Isn't DOS included in every version of Windows?
No. Non x86 versions of windows cannot seem to format a system disk from a floppy. (at least from the prompt, the /s switch for the format command now enables or disables short file name generation). I don't have a floppy disk to test, though. Actually looking back it seems like none of the NT lineage provides either a /S switch or a sys command for creating a system disk from the prompt.
If you format a floppy disk, for instance and ask for it to be made bootable, have you not just taken some of DOS off of the PC?
At least a small part of it is and will go wherever that disk goes.
Yes. But what is your point? The EULA for most software states you can install the program on a computer and has provisions for a portable, non-permanent installation of it. testing via a XP vm, format.com, at least since XP, does not support the /s switch, and there is no sys command to copy to said floppy either, making the floppy created from the SHFormatDrive() function nothing more than a portable boot disk. it cannot, however, be permanently installed to another machine using the facilities provided either by copying files from the original system or provided on the disk (which only has three files, iirc)
The DOS Setup floppies, on the other hand, are designed specifically for installing it onto the hard drive of a machine.
So I'm just wondering how much DOS a person really needs that they couldn't get from their own PC.
Well, since XP (probably any NT windows system) and later only allow you to create a bootable floppy which can not then be installed to another hard drive, if all a person wants to do is use internal commands on FAT disks, without installing from that floppy, than it's all there. Of course, the DOS package consists of more than msdos.sys, io.sys, and command.com, but also external utilities like find, more, sort, edit, qbasic, scandisk/chkdsk, format, sys, deltree, mscdex, diskcopy, comp, fc, diskcomp, etc.
Of course for 9x it's a bit difference since you could create a working DOS environment on another machine by copying files from the C:\Windows\command folder and using sys on that other drive.
But, just because a Operating System gives you the first step in such a process (creating a boot disk) doesn't mean that it is condoning the extension of that allowance to "permission" to supplant those files to a completely different system.
I wouldn't even think of asking someone else for DOS. I told you this was a Dumb question?
With the exception that, unless you have rather old, 9x systems, that copy of DOS is going to stay on the floppy since it doesn't provide the capability to make other disks system disks via format /s or the sys command- the DOS version of the boot disk is Windows ME iirc but Windows no longer has a C:\Windows\Command directory from which you could copy files; If somebody has Win9x then it's possible to transplant the underlying DOS system from that system to another, but that applies to Windows itself, too, which could meticulously be copied and reconstructed on another system. However to my understanding there is no provision that being able to move software using a floppy disk made it public domain.
