End of MS-DOS
Since the release of Windows 95 up until Windows NT, it was segregrated as a full product used for bootstrapping, troubleshooting, and backwards-compatibility with old DOS games and no longer released as a standalone product.
Windows XP contains a copy of the Windows Me boot disk, stripped down to bootstrap only. This is accessible only by formatting a floppy as an "MS-DOS startup disk". Files like the driver for the CD-ROM support were deleted from the Windows ME bootdisk and the startup files (AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS) no longer had a content. This modified disk was the base for creating the MS-DOS image for Windows XP. Some of the deleted files can be recovered with an undelete tool. With Windows Vista the files on the startup disk are dated 18 April 2005 but are otherwise unchanged, including the string "MS-DOS Version 8 © Copyright 1981-1999 Microsoft Corp" inside COMMAND.COM.
However the only versions of DOS currently recognized as stand-alone OSs, and supported as such by the Microsoft Corporation are DOS 6.0 and 6.22, both of which remain available for download via their MSDN, volume license, and OEM license partner websites, for customers with valid login credentials.
MS-DOS is still used in embedded x86 systems due to its simple architecture and minimal memory and processor requirements. The command line interpreter of NT-based versions of Windows, cmd.exe, maintains most of the same commands and some compatibility with DOS batch files.
Read more about this topic: MS-DOS