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THE BASICS OF MS-DOS Navigating folders and Simple Commands Depending on whether you are using the Prompt or \"true DOS\", you should see a prompt similar to this: C:\\> or this: C:\\Documents and Settings\\Yourname> Regardless, you are ready to get started. Seeing what is in your current directory Obviously, you have to be able to see what you\'re doing or else you are \"shoot ing in the dark\" with no idea what to do. Luckily, there is a command to show w hat is in your current directory. Type DIR and press [Enter] to activate this fu ction. It should look like this: C:\\>DIR The results I got in C:\\ were: Volume in drive C has no label. Volume Serial Number is 8C87-FFA1 Directory of C:\\ 04/18/2006 04/21/2006 04/18/2006 04/18/2006 04/21/2006 04/18/2006 04/18/2006 04/21/2006 04/20/2006 12:06 AM 0 AUTOEXEC.BAT 04:42 PM <DIR> Batch 12:06 AM 0 CONFIG.SYS 12:21 AM 32 csb.log 07:45 PM 0 dir.txt 12:12 AM <DIR> Documents and Settings 12:45 AM <DIR> NVIDIA 04:27 PM <DIR> Program Files 08:01 PM <DIR> WINDOWS 4 File(s) 32 bytes 5 Dir(s) 196,047,323,136 bytes free

The items with <DIR> are directories, or folders. Anything else is a file. The c olumn on the left is the date the files were last changed, the next column shows the time the files were modified. The number to the left of the file name is th e size of the file in bytes. If there are too many directories to list on one screen, type one of the followi ng commands: DIR /w OR DIR /p The /w switch makes the DIR appear in a wider format, while /p displays the DIR one screenful at a time. Changing directories OK, you want to leave the directory you\'re in. No matter how exciting it gets,

C:\\ isn\'t going to be exciting enough as there is not all the information you need in the root. To change directories, type CHDIR [directory name] or CD [dire ctory name], replacing [directoryname] with the name of the directory you wish t o go to. So, on my pc, if I want to change to C:\\NVIDIA, I type C:\\>CD NVIDIA The prompt changes to C:\\NVIDIA> Opening files In the Command Prompt, these files will run outside of cmd.exe. In true DOS, s is obviously not the case, but only DOS-friendly files may be run. To open EXE file, simply type the name of the EXE file, and it will run. So, If I\'m C:\\Program Files\\Chami\\HTML-Kit\\ and I want to run HTML-Kit from Command mpt, I would type C:\\Program Files\\Chami\\HTML-Kit>HTML-Kit.EXE and the program would run. To access a text file, you would use the TYPE command : C:\\>TYPE dir.txt and the information would display on my command screen. Note, however, that some text files may be too long for the screen. For files like this, type the follow ing command: C:\\>TYPE dir.txt | more Replacing dir.txt with the name of the file you want to display. The | key is fo und above the [Enter] key ([Shift] and \\). When the file reaches the size of th e page, it will pause, asking you to press [Enter]. Pressing [Enter] will move t he page down one line. If you change your mind partway through reading the long file, Press [Ctrl] and C. You will go back to the prompt. The TYPE command works with virtually any kind of file, but note that you will n ot be able to read all of them. Compiled EXE files will show strange characters, as will .dat and other files. Do not worry, no harm is done. Clearing the screen If you don\'t like clutter, press CLS at any time. This command clears the scree n of everything but the latest prompt. thi an in pro