Windows 7 Annoyances

Command Prompt

You can open the Command Prompt by clicking its icon in the All Programs portion of your Start menu, or by typing cmd into the Start menu Search box and pressing Enter. When you open a Command Prompt window, you’ll see a window that looks like the one shown in Figure 9-1. The cursor indicates the command line (where commands are typed), and the prompt usually shows the current working directory (here, C:\Users\Cory\AppData\Local), followed by a caret (>).

Figure 9-1. The Command Prompt is the old-school way to get things done

To run a program or execute a command, just type the name of the program or command at the command line (also called the “C” prompt because it usually looks like C:\>), and press Enter.

Some Command Prompt applications simply display information and then exit immediately. For example, Figure 9-3 shows some output from the Active Connections utility (netstat.exe) discussed in Scan Your System for Open Ports.

DOS Commands

You should know the following basic DOS commands to be able to complete some of the solutions in this book and get by in the world of Windows.

Note

The commands shown here are in constant width, and any parameters (the information you supply to the command) are in constant width italic. Optional parameters are shown in [square brackets]. It doesn’t matter which case you use when you type them in the Command Prompt (DOS, like Windows, is ...