Operating Systems Portfolio Practical 1
Exploring the use of commands with options and arguments
Taking a selection of Windows CLI commands from those given below, use the online help to examine the various options and arguments, and try them out. You can look up others at: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/enus/ntcmds.mspx?mfr=true
You're required carefully to write two A4 pages (Times 12 point or equivalent size) detailing your experiments with different options for between six and ten different commands.
To get the online help for a command, type command /?
Exploring the use of commands with options and arguments Dir: The “Dir” command lets a user display a list of files and sub directories within a directory. It also displays the disk volume label, serial number, total number of files in the directory and the space remaining on the disk. Dir can be used with other commands such as “/d” to display the files and subdirectories in columns rather than down in a straight list which is useful for long directories. Another command that Dir can use is “*.file extension type”. This can be used to display a specific extension type that might be in the directory so that it filters out all the other types.
Mkdir: The “Mkdir” command lets a user make a directory or subdirectory. To do this you can do it in two different ways, one of the ways you can use the command is by simply navigating to the folder that you want to make the sub directory or directory and then typing in “Mkdir foldername”. Another way you can do this is by navigating to the folder in the same command “Mkdir C:\Users\Danny\foldername”. Another command that can achieve the same as Mkdir is the MD command which also makes directories.
Color: The “Color” command allows a user to change the colors within command prompt to whatever they like. The way they can do this is by using a hexadecimal table which gives a number or letter for each value. To use this you type in “Color (Value of the color you want for the background)(Value of the color you want for the text)”. An example of this would be to use “Color FC” which will give you a white background with yellow text. By typing in just “Color” it will take you back to the default command prompt.
Title: The “Title” command allows a user to change the name at the top of the command prompt to whatever they like. To do this they can type “title (nameoftitle)”. To reset the title