The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):
CONFIG.SYS
A text file containing special system
configuration commands, found in the root directory on an
MS-DOS computer, typically on drive C (the hard disk). It
is read by MS-DOS at boot time, after the setup has been read
from CMOS RAM and before running AUTOEXEC.BAT. It can be
modified by the user.
Some example commands which CONFIG.SYS might contain are:
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS /testmem:off
Load the extended memory manager.
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE RAM
Load the expanded memory manager.
BUFFERS=10,0
Specify memory for disk buffers.
FILES=70
Set the number of files that can be open at once.
DOS=UMB
DOS is located in UppeMemoryBlock.
LASTDRIVE=Z
Disk drives are A: to Z:.
FCBS=16,0
Set the number of file control blocks.
DEVICEHIGH /L:1,12048 =C:\DOS\SETVER.EXE
Report the DOS version to older programs.
DOS=HIGH
DOS should maintain a link to UMB.
COUNTRY=358,437 C:\DOS\COUNTRY.SYS
Set the country code for some programs.
STACKS=9,256
Set dynamic stacks for hardware control.
SHELL=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\DOS\ /E:1024 /p
Set the location of the command interpreter.
(1995-03-16)