DOS Commands

Have you ever tried formatting a pen drive from your computer GUI, that is Graphical User Interface and were unable to do so? Have you also tried stopping a program that had become unresponsive, to no avail? Then it is time you learn some things about your computer back door.

The DOS environment is a Command Line Interface where all transactions are done via typed commands. I will introduce you to some of the commands that will be most useful to you in your day to day activities.

To start with, we'll see how we call up the command line interface on your Windows Operating System.
1. Click Start then select Run
2. Type in the space provided "cmd" and press the Enter key.
Congratulations! You have entered the command line interface.

The first command we will examine is the "dir" command. This command list the content of the directory that you are currently within. It has a number of switches that it works with. Switches help to make the work of the command more precise.
To view all available switches that can be used with the dir command, simply type at the prompt
C:\dir /?
A list of available switches will be displayed alongside their functions.

Tomorrow we will be taking a closer look at these switches and how they can be effective in real life computing challenges.