The command prompt is a useful environment to perform tasks such as updating BIOSes, retrieving log files or performing other diagnostic routines. There are four main types of command prompt:
Command Prompt in Windows - no rights to make significant changes, no direct hardware access
Administrative Command Prompt in Windows - ability to make changes, but with limited direct hardware access unless you are using specialised tools designed to run from within Windows
Windows 98 "true DOS" command prompt - access using a bootable USB key. Useful for direct hardware access but requires specalised tools and utilities that can locate the hardware
Windows Pre-Installation Environment - PE - command prompt. This command prompt has administrative rights by default and a greater level of hardware access is possible due to the minimal Windows operating system that is running. However, there are restrictions on the applications and programs that can be run inside PE. Often, the utilities have to directly match the PE environment being used - for example, 64-bit utilities have to be used on a 64-bit PE.
Before running any diagnostic utilities or BIOS updates, you need to find out which one of the four command prompt types is required.
Basic Command Introduction
The commands below will help you to navigate and perform tasks in these situations.
Command
Example
Table Of Commands
C:
Change to C: drive; similary A: D:
C:
CD
Change Directory. Thie will take you between folders.
CD\ will take you to the top of the directory
CD <directory name> takes you to that directory.
To change to another path, type the full path with slashes. e.g. CD \WINDOWS\SYSTEM
DIR
Displays the contents of a directory (folder)
DIR *.LOG Will show all .log files in folder
RENAME
Rename a file. You must use the full file name.
REN <OLDNAME.EXE> <NEWNAME.EXE>
MD
Make directory. Creates a new directory below the current one.
MD <NEWDIR> creates a new directory called Newdir
COPY
The copy command allows you to copy from one location to another
COPY LOCATION\FILENAME.EXTENSION LOCATION\NEWNAME.EXTENSION will copy the file to the new location
HELP
Displays DOS Help. For help on an individual command, type HELP then the command for which you want more information.
HELP DIR displays information on the DIR command.
Note: Commands inside the command prompt are almost always not case sensitive, which means that they can be typed lower or uppercase or even a combination.
