You "know your DOS stuff", yet you're expecting something intended for batch files to work directly from the command prompt? I know more than most at least, I was just trying to state that I do have experience. I tried it in a BAT file and had the same result. Still, SET and ECHO should work …

Very strange error. I searched everywhere, and I know my DOS stuff so I think it's a bug. This is what i do to get the error... SET VAR=HELLO ECHO %VAR% ...and the resulting echo is simply %VAR% instead of HELLO. I am making a little menu in my DOSBox to launch my games (a distro of freeware games …