Computer Operating System Questions and Answers

Answer: C

Correct answer: Logical, Extended, Primary

Partitions must be removed from the inside outwards: the logical drives live inside the extended partition, so they go first; the now-empty extended partition can then be deleted; and the primary partition last. FDISK refuses any other order.

Answer: A

Correct answer: TYPE filename | MORE

TYPE writes the file to the screen without stopping, so its output is piped into the MORE filter, which pauses at the end of each screenful until a key is pressed. CAT and pg are Unix commands, not DOS ones.

Answer: C

Correct answer: SCANDISK

SCANDISK checks both the logical structure of a drive - the file allocation table, directory entries, lost clusters and cross-linked files - and, with a surface scan, the physical media, and it works on DoubleSpace compressed drives as well as ordinary ones. DEFRAG only rearranges files.

Answer: A

Correct answer: DIR

DIR lists the files and subdirectories of the current directory, with their sizes and dates. Its switches control the format: /W for a wide listing, /P to pause each screenful, /S to include subdirectories.

Answer: C

Correct answer: MOVE

MOVE transfers a file to another directory in one step, deleting the original after the copy succeeds. Before it existed the same thing took a COPY followed by a DEL; CP is the Unix command.

Answer: A

Correct answer: warm

A warm boot restarts DOS without cutting the power - Ctrl + Alt + Del - so the memory test and much of the hardware initialisation are skipped and the machine comes back sooner. A cold boot starts from power-off and runs the whole self-test.

Answer: D

Correct answer: /T

DIR accepts /P to pause by screenful, /W for a wide listing, /S to descend into subdirectories, and switches for sorting and attributes. There is no /T switch.

Answer: A

Correct answer: CMOS

A virus infects things that are read as programs or as file data - the boot sector, program files, the contents of floppies. The CMOS holds only the setup values (date, drive types, boot order) and is never executed, so a virus has nothing to infect there.

Answer: B

Correct answer: terminate and stay resident program

A TSR returns control to DOS but leaves its code in memory, normally with an interrupt vector pointing into it, so it can be re-entered by a hot key or by the hardware event it services. It was the only way to get background behaviour out of a single-tasking system.

Answer: D

Correct answer: it’s a CD-ROM DOS driver

MSCDEX.EXE is the Microsoft CD-ROM Extensions: loaded from AUTOEXEC.BAT, it gives the CD-ROM a drive letter and supplies the file system for it, working with the hardware driver loaded earlier from CONFIG.SYS.