Important Notice
The pages on this site contain documentation for very old MS-DOS software,
purely for historical purposes.
If you're looking for up-to-date documentation, particularly for programming,
you should not rely on the information found here, as it will be woefully
out of date.
COUNTRY--Notes
◄Examples► ◄Syntax►
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
COUNTRY──Notes
Changing default settings
MS-DOS uses the United States as the default setting. You can use the
COUNTRY command in your CONFIG.SYS file to change the setting.
If you do not specify the location and name of the file containing
country-specific information, MS-DOS tries to find the COUNTRY.SYS file in
the root directory of your startup drive.
Specifying supported languages
The following table lists each country or language supported by MS-DOS. The
table also lists the character sets you can use with each country code. For
example, if you use country code 003, you can use only character set 437 or
850 for the yyy parameter. The first of the two character sets listed for
each country or language is its default character set.
Country or language Country Character sets
code
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Belgium 032 850, 437
Brazil 055 850, 437
Canadian-French 002 863, 850
Croatia 038 852, 850
Czech Republic 042 852, 850
Denmark 045 850, 865
Finland 358 850, 437
France 033 850, 437
Germany 049 850, 437
Hungary 036 852, 850
International 061 437, 850
English
Italy 039 850, 437
Latin America 003 850, 437
Netherlands 031 850, 437
Norway 047 850, 865
Poland 048 852, 850
Portugal 351 850, 860
Serbia/Yugoslavia 038 852, 850
Slovakia 042 852, 850
Slovenia 038 852, 850
Spain 034 850, 437
Sweden 046 437, 850
Switzerland 041 850, 437
United Kingdom 044 437, 850
United States 001 437, 850
Character sets for the following countries or languages are also available
with special versions of MS-DOS: Arabic, Israel, Japan, Korea, People's
Republic of China, and Taiwan.
Specifying international time and date formats
The country code specifies the time and date formats used by the following
MS-DOS commands: BACKUP, DATE, RESTORE, and TIME.
The following table lists the date and time formats related to each country
code. For each country code, the "Date format" column shows how MS-DOS
displays January 3, 1993, and the "Time format" column shows how MS-DOS
displays 5:35 P.M. (with 0 seconds and 0 hundredths of a second).
Country or language Country Date Time format
code format
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Belgium 032 23/01/1993 17:35:00
Brazil 055 23/01/1993 17:35:00
Canadian-French 002 1993-01-23 17:35:00
Czechoslovakia 042 1993-01-23 17:35:00
Denmark 045 23-01-1993 17.35.00
Finland 358 23.01.1993 17.35.00
France 033 23.01.1993 17:35:00
Germany 049 23.01.1993 17:35:00
Hungary 036 1993-01-23 17:35:00
International 061 23-01-1993 5:35:00.00p
English
Italy 039 23/01/1993 17.35.00
Latin America 003 23/01/1993 5:35:00.00p
Netherlands 031 23-01-1993 17:35:00
Norway 047 23.01.1993 17:35:00
Poland 048 1993-01-23 17:35:00
Portugal 351 23-01-1993 17:35:00
Spain 034 23/01/1993 17:35:00
Sweden 046 1993-01-23 17.35.00
Switzerland 041 23.01.1993 17,35,00
United Kingdom 044 23/01/1993 17:35:00.00
United States 001 01-23-1993 5:35:00.00p
Yugoslavia 038 1993-01-23 17:35:00
Character sets for the following countries or languages are also available
with special versions of MS-DOS: Arabic, Israel, Japan, Korea, People's
Republic of China, and Taiwan.
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