation before they sort and regroup
1353-475: The settings under the respective device type label need to be configured. The Module object carries the HAP package configuration details, the essential attributes that each Ability must define (such as package name, class name, type, and capabilities provided by Ability), along with the permissions the application needs to access the system or other protected sections of the application. The MainAbility Indicates
1394-559: The shell was started with /P .) This also provides limited means to replace the shell at runtime without having to reboot the system. Since the MS-DOS 7.0 and higher COMMAND.COM executable is incompatible with DR-DOS, but typically resides in the root of drive C: in dual-boot scenarios with DR-DOS, DR-DOS 7.02 and higher no longer allow to bypass SHELL directives in ( Ctrl +) F5 / F7 / F8 "skip"/"trace"/"step" modes. (Some later issues added ( Ctrl +) F6 to reinvoke
1435-516: The source code is available under a modified MIT License but it "may not be used in any commercial product without written permission from Rex C. Conn" and "may not be compiled for use on any operating system other than FreeDOS " – so does not qualify as open source as defined by Open Source Initiative . The last update by JP Software was version 7.50.130, released in August 2004. During its 15-year history, 4DOS underwent numerous updates; here are
1476-726: The system. The CONFIG.SYS directives also set up the memory managers in the system. After processing the CONFIG.SYS file, DOS proceeds to load and execute the command shell specified in the SHELL line of CONFIG.SYS, or COMMAND.COM if there is no such line. The command shell in turn is responsible for processing the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. CONFIG.SYS is composed mostly of name=value directives which look like variable assignments. In fact, these will either define some tunable parameters often resulting in reservation of memory, or load files, mostly device drivers and terminate-and-stay-resident programs (TSRs), into memory. In DOS, CONFIG.SYS
1517-501: The two DOS and Windows NT shells, all three can be used on Windows NT-type machines and OS/2 multiple boot machines. Among the many commands, statements and functions in 4DOS and lacking in DOS/Windows 95–98 COMMAND.COM are reading keyboard input and a simpler method of working with colors of screen and text. The default file extension for 4DOS scripts is .btm. A graphical version of 4DOS, 4OS2, and 4NT, called Take Command ,
1558-431: The universal configuration details for the application, as demonstrated in the config.json configuration file of HarmonyOS's foundational application. DeviceConfig encompasses the configuration details for specific devices, including default, Phone, Tablet, PC, TV, Car, Wearable, liteWearable, and smartVision. The settings under the default label apply to all devices. If there are unique requirements for other devices,
1599-450: The user interaction and change the flow through the file based on conditions like processor types installed, any type of keys pressed, load or input errors occurring, or return codes given by loaded software. This becomes particularly useful since INSTALL can also be used to run non-resident software under DR-DOS, so that temporary external programs can be integrated into the CONFIG.SYS control flow. In MS-DOS/PC DOS 2.0 through 4.01,
1640-411: Was a plain text file with simple key–value pairs (e.g. DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS\ANSI.SYS ) until MS-DOS 6, which introduced an INI-file style format. There was also a standard plain text batch file named AUTOEXEC.BAT that ran a series of commands on boot . Both these files were retained up to Windows 98SE , which still ran on top of MS-DOS. An example CONFIG.SYS for MS-DOS 5: DOS applications used
1681-431: Was released with a feature set corresponding to version 4DOS 5.5, 4OS2, and 4NT 2.5 and updated after this. Development on this line stopped with the corresponding text mode versions. There was a graphical program Take Command/16 , for Windows 3.1. 4OS2 is a similar replacement for IBM's OS/2 command interpreter. This was first released at the same time as 4DOS version 4, and has a similar feature set. Like 4DOS, this