DOS Commands (Advanced)

NOTE: DO NOT edit any registry or boot files unless you know what your doing.


Keys And their functions in command prompt.

F1 : Repeats the letters of the last command line, one by one
F2 : Displays a dialog asking user to "enter the char to copy up to" of the last command line
F3 : Repeats the last command line (Similar to DOSKEY)
F4 : Displays a dialog asking user to "enter the char to delete up to" of the last command line
F5 : Goes back one command line
F6 : Enters the traditional CTRL+Z (^z) (End-Of-File)
F7 : Displays a menu with the command line history (Similar to DOSKEY)
F8 : Cycles back through previous command lines (beginning with most recent).
F9 : Displays a dialog asking user to enter a command number (0 is for first command line)

Unix style file- and directory- name completion
Edit the registry and add/update these (REG_DWORD):

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER \Software \Microsoft \Command Processor]
CompletionChar= 9
PathCompletionChar= 9

BOOT Menu
Edit CONFIG.SYS and try it out

[MENU]
MENUITEM=DOS, DOS with CD-ROM
MENUITEM=WIN, Windows

<By using SUBMENU you will creating an extra menu(TEST)>
SUBMENU=TEST, Testing

<Using MENUDEAFAULT makes it possible to choose a certain>
<item(WIN) and if it's set also select that item after a certain>
<time(20 secs)>
MENUDEFAULT=WIN, 20

<Here is the SUBMENU it can also include other SUBMENUs>
[TEST]
MENUITEM=TEST1, Testing 1

Avoid F5 & F8 to work at startupt
Edit CONFIG.SYS and insert line at the top

SWITCHES=/F

Make a diskcopy with only one floppy disk drive
In command prompt, it will ask for a disk in drive B: , insert the disk which the copy should be placed.

DISKCOPY A: B:

System Generated Variables
%DATE%
%TIME%
%SYSTEMROOT%
%COMPUTERNAME%
%USERNAME%
%USERDOMAIN%

Specify what commands to be run when opening a command prompt
When opening a command prompt it checks the following STRING values in the registry to see if any commands should be executed :
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER \SOFTWARE \Microsoft \Command Processor]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SOFTWARE \Microsoft \Command Processor]
Autorun = "prompt [%computername%]$S$P$G && COLOR 0A"
Note the commands above will change the command prompt and color.

Note to specify several commands seperate them with &&, or use a batch file.

Note the cmd has a switch to disable the execution of the Autorun :
cmd /d


------------------------------------------------------------
SOURCE/MORE/LINKS(http://snakefoot.fateback.com/tweak/winnt/prompt.html)

Nice info...thanks alot

cheers for that, its getting pretty rare to hear people talking about the command line in windows.

Excellent post, spools. However, I believe it would be better in the tutorials forum?

(Heh, I thought you meant DoS as in 'Denial of Service'. 3 years ago it wouldn't have even crossed my mind. The times they are a changin'...)

Yes it is. I've actually just started exploring the new commands with windows 2000/XP. So many more. When I first heard about windows XP I heard that it was suppost to eliminate the command prompt all together. Then after it came out i realized that instead of removing it they just added onto it.

spools.exe: If you're just starting to explore more functions of the windows command line, I'd recommed you get the win2k resource disk. It comes with tons of useful tools.

You can download *some* of them free from m$, but not nearly as many as the disk has.
Many of them are actually just .vbs scripts, but work from CLI. Edit them to fit your needs.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000...it/default.asp

There is also a couple of extra tools on the win2k/xp disk in the \support\ folder.

Another good resource I've come to love is:
Windows 2000 Admin Scripting Little Black Book: A Concise Guide to Essential Scripting for Administration
Check out your local Boarders. They were selling this book for US $4.99. I've seen it on two shelves they put out front at different boarders. Guess they're just trying to get rid of it?

Awesome, thankyou very much.

cheers for that link phishphreek80 i`m downloading some of them now, the`ll deffently come in usefull.

wow phishphreek80, good advice....thanks

Good job, Spools! Nice link!

Can anybody think of anyother "System Generated Variables" such as:
%DATE%
%TIME%
%SYSTEMROOT%
%COMPUTERNAME%
%USERNAME%
%USERDOMAIN%

Here's an interesting prompt for any win2k Users, little Unixesque:

prompt [%username%@%computername% $P]# && COLOR 0A

Ends up like this:

[jimmy@MY2KCOMP C:\nmap]#

and it's bright green on black, get rid of the color arg at the end if you don't want cool goofy green hehe.

kinda long for CMD users, but kinda interesting, expecially for remote admin via command line so you never get mixed up or something.

hey UpperCell where did you find out about those commands. I think i remember something like that back in the days of dos 5 (i think) but it was a long time ago so i may be wrong.

the color command was re introduced in 2000/XP. And "prompt" was there since i've used computers.

Didn't Negative write a tutorial about DOS as well?

Another often over looked command in DOS is 'debug' which is basicly a hex editor. And echo which can be used to send messages & it lets you sort of copy/paste text from batch files to another file or grab text from these files. Example: Echo hello world>>C:\test.text. you can use this to make your batch files interact with scripts such as JAVA and VB scripts to add more functionality. Together these commands can do some interesting things. Anyways after the hex dump is done and a jpg has been droped a message appears useing the net send command. Commands like echo, rem, ::, those are ok for 9x but in NT based its hard to read but message boxes are cooler anyways.

fully unzip the file below... then take a look at the code in notepad and then run it. Its fun. :)

ty

thanks for this...
stuff like this is always welcomed...
Riya :)

Quote:

---

Originally posted here by spools.exe
Can anybody think of anyother "System Generated Variables" such as:
%DATE%
%TIME%
%SYSTEMROOT%
%COMPUTERNAME%
%USERNAME%
%USERDOMAIN%

---

Hiya Spools,

If referring to Win XP or 2K, I believe you can enter "Set" (w/o quotes) at the command prompt to get environmental variables for those OS. Redirect ">" to some text file to save (ie. set > sys_var.txt)

Quote:

---

Originally posted here by spools.exe
NOTE: DO NOT edit any registry or boot files unless you know what your doing.

---

That's ok, DOS doesn't have a registry so it won't be relevant if indeed this tut is about DOS.

Quote:

---

Unix style file- and directory- name completion
Edit the registry and add/update these (REG_DWORD):

---

So don't bother mentioning that this has nothing to do with DOS then, and only applies to the Windows NT cmd.exe ?

Quote:

---

BOOT Menu
Edit CONFIG.SYS and try it out

---

And don't bother mentioning that this only works in DOS, not the windows NT systems you needed for the previous thing to work?

Quote:

---

System Generated Variables
%DATE%
%TIME%
%SYSTEMROOT%
%COMPUTERNAME%
%USERNAME%
%USERDOMAIN%

---

All windows NT specific? Nothing to do with DOS?

So in fact, half your tut applies to windows NT, the rest applies to specific unnamed versions of DOS, you neglected to say which was which?

Slarty

Usefull stuff, keep it up guys.

:)

informative.........but kinda....well it is gr8 to know this :D

slarty:

Quote:

---

Specify what commands to be run when opening a command prompt
When opening a command prompt it checks the following STRING values in the registry to see if any commands should be executed :
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER \SOFTWARE \Microsoft \Command Processor]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \SOFTWARE \Microsoft \Command Processor]
Autorun = "prompt [%computername%]$S$P$G && COLOR 0A"
Note the commands above will change the command prompt and color.

Note to specify several commands seperate them with &&, or use a batch file.

Note the cmd has a switch to disable the execution of the Autorun :
cmd /d

---

Actually i do mention a little registry in the tut.

nice link :D 10x

Great...thanks for the info.....Here's another that I find useful

You can have a console window available, in any directory, from Explorer.

First Create a cmd script StartCon.cmd

@echo off
cd /d %1
Title %~f1

Put this script somewhere where you will always be able to find it - in
your path. (for example c:\winnt)

Now open explorer and select View-->Options from the menu, select the File
Types tab and select the 'Folder' Icon from the 'Registered Files Types'
list.
Press the Edit button, and in the 'Edit File Type' dialog press the New...
button.


In the New Action Dialog type "New Console from here" in the Action Field, and

cmd.exe /a /k c:\winnt\StartCon "%l"

in the 'Application used...' field.
Press okay, close, close to come out of the dialogs.

Now select a folder in explorer, and right click your mouse, you will see a
new entry 'New Console from Here' on the context menu, if you select it you will get
a new console window, with the directory you selected as the current
directory.

okay - so it's not going to change your life, but it saves having to drap&drop from explorer to a cmd shell to quickly get a path...

;)

Who wrote this thing? He's a genius... :)

LOL, i posted this, but i also already knew most of it. That links has a few more tips from the guy i got this from.