This post was most recently updated on December 11th, 2018
The 11 MS-DOS commands
that return errorlevels and
what those errorlevels mean!
| Command: | Errorlevel | MS-DOS version | MEANING: |
| —- | —— | — | ————— |
| BACKUP | 0 | 3.2+ | The backup was successful. |
| 1 | “ | No files were found to back up. | |
| 2 | “ | Some files were not backed up because of file-sharing conflicts. | |
| 3 | “ | The user pressed CTRL+C to stop the process. | |
| 4 | “ | The process stopped because of an error. | |
| DISKCOMP | 0 | 4.01+ | The disks are the same. |
| 1 | “ | Differences were found. | |
| 2 | “ | The user pressed CTRL+C to stop the process. | |
| 3 | “ | A hard error occurred. | |
| 4 | “ | An initialization error occurred. | |
| DISKCOPY | 0 | 4.01+ | The copy operation was successful. |
| 1 | “ | A nonfatal read/write error occurred. | |
| 2 | “ | The user pressed CTRL+C to stop the process. | |
| 3 | “ | A fatal hard error occurred, unable to read | |
| the source disk or format the target disk. | |||
| 4 | “ | An initialization error occurred. There is not | |
| enough memory – invalid drives or command line | |||
| syntax. | |||
| FIND | 0 | 6.0 | At least one occurence has been found. |
| 1 | “ | No occurence has been found. | |
| 2 | “ | The search was not completed, due to break or | |
| error. | |||
| FORMAT | 0 | 3.2+ | The format operation was successful. |
| 3 | “ | The user pressed CTRL+C to stop the process. | |
| 4 | “ | A fatal error occurred (any error other than | |
| 0,3, or 5) | |||
| 5 | “ | The user pressed N in response to the prompt | |
| “Proceed with Format (Y/N)?” to stop the process. | |||
| GRAFTABL | 0 | 4.01+ | Character set was loaded successfully; no |
| previous code page was loaded. | |||
| 1 | “ | Character set was already loaded and replaced by new table. | |
| 2 | “ | A file error occurred. | |
| 3 | “ | An incorrect parameter was specified; no action was taken. | |
| 4 | “ | An incorrect version of MS-DOS is in use; | |
| version 5.0 is required. | |||
| KEYB | 0 | 5.0+ | Keyboard definition file was loaded successfully. |
| 1 | “ | Invalid keyboard code, code page, or syntax | |
| was used. | |||
| 2 | “ | Keyboard definition file is bad or missing. | |
| 4 | “ | An error occurred while communicating with the CON device. | |
| 5 | “ | The requested code page has not been prepared. | |
| REPLACE | 0 | 4.01+ | Replace successfully replaced or added the files. |
| 1 | “ | Command line error. | |
| 2 | 3.2+ | Replace could not find the source files. | |
| 3 | “ | Replace could not find the source or destination path. | |
| 5 | “ | The user does not have access to the files you want to replace. | |
| 8 | “ | There is insufficient system memory to carry out the command. | |
| 11 | “ | The user used the wrong syntax on the command line. | |
| 15 | 4.01 | Invalid drive. | |
| Other | “ | Standard MS-DOS error. | |
| RESTORE | 0 | 3.2+ | Restore successfully restored the file or files. |
| 1 | “ | Restore could not find the files to restore. | |
| 2 | 3.2 | Some files not restored due to sharing conflicts. | |
| 3 | 3.2+ | he user pressed CTRL+C to stop the restoring operation. | |
| 4 | “ | Restore stopped because of an error. | |
| = | = | = | = |
| SETVER | 0 | 5 Only | Setver successfully completed its task. |
| 1 | “ | The user specified an invalid command switch. | |
| 2 | “ | The user specified an invalid filename. | |
| 3 | “ | There is insufficient system memory to carry out the command. | |
| 4 | “ | The user specified an invalid version-number format. | |
| 5 | “ | Setver could not find the specified entry in | |
| the version table. | |||
| 6 | “ | Setver could not find the SETVER.EXE file. | |
| 7 | “ | The user specified an invalid drive. | |
| 8 | “ | The user specified too many command-line parameters. | |
| 9 | “ | Setver detected missing command-line parameters. | |
| 10 | “ | Setver detected an error while reading the SETVER.EXE file. | |
| 11 | “ | The SETVER.EXE file is corrupt. | |
| 12 | “ | The specified SETVER.EXE file does not support a version table. | |
| 13 | “ | There is insufficient space in the version table for a new entry. | |
| 14 | “ | Setver detected an error while writing to the SETVER.EXE file. | |
| XCOPY | 0 | 4.01+ | Files were copied without error. |
| 1 | “ | No files were found to copy. | |
| 2 | 4.01 | Control+C entered by user to terminate xcopy. | |
| 3 | 5.0 | The user pressed CTRL+C to terminate xcopy. | |
| 4 | 4.01+ | Initialization error occurred. There is not enough memory or disk space, or you entered an invalid drive name or invalid syntax on< the command line. | |
| 5 | 4.01 | Int 24 error occurred. The user aborted from INT 24 error reading or writing disk. | |
| 5 | 5.0 | Disk write error occurred. |