SELECT was introduced in IBM PC DOS 3.0, along with internationalisation support, and made available in MS-DOS starting with version 3.3.

Its purpose is to create a bootable disk with support for a given country code and keyboard layout. The syntax, starting with version 3.2, is

SELECT [[drive1:] drive2:[path]] country keyboard

wheredrive1 is the source drive (A by default),drive2 the destination drive (B by default),country is one of the supported country codes (033 for France, 049 for Germany — West Germany at the time — etc.), andkeyboard is one of the available keyboards (FR,GR etc.).

This was effectively the installation procedure for floppy-based versions of DOS, outside the US: prepare a blank floppy, boot with DOS disk 1, and runSELECT with the appropriate country and keyboard code. This would result in a usable DOS disk, with all the contents of DOS disk 1, and a correctly-configured keyboard as soon as the system was booted.

Version 3.0 and 3.1 ofSELECT useDISKCOPY to copy the source disk to the destination disk, formatting the latter if necessary. Version 3.2 and 3.3 useFORMAT andXCOPY instead; version 3.3 supports hard drives (although runningFDISK is left as an exercise for the user, before runningSELECT). In both cases, the destination disk is erased, and all the contents of the source disk are copied, not only the files required to support the desired country and keyboard. In version 3.2, if the source disk doesn’t include theKEYBxx file required for the desired keyboard, the user is prompted to instead the disk containing it. All versions then write an appropriateCONFIG.SYS andAUTOEXEC.BAT to the target disk, containing respectively

COUNTRY=<country>

(adding theCOUNTRY.SYS path too if necessary), and

PATH ...KEYB...ECHO OFFDATETIMEVER

The default path (PATH above) depends on the installation path (the second parameter).

In version 4.0 of PC DOS and MS-DOS,SELECT became an interactive installation tool, which was started automatically from the installation disk (or the “Select” disk on 5.25” disk sets).

In version 5.0 of PC DOS and MS-DOS, the setup program was renamed toSETUP.EXE and introduced support for upgrading DOS. This is whereDELOLDOS comes from: when upgrading,SETUP would createDELOLDOS, which could be used to undo the upgrade, restoring the previous version of DOS (and its boot sector etc.).

There appears to have been another version ofSELECT, written by Karl D. Wright for Phoenix Technologies, and included in at least some OEM versions of MS-DOS 3.2; a quick look through it suggests it does the same thing as the “official”SELECT.

According toThe MS-DOS Encyclopedia,SELECT was available in PC DOS 2.0, but my PC DOS 2 disks don’t have it and there wouldn’t have been much use for it on PC DOS 2 which didn’t have either theCOUNTRY statement or theKEYBxx commands.

• Good answer, as usual. I do think I remember PC-DOS 2 already having select - that would be the version with fixed disk drives (Source A:, destination B:)

  Raffzahn

  – Raffzahn

  2020-09-07 07:57:25 +00:00

  CommentedSep 7, 2020 at 7:57
• According to my documentation (including the PC DOS manuals), DOS 2 didn’t have it, 3.0 added it, and 3.0 and 3.1 had fixed drive selections. See page 7-162 ofthe PC DOS 3.10 Reference (I can’t find the 3.0 manual online).

  Stephen Kitt

  – Stephen Kitt

  2020-09-07 08:17:41 +00:00

  CommentedSep 7, 2020 at 8:17
• • List of country codes (001 for United States):manmrk.net/tutorials/DOS/help/country.htm • List of keyboards (US for United States):manmrk.net/tutorials/DOS/help/keyb.htm

  calamari

  – calamari

  2025-09-23 02:14:16 +00:00

  CommentedSep 23 at 2:14

TL;DR;

Where did this SELECT command come from?

PC-DOS

What did it do?

Install DOS on a blank drive as a complete bootdrive including language/country specific files.

Was this a real command at all?

Yes.

Long story:

SELECT was essentially like aFORMAT /S, which also copies necessary files likeKEYBGR for German keyboard orCOUNTRY.SYS and creates fittingAUTOEXEC.BAT andCONFIG.SYS with appropriate settings for keyboard and display.

To my memorySELECT was only available for IBM's PC-DOS and only worked from diskette drives, withA: hard coded as source for all files andB: as destination.

Later PC-DOS (3?) versions allowed the selection of source and destination drive, so it could be used for hard disk install. Again later, the fixed function utility controlled by command line was replaced by an interactive installer of the same name, to be finally (DOS 6?) replaced bySETUP.

This installer / SETUP was also what broughtDELOLDOS, as only they did copy any previous DOS installation on the target drive into a folder calledOLD_DOS.DELOLDOS checked if that folder is to be found on the logged drive. If yes, it deleted the folder and in turn itself. So usually hard to find - especially if someone used it on a system :)

• "To my memory select was only available for IBM's PC-DOS and only worked from diskette drives, with A: hard coded as source for all files and B: as destination." -- according to the website I linked below, it was available for MS DOS as well, and the MS DOS version allowed you to specify the drives and did allow a fixed disk as destination.

  Michael Graf

  – Michael Graf

  2020-09-06 21:55:49 +00:00

  CommentedSep 6, 2020 at 21:55
• @MichaelGraf That page does not specify which MS-DOS version did offer it first, and what version did offer which functionality. As such it doesn't contradict my memory. PC-DOS had it prior to MS-DOS, and HD support was only added later on. (Reading in full also helps to understand what has been said)

  Raffzahn

  – Raffzahn

  2020-09-06 21:59:37 +00:00

  CommentedSep 6, 2020 at 21:59

Quoting theDEW Associates MS DOS support site from 1998: SELECT "formats a disk and installs country-specific information and keyboard codes."

This is relevant only when you want to boot from a floppy disk. SYS would make this disk bootable, but not copy the configuration files, which you would then have to copy by hand. SELECT does this for you.

By the time MS DOS 6.22 came around, this use case was pretty much nonexistent; everyone was booting from hard disks. The website above notes that "in DOS Version 6, this command is stored on the DOS supplemental disk", which may be why you couldn't find it; or maybe it was removed altogether.

• As far as I can tell,SELECT disappeared in DOS 5, even from the supplemental disks.

  Stephen Kitt

  – Stephen Kitt

  2020-09-07 07:43:13 +00:00

  CommentedSep 7, 2020 at 7:43
• The functionality of SELECT was incorporated into some SETUP versions. DOS 5 did not have supplemental disks. This is a feature of MS-DOS 6 and PC-DOS 7. Up to then they issued CSD (corrective service disks), or downloadable patches.

  wendy.krieger

  – wendy.krieger

  2020-11-21 10:05:23 +00:00

  CommentedNov 21, 2020 at 10:05
• @Wendy I have a three-disk OEM MS-DOS 5 set where the third disk is labeled as “supplemental”; that’s what I was referring to. (And no, it’s not the third disk in the standard 3.5” DD distribution; this is a 3.5” HD distribution.)

  Stephen Kitt

  – Stephen Kitt

  2021-12-25 19:23:25 +00:00

  CommentedDec 25, 2021 at 19:23
• @StephenKitt OEMs were known to feed various utilities like 'park' and alternate file managers / menus / utilities / help files into a 'supplemental' disk or a disk named something like GWBASIC. It's not standard thing you could download from MSFT.

  wendy.krieger

  – wendy.krieger

  2021-12-26 12:40:25 +00:00

  CommentedDec 26, 2021 at 12:40
• @Wendy like I said, Iam referring to the kind of supplemental disk provided by OEMs, since those sometimes included utilities that Microsoft had removed from the corresponding “official” DOS release (hence their relevance to this Q&A, since one might have foundSELECT there after Microsoft removed it). I never mentioned downloading anything from Microsoft.

  Stephen Kitt

  – Stephen Kitt

  2021-12-26 13:10:12 +00:00

  CommentedDec 26, 2021 at 13:10

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