HWiNFO for DOS

Windows users who prefer the command-line interface to the graphical environment might be interested in a simple and straightforward system information viewer that can only run on DOS.

HWiNFO for DOS is a tool specifically designed for the DOS environment, made by the same developer of HWiNFO32 and HWiNFO64. However, if you run a modern Windows edition, you can run it successfully in DosBox.

The menu bar of HWiNFO for DOS contains info, test and setup options. Mainboard information includes the main processor, bus type, mainboard model and chipset, along with the first and second level cache.

You can also find out the system and extended memory size, shadow and special RAM size, machine type, computer name, and BIOS manufacturer. Meanwhile, video-related details surround the chipset, card, memory size, card bus, RAMDAC, BIOS manufacturer and version, together with VESA support.

HWiNFO for DOS is capable of revealing the controller and type of each connected device, IRQ and DMA assignment details (e.g. system timer, floppy disk, primary IDE channel). It facilitates options for testing the CPU errata.

As far as configuration settings are concerned, you can pick the method used for resetting the CPU, use TSC to calculate the CPU frequency, check the 3Com EtherLink III or Tulip NCC16 network adapter, as well as check the PCMCIA feature, video RAMDAT and keyboard controller manufacturer. The tool can be asked to detect the BIOS flash memory and to skip advanced ATAPI information and PnP BIOS calls.

The software application showed accurate information in our tests while remaining light on system resources usage. However, it took a long time to load system information.

All aspects considered, HWiNFO for DOS offers a straightforward solution for inspecting system information in DOS. Unfortunately, it will not receive any further updates.