MS-DOS Shell Leaves Temporary Files on Hard Drive (77458)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 5.0
  • Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 5.0a
  • Microsoft MS-DOS operating system 6.0
This article was previously published under Q77458

SUMMARY

Temporary files remain in the designated temporary directory when the computer is shut off or rebooted while applications are still active in MS-DOS Shell. If Shell is not active, these temporary files may be deleted.

MORE INFORMATION

The names of the temporary files depend on the Shell setup. If Task Swapper is enabled,the temporary files are named:

XXXXDOSC.BAT

where XXXX is a system generated hexadecimal string.

The number of temporary files remaining depends on the number of tasks running at the time of the power down or reboot. These files must be deleted manually.

If Task Swapper is not enabled, the following two temporary files remain:

DOSSHELL.SWP
C3BDOSCM.BAT

These files are deleted the next time Shell is invoked.

In both cases, the temporary files are located in either the directory specified in the AUTOEXEC.BAT

set temp=[drive spec]\[directory name]

line or in the DOS directory if SET TEMP=[drive spec]\[directory name] is not used.

The contents of the file C3BDOSCM.BAT or XXXXDOSC.BAT are the commands used to invoke the application. For example, if MS-DOS Editor was invoked for the file AUTOEXEC.BAT, the contents of the generated batch file would be as follows:

@EDIT AUTOEXEC.BAT

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:10/13/2003
Keywords:KB77458
©2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.