- MSCDEX
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"Microsoft CD-ROM Extensions" redirects here. For Microsoft's extension to the ISO 9660 format, see Joliet (file system).
MSCDEX or Microsoft MS-DOS CD-ROM Extensions is a software program produced by Microsoft and included with MS-DOS 6.x and certain versions of Microsoft Windows[1]. Earlier versions of MSCDEX were installable add-ons beginning with MSDOS 3.1[2]
It is a driver executable which allows DOS programs to recognize, read, and control CD-ROMs. This requires the previous loading of an appropriate CD-ROM device driver (example: oakcdrom.sys), usually from CONFIG.SYS. The program was used up until Windows 95 when it was replaced by the 32-bit version CDFS.
The final version of the MSCDEX program was 2.23.
The driver uses the Microsoft Networks interface in MS-DOS. Which is the reason that at least v3.1 of MS-DOS is required. The driver essentially looks like a network drive from the system perspective. It's implemented as a TSR program. [3]
There's a free alternative called SHSUCDX that is used with the IDE/ATA driver UIDE.SYS first released in 2005 [4] that is often used with FreeDOS and works with MS-DOS as well.
References
External links
- Command-Line Switches for MSCDEX.EXE
- MS-DOS CD-ROM Extensions 2.2 Information Pack (self-extracting archive, includes Microsoft MS-DOS CD-ROM Extensions Hardware-Dependent Device Driver Specification)
- Examples of use in CONFIG.SYS
Categories:- Microsoft Windows stubs
- Windows components
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