Today, Windows series is widely used among people. Among the people who are using windows, there are quite a lot who started using computer before Windows having spread everywhere. They have an impression of MS-DOS, which was a popular OS in the past. Do you think it is necessary to use MS-DOS now? Of course, it isn't, but more knowledge of MS-DOS would help you understand and solve many problems that exist in Windows.
Let me list some must-have techniques about the use of MS-DOS. They are the basics of useful MS-DOS techniques today. If you want to be an expert computer user, you should master these commands. Click one of the following links to see what the command can do and how to use it. When you are ready to go back, use the browser's BACK button.
Windows has attracted people with its multi-tasking functionality. Now, let us enjoy more feeling of control in a single-tasking MS-DOS or command line environment. You can control it as long as possible without being interrupted by any other programs. You can have one thing easily done with only a simple structure - stack. This is a strong feeling of control. When you feel at a loss in Windows, you can find your dream in MS-DOS. Let's enjoy it!
A tip: if you want to start a command prompt window from the directory you are browsing, you can open "Folder Options", and switch to "File Types", look for "File Folder", and edit its properties (in Me/2000 use "Advanced"), then add a command to it: NAME - openCommandPrompt; COMMAND - if under NT/2000 - cmd.exe /k cd "%1" - else - command.com. Then when you are browsing a folder, you can right click the system menu button on the upper left corner of the window, and then select "openCommandPrompt". You will have a new command prompt opened at the directory you are browsing.
To scroll a command window in Windows NT using your keyboard: press "Alt, Space" to call out the system menu of a command window, then choose "Edit, Scroll". Now you can do that without a mouse, can you? To quit scrolling mode, just press <ENTER>.
In addition, although neither VIM nor Lynx was originally an MS-DOS program, they both use character-based windows. If you like, you can get their versions that work in Windows Console, and use them easily. The feeling of using Lynx is quite like that of using other MS-DOS programs. Using VIM brings another special good feeling, especially when using it to edit programs. The default color configuration of Lynx is not white characters on a black background, but you can have a look at the color configuration below, and add them to the Lynx configuration file. Enjoy these two programs!
COLOR:0:lightgray:black COLOR:1:white:black COLOR:2:white:cyan COLOR:3:black:white COLOR:4:brightgreen:black COLOR:5:white:black COLOR:6:green:lightgray COLOR:7:yellow:black
Now it's Year 2007. You can download rosh, which is a user-friendly command shell that runs on cmd.exe. I wrote it since Oct. 2005. Enjoy it and the accompanying cmdtools package, which can also be downloaded there.
Together I recommend gnuwin32 tools and nircmd. Note that nircmd is not specifically designed to cooperate with other programs, so it's just a simple tool to run commands. GnuWin32 are Windows portings of GNU tools, including find and diff. In addition, md5sums, Fast Sum, md5deep are also useful tools.