These changes also affect the bundled Norton applications.

In these modes, Norton does not use a custom character set, so icons and other UI symbols are not visible.

Other than speed, and consistency with the other Norton applications, Norton Desktop for DOS uses character cell text video modes rather than bit mapped graphics for full backwards compatibility with all IBM PC computers. This even includes the text-only IBM Monochrome Display Adapter, as well as IBM CGA, and Hercules Monographics.

In the preferences, you can set Norton Desktop to use a Norton Commander style appearance.

In this  mode, a simulated DOS prompt appears in the background. You can also activate the simulated DOS prompt in normal desktop mode.

Norton Desktop includes an extensive help system, an interactive tutorial.

Although it is another advanced option, you may edit the drop down menus, and add entries to external applications. (Insert Windows 8 joke here)

Exiting Norton Desktop for DOS.

The "Shutdown" option, when enabled will automatically run one or more Norton tools - such as speed disk - before exiting to DOS. Most IBM PC compatibles from this time period did not power down using software.

In conclusion, Norton Desktop for DOS provides a nice robust file manager with many tools and utilities at your disposal. However, the size and memory usage make it less than ideal for use a simple menu shell, especially on 8088/286 hardware. And it does a decent job of replicating Macintosh style file-managment using text mode, but the lack of visual metaphors hurts the usability a bit.