Loading FreeDOSshell directly as a DOS shell FreeDOSshell can be loaded directly over the DOS kernel without the command interpreter in memory. Below are instructions how to do it. About STSHELL.COM STSHELL.COM is the "bootloader" that loads FreeDOSShell directly on top of the DOS kernel. It does the following: 1. First the command interpreter is called to run AUTOEXEC.BAT. 2. Then a file named ENVS.TXT is searched in the root directory of the system partition. If the file is found, the environment variables are read from that file and saved to the memory. 3. Finally the FreeDOSshell program is started. The STSHELL.COM will be overwritten in the memory. Using SHELL.PTH SHELL.PTH is the configuration file for STSHELL.COM. It must contain three lines. The first line must contain a full path to a command interpreter. The second line must contain command line arguments that are passed to the command interpreter. The third line must contain path to the directory where FreeDOSshell is. Example of SHELL.PTH: C:\COMMAND.COM /E:1024 /C C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT C:\FDSHELL\ Using STSHELL.COM 1. Move STSHELL.COM to the root directory of your system partition. 2. Edit the SHELL variable in your CONFIG.SYS or FDCONFIG.SYS. It must point to the STSHELL.COM executable, for example: SHELL=C:\STSHELL.COM 3. You may also want to add the line "SET > ENVS.TXT" to the end of your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. That ensures that every environment variable is passed to FreeDOSshell.