lots of dos questions

first off I am a newbie at C++ and I am programming a dos program and I need to know a couple of stuff I can't figure out.
1. how do you open applications
2. how do you get system information
3. some fun ideas to put in it like openning the cd drive

I think that is it. I need to know where to find good tutorials about C++ dos programming, and if anyone is willing to teach me can someone msn me at URL

1)check out the other thread in this section about this
2) win32 api provides a number of functions for obtaining file system info, network info, pretty much everything. try googling for win32 system info or something along those lines
3) i have no idea how to do it in C, but i have a real simple javascript that does that, if u want to have it let me know.

1.)

That would be the simplest way to do it - although probably not the most efficient.

2 & 3.) I'm just speculating here, since I have no idea how to go about it.. but for number 3, wouldn't it be similar to operating any other hardware through a program? Once you figure out how to get the system info, it should be able to tell you what their CD-ROM driver is, and you can have your program access that and force it to open the CD-ROM. I've no idea how to do it though - just speculation.