The world of MS-DOS-compatible operating systems moves slowly enough that most of this information is still relevant; FreeDOS was at version 1.1 back in 2014, and it’s on version 1.3 now.

Windows 1.0 was Microsoft’s first attempt to create a graphical user interface for MS-DOS. Technically, it was not a fundamentally new system, but only a graphical shell that ran on top of MS-DOS. But ...

In later years DOS provided the foundation for early versions of Microsoft Windows, the company’s first operating system with a graphical user interface.

Despite its age, Word for Windows hews closer to modern user interfaces. It’s successor, the DOS-based, mouse-enabled version or Microsoft Word launched in 1983.

And having started out with edlin on DOS, vim is comparably a wonder of user friendliness Sure I never use more than probably 0.5 % of the features in Vim, but the ones I need work ...

The user interface in the first versions of Windows. The MS-DOS Executive was superseded by Program Manager and File Manager in Windows 3.0. See Windows 1.0. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY.

Windows 1.0 was Microsoft's attempt at a friendlier, mouse-based user interface, one that let you switch between several programs simultaneously, and without having to quit and restart each one.

While I can't claim to have read all the books currently available on the subject of DOS, the best of those I've looked at are Using PC DOS, 2d ed. (1988), MS-DOS User's Guide, 3d ed. (1988), and DOS ...