This page covers the basics of navigating and using the Microsoft Windows command line. On this page, you'll learn how to move around in the command line, find files, manipulate files, and other important commands. Keep in mind that there are over 100 different commands used in MS-DOS and the Windows command line. If you are interested in learning about the command line in more detail, see our DOS and command prompt overview, which gives a description and example for every command.

How-to: Create and Run a CMD batch file. To prepare a new batch script, save the file as plain ASCII text with the file extension.CMD. Run a batch file. A batch file can be run by double clicking it in Windows explorer, or by typing the name/path at the command line, optionally passing any parameters needed.

Get into the Windows command line

Open a Windows command line window by following the steps below. If you need additional information or alternative methods for all versions of Windows, see our how to get into DOS and Windows command line page.

The easy way to do this is to use Command Prompt. Don't be intimidated by the non-GUI environment even if you don't have any experience. If you follow the steps below, you can convert any DMG file to ISO and then create a bootable USB using the converted file. Step 1: Open Command Prompt by typing cmd in the Run windows and hitting Enter. Many users use the 'Run' command to perform tasks such as checking the version of Windows 8 you installed. Windows 8 provides many options to use the 'Run' Command. The Command Prompt is available in Windows 8 and Windows 8 provides many options. 1.) Start the Windows 10 command prompt as an administrator via Win-Logo + X! Please press the key combination Win-Logo + X, then appears at the left side of the Windows 10 desktop a context menu, the so-called win-X menu, here select the Command Prompt (Administrator).

Click Start.
In the Search or Run line, type cmd (short for command), and press Enter.

Understanding the prompt

After following the above steps, the Windows command line should be shown (similar to the example below). Windows often starts you at your user directory. In the example below, the user is Mrhope, so our prompt is C:UsersMrhope>. This prompt tells us we're in the C: drive (default hard drive letter) and currently in the Mrhope directory, a subdirectory of the Users directory.

Key tips

MS-DOS and the Windows command line are notcase sensitive.
The files and directories shown in Windows are also found in the command line.
When working with a file or directory with a space, surround it in quotes. For example, the directory My Documents would be 'My Documents' when typed.
File names can have a long file name of 255 characters and a three character file extension.
When a file or directory is deleted in the command line, it is not moved into the Recycle Bin.
If you need help with any of command, type /? after the command. For example, dir /? would give the options available for the dir command.

Listing the files

Command Prompt Commands

Let's learn your first command. Type dir at the prompt to list files in the current directory. You should get an output similar to the example image below. Without using any dir options, this is how dir output appears. As can be seen, you are given lots of useful information including the creation date and time, directories (<DIR>), and the name of the directory or file. In the example below, there are 0 files listed and 14 directories as indicated by the status at the bottom of the output.

Every command in the command line has options, which are additional switches and commands that can be added after the command. For example, with the dir command, you can type dir /p to list the files and directories in the current directory one page at a time. This switch is useful to see all the files and directories in a directory that has dozens or hundreds of files. Each of the command options and switches is listed in our DOS command overview. We offer guides for individual commands, as well. For example, if you want to see all the options for the dir command, refer to our dir command overview for a complete option listing.

The dir command can also be used to search for specific files and directories by using wildcards. For example, to list files or directories that begin with the letter 'A' you could type dir a* to list only the AppData directory, in this above example. See the wildcard definition for other examples and help with using wildcards.

Moving into a directory

Now that we've seen a list of directories (shown below) in the current directory, move into one of those directories. To move into a directory, we use the cd command, so to move into the Desktop type cd desktop and press Enter. Once you've moved into a new directory, the prompt should change, so in our example, the prompt is now C:UsersMrhopeDesktop>. Now in this desktop directory, see what files are found in this directory by typing the dir command again.

Understand the files

In the Desktop directory, as shown in the above example, there are 23 files and 7 directories, representing different file types. In Windows, you are familiar with files having icons that help represent the file type. In the command line, the same thing is accomplished by the file extensions. For example, 'forum posts.txt' is a text file because it has a .txt file extension. Time.mp3 is an MP3 music file and minecraft.exe is an executable file.

Most users will only be concerned with executable files, which as mentioned above, is a file that ends with .exe, .com, and .bat. When the name of these files are typed into the command line, the program runs, which is the same as double-clicking a file in Windows. For example, if we wanted to run minecraft.exe typing 'minecraft' at the prompt runs that program.

Note

Keep in mind that if the executable file you are trying to run is not in the current directory, you'll get an error. Unless you have set a path for the directory that contains the executable file, which is how the command line finds external commands.

If you want to view the contents of a file, most versions of the command line use the edit command. For example, if we wanted to look at the log file hijackthis.log we would type edit hijackthis.log at the prompt. For 64-bit versions of Windows that do not support this command, you can use the start command, for example, type start notepad hijackthis.log to open the file in Notepad. Further information about opening and editing a file from the command line can also be found on the link below.

Moving back a directory

You learned earlier the cd command can move into a directory. This command also allows you to go back a directory by typing cd. at the prompt. When this command is typed, you'll be moved out of the Desktop directory and back into the user directory. To move back to the root directory type cd to get to the C:> prompt. If you know the name of the directory you want to move into, you can also type cd and the directory name. For example, to move into C:Windows> type cdwindows at the prompt.

Creating a directory

Now with your basic understanding of navigating the command line let's start creating new directories. To create a directory in the current directory, use the mkdir command. For example, create a directory called 'test' by typing mkdir test at the prompt. If created successfully, you should be returned to the prompt with no error message. After the directory is created, move into that directory with the cd command.

Switching drives

In some circumstances, you may want to copy or list files on another drive. To switch drives in the Windows command line, type the drive letter of the drive followed by a colon. For example, if your CD-ROM drive is the D drive, you would type d: and press Enter. If the drive exists,

Run Dmg From Command Prompt Windows