SUMMARY: Tricks with Windows 98 DOS wildcard characters.
In DOS, the “*” wildcard normally displays files which match the leading characters before the * symbol. With the DOS underneath Windows 98, you can use this wildcard to match all of the files which match the trailing characters as well. Combine the two for powerful searches and file manipulation at the DOS prompt! For example, doing
DIR *minutes*.TXT
would pull up all .TXT (text) files with the word “minutes” in the filename.
SUMMARY: Access your favorite e-mail program using the Windows 98 DOS command line.
Win98, unlike UN*X, does not have a command-line E-mail utility – or does it? If you have a standard E-mail program that supports the “mailto:” feature, you may be able to improvise.
Click the “Start” button, choose “Run,” and key in “mailto:EMAILADDRESS”, substituting EMAILADDRESS with the E-mail address to which you want to send mail.
From the DOS command prompt, key in “start mailto:EMAILADDRESS”, substituting EMAILADDRESS with the E-mail address to which you want to send mail.
For some E-mail programs, you can attach to the end of EMAILADDRESS “?subject=SUBJECT”, substituting SUBJECT with the subject of your E-mail message.
SUMMARY: Create Windows 98 shortcuts to DOS programs that accept runtime user-input.
There may be times where you need to create shortcuts to DOS programs that take different runtime parameters every time you run the shortcut. To create a shortcut that takes a parameter, just add a “?” at the end of the shortcut’s command-line. Every time you run the shortcut, you will be prompted for a parameter string.
SUMMARY: These DOS commands for Windows 2000, XP, Vista, or Windows 7 may help revive an Internet connection that has temporarily gone dead.
Does your high-speed Internet connection sometimes temporarily go away under Windows 2000? If you frequently sleep or hibernate your machine, or if you often cycle the power to your cable or DSL modem, Windows may not correctly link back up to your Internet connection when your computer comes back>ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
This releases, and then renews if possible, your IP address for your Internet adapter.
Better yet, put both these commands in a batch file to quickly refresh your Internet connection. I do this>ip.bat. And, for added convenience, consider creating a shortcut to this batch file>ip.bat:
@ipconfig /release
@ipconfig /renew
@pause
SUMMARY: A few tips>
Yes, Windows 2000, based>TITLE command
I open a lot of windows>TITLE a descriptive title here
at a DOS prompt, and suddenly the window’s title changes to what I specify! No more looking>CD Around the Drive
Windows 95 brought long filenames into the mainstream Windows world (yes, there were software packages that brought long filenames into the Windows 3.1 world, but I did say *mainstream*). Unfortunately, if you’ve ever dealt with running the “CD” (change directory) command to change directories, you’ll run into two big problems thanks to long filenames.
1. Filenames with spaces require being prefixed and suffixed with a quotation mark. Else, DOS just spits out “Bad Command or Filename” until you are blue in the face.
2. Long filenames take a real, real long time to type. And most people don’t like to do a lot of typing.
Windows 2000 helps fix both of these problems! No longer must you remember to type
CD “my crazy directory name”
after you accidentally type
CD my crazy directory name
several times, spit at your command, perhaps say a few not-very-nice things to your box, scream, etc., and lose productivity. Windows 2000 allows you to just type
CD my crazy directory name
and it will process your request with ease.
Regarding the long directory names; a hack has been circulating around the Internet>C:\pics – sports
C:\pics – ocean
C:\pics – kitchen
you can just type
cd \pics
and start pressing the TAB key a few times. The DOS prompt would then cycle through the list of directories and let you easily select the>
Remember wildcards? Remember “*” means select all? Well, a modified version of this is possible with Windows 2000. You can type CD partialdirectoryname*, and Windows 2000 would look for the first directory name starting with “partialdirectoryname” and would CD to that directory.
So, for the above example, if you want to save a few keystrokes looking at your kitchen pictures, you can just type the following:
CD \pics – k*
Windows 2000′s DOS prompt will then take you to directory “c:\pics – kitchen“.
Neat, huh? These are just a few of the many features Windows 2000 adds to the DOS prompt over earlier versions of Windows. And you thought DOS was dead? DOS may not be glamorous, but for system administrators and power computer users, it can often be the right tool for a job.
SUMMARY: A Windows 2000 or Windows XP replacement for the Deltree command can be found here.
You may remember that some versions of DOS had a DELTREE command to remove a directory as well as all of its subdirectories and contained files. Windows 2000 and Windows XP do not have this command, but you can emulate DELTREE with the RD (RMDIR) command.
For example, the following Windows 2000 or Windows XP DOS command deletes the C:\BLAH directory and all subdirectories WITHOUT ANY WARNING:
RD C:\BLAH /S /Q
Like with DELTREE, use this command with caution!>
| © 2010 Netspider.com Make IT Easy | Xml Sitemap | by net spider |
