1. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Working with the Command-line Interface Chapter 15

2. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Overview In this chapter, you will learn how to –Explain the operation of the command-line interface –Execute fundamental commands from the command line –Manipulate files and folders from the command line

3. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Historical/Conceptual IBM invented the PC in the late ’70s but needed an operating system –Digital Research had an OS but turned them down –IBM went to a small company (Bill Gates at Microsoft) that had created BASIC –Microsoft had never written an OS but accepted the challenge Gates found an OS called Quick-and-Dirty-Operating- System (QDOS) and purchased it from the person who wrote it Microsoft released it as MS-DOS V 1.1 (Microsoft Disk Operating System) MS-DOS 6.22 ultimately released in 1994 DOS used a command-line interface

4. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Deciphering the Command-line Interface Practical Application

5. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Command-line Interface (CLI) How does a command-line interface work? –Begins with a prompt indicating the computer is ready to do something (such as C:\> ) –Type in a command and press ENTER –The command is executed –A new prompt is displayed—ready for the next command –CLI executes commands like the Windows GUI In CLI, type the command and press ENTER In GUI, point and click to execute commands

6. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Accessing the Command Line Use the Run dialog box or Start Search text box –Start | Run –Type cmd (or) –Type command –Either runs the cmd.exe executable program found in %systemroot%\system32 You may also access the command line through the Start | All Programs menu

7. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition The Command Prompt The command prompt is always focused on a specific folder –Commands operate on the files and folders in the folder on which the command line is focused –You can first focus on the drive and folder where you want to work to make commands simpler

8. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Filenames and File Formats Each program or piece of data is stored as a file on the drive Filenames have two parts –Filename In DOS, up to 8 characters long –Extension In DOS, up to 3 characters long Optional The filename and extension are separated by a dot –Called the 8.3 naming system These characters may not be used today / \ | : " * ?

9. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Filenames and Formats Windows does not restrict the filename to 8.3 (can be up to 255 characters) –To be backward-compatible with DOS you need to follow the 8.3 standard –Windows creates two filenames for every file to ensure backward-compatibility The extension tells the computer the type of file –.exe,.doc,.xls –.gif,.jpg,.png –.chm (help file)

10. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition File Formats All files written in binary format –Different programs have unique methods of reading and writing, so one program may or may not understand files from another program. –Need for a universal format American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) used for text –First universal file format –Defines 256 8-bit characters Unicode –Uses 16-bit code to cover every character for the most common languages –First 256 characters are the ASCII characters

11. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition ASCII Character Chart

12. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Folders and Files Folders and files must be unique –Can’t be the same name in the same folder C:\ represents the root directory of C To describe a subfolder, add the name of the folder –C:\TEST The location of a file is called the path –The path of C:\test\file.txt is C:\test

13. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Directory Tree

14. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Mastering Fundamental Commands

15. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Structure: Syntax and Switches The command line requires the exact syntax for each command Type the name of the command and desired or allowed switches, and then press ENTER to execute the command –Switches modify the behavior of the command –Multiple switches may be allowable –DIR /W /P displays the directory in wide mode and one page at a time

16. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Help Help with any command is readily available in one of three ways –HELP gives a one-line description of each command –HELP [command] gives specific help for the command –[Command] /? gives specific help for the command

17. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition DIR Command The DIR command lists the contents of a particular directory –The DIR /W command lists only the folder and file names

18. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition DIR Command Switches

19. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Directories: CD Command The CD (or CHDIR) command is used to change the focus to a different directory The CD\ command is used to return to the root directory Type CD [folder name] and then press ENTER to change focus to that folder or directory Type CD.. and press ENTER to go up one directory To switch between drives, type the drive letter followed by a colon, and then press ENTER –C: –D :

20. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Making and Removing Directories The MD (or MKDIR) command is used for creating a directory The DEL command is used for deleting files, and the RD (RMDIR) command is used for deleting directories and subdirectories RD /S will removed populated folders and their contents

21. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Lab – Making and Removing Folders 1.Change focus to root 2.Create three folders –class –docs –backup 3.Create a subfolder in backup –temp 4.Delete RD the temp folder 5.Use DIR to check each step

22. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Running a Program To run a program –Change the prompt focus to the directory where the program is stored cd c:\windows\system32 –Type the filename with or without its extension and press ENTER edit.com

23. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition EDIT EDIT is a command-line command that starts a basic text editor

24. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Working with Files

25. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Start at the Root What's in your root directory? Double-click C: drive in My Computer –Hey! Where are the Windows system files, like NTLDR and BOOT.INI? –Could go to Folder Options and display hidden and system files, or could go to the prompt DIR /P still doesn't show the system files, so we need a new tool

26. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Working with Files Attributes (H, R, S, A) are special values assigned to a file –Hidden: hides the file –Read-only: protects a file from being deleted or modified –System: identifies system files –Archive: identifies files that have not been backed up The ATTRIB.EXE program is used to inspect and change file attributes

27. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition ATTRIB ATTRIB can be used to change the attributes –Use + to add attribute –Use – to remove attribute ATTRIB +R AILOG.TXT Makes the file read only ATTRIB –H AILOG.TXT Makes the file no longer hidden

28. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Working with Files Wildcards –Wildcards are special characters that enable commands to act on more than one file at a time –The * represents any number of characters –The ? represents a single character DIR *.TXTLists all files that end in.TXT DIR *.?XTLists all files that end in XT

29. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Working with Files (continued) REN command is used to rename files DEL and ERASE commands are used to delete files COPY command is used for making a copy of the file in a new location MOVE command is used for moving the file to a new location XCOPY command is used for working with multiple directories

30. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Lab – Create, Copy, Move 1.Use EDIT to create two text files in the \docs folder 2.Use COPY to copy both to the \backup folder 3.Use MOVE to move both to \class folder 4.Use DIR to verify each step

31. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Mike’s Five-Step COPY/MOVE Process 1.Point the command prompt to the directory containing the files to be copied or moved C:\>CD \DOCS 2. Type COPY or MOVE and a space C:\DOCS>COPY 3. Type the name(s) of the file(s) to be copied/moved and a space C:\DOCS>COPY *.doc 4. Type the path of the new location for the files C:\DOCS>COPY *.doc c:\Steam 5. Press ENTER

32. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Working with Batch Files Batch files are text files that store a series of commands –One command on each line –Batch files use the.BAT extension –Batch files may be edited with any text editor Notepad EDIT –Batch files get their own type of icon

33. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Lab – Creating a Batch File 1.Get to the root directory and type EDIT to run Edit 2.Using EDIT, type in some commands on their own lines, like this –md greatbook –cd greatbook 3.Save the file with a.BAT extension –C:\test.bat 4.From the command prompt, run the batch file –C:\>Test.bat

34. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Lab – Batch Rename 1.Using EDIT, create a batch file in \class folder –Contents should be REN *.TXT *.NICE –Save as REN.BAT 2.Use DIR to verify that contents of the \class folder have.TXT extensions 3.Run batch file 4.Use DIR to verify that the file extensions have changed

35. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Useful Utilities CHKDSK (/f /r) –Runs the command-line version of error-checking –Run to recover from accidental shutdown, such as during a disk defragmentation FORMAT –Normally done from the GUI, but can do this quickly from the CLI –FORMAT X: /q is a great way to wipe a drive SFC –System File Checker helps restore Windows files –SFC /scannow from a command prompt

36. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Beyond A+

37. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition Using Special Keys F1 function key brings back the previous command one letter at a time F3 function key brings back the entire command at once Arrow keys –You can also use the arrow keys (up and down) to scroll through commands –Arrow keys (left to right) enable you to edit commands

38. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition COMPACT Command COMPACT –Displays or alters the compression state of files –compact /c

39. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition CIPHER Command CIPHER –Displays or alters the encryption state of files –/e specifies encryption operation –/a says to apply it to the files as well as the directory

40. © 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved Mike Meyers’ CompTIA A+ ® Guide to Managing and Troubleshooting PCs Third Edition