How to install FreeDOS

Select a few options and you're on your way to installing FreeDOS.

These days, installing FreeDOS takes only a few steps. Especially with the later FreeDOS distributions and the completely rewritten install program and FDIMPLES as the package manager, installing FreeDOS is meant to be easy. At a high level, these steps are:

1. Download the installer you want to use
2. Boot your computer with the installer
3. Follow the prompts to install FreeDOS

You can install FreeDOS on any computer with an Intel-compatible CPU (like a Pentium) and a legacy BIOS. If your computer uses UEFI, check if you can boot the computer in "Legacy" or "Compatibility" mode, which should emulate a BIOS that FreeDOS can use.

If your computer meets these requirements, here are the steps to install FreeDOS:

1. Download the installer you want to use

Visit the FreeDOS Downloads page on our website to download an installer that matches your needs. We provide several installers:

If you are installing on a virtual machine, we recommend the LiveCD. This is a bootable CD-ROM image that provides a small version of FreeDOS (plus a few apps) that you can run without installing anything. Or you can use the LiveCD to install a full version of FreeDOS. You can also use the LiveCD to install FreeDOS on early 2000s hardware that also has a CD-ROM drive.

If you are installing on real hardware, such as systems made after about 2010 that don't have a CD-ROM drive but can boot from USB, use the FullUSB or LiteUSB. These are "image" files that you can write to a USB flash drive, then boot your computer with it to install FreeDOS.

If you are installing on older hardware made before about 2000 that doesn't support USB, then you should try the LegacyCD. This is the same version of FreeDOS as the LiveCD, but uses a different boot method that should work on older computers.

If you are installing on a classic computer such as a '286 or older that only supports floppy disks, use the Floppy Edition. This provides floppy disk "images" that you can use to install FreeDOS on any old-style computer, including the original PC, PC-XT, and PC-AT.

2. Boot your computer with the installer

If you are installing FreeDOS on a virtual machine such as QEMU or VirtualBox, configure the virtual machine to use the LiveCD as the CD-ROM drive. The virtual machine can boot from this image.

If you are installing FreeDOS on real hardare, note that you cannot just copy these install "images" to media. Instead, you'll need to write them to physical media using an "image writer" program:

• To write the LiveCD or LegacyCD to a CD-ROM, use your favorite CD-R writer program.
• To write the FullUSB or LiteUSB image to a flash drive, use a program like Rufus.
• To write the floppy disk images to floppy disks, use a program like RAWRITE.

Once you've written the installer image, boot from that media. You should see the boot menu. Select the Install to harddisk menu item to start the installer.

Follow the prompts to install FreeDOS

The rest of the install process should take care of itself. Follow the prompts to install FreeDOS. The general overview of the process is:

The installer will create a DOS partition, if needed. The installer will then reboot the system. This is because FreeDOS (like any DOS) reads the disk partition information once at boot-time, so it needs to reboot to recognize the new partition.

The installer will format the partition. This will create a DOS filesystem on the new drive.

The installer will prompt you for what you want to install. You can choose to install just a plain DOS system that only contains the basic components of FreeDOS, or you can install everything including applications and games. You can always use FDIMPLES later to remove packages or install other packages, such as from the BonusCD.

Congratulations, you've installed FreeDOS!