Microsoft Corp is of course late with the 5.0 release of MS-DOS, but a glimpse under the hood is provided by The PC Configuration Handbook by John Woram, published by Bantam, Microbytes Daily reports: the book reveals that some of the biggest changes involve memory management, where a new Himem utility enables most of the operating system to be loaded into the high memory area of extended memory on 80286 systems up – and it can save even more memory with a new LoadHigh command, by loading TSRs, device drivers, and other programs into the memory block between 640Kb and 1Mb; a new help system calls to the screen a brief summary of any MS-DOS command when you type /? after a command; Norton will be discomfited that there are several utilities for restoring files accidentally deleted and for rebuilding disks; there are also enhancements to directories and subdirectories and it should be easier to install than earlier releases have been – and EdLin is replaced by a full-screen ASCII editor; MS-DOS 5.0 is now promised for first quarter 1991.
