Command Prompt Start   All Programs   Accessories   Command Prompt gives you a command prompt window that you can use to run character-mode text-only programs or to issue commands. To run a program, you type its name and its path, if needed at the prompt, and then press the Enter key. Command Prompt is especially useful for command-line utilities such as ping and tracert, which you use for checking network connectivity. If you’ve been using computers for a few years, you may remember DOS, the text-only operat- ing system on which early versions of Windows for example, Windows 3.1 ran. The Command Prompt window looks like DOS, but in fact it’s not DOS. Windows Vista doesn’t include DOS; instead, it includes a Virtual DOS Machine VDM. A VDM runs within Windows and synthesizes a computer running DOS so that Windows can run programs that require DOS. You can customize the way a Command Prompt window looks or even make it run full screen which gives it a very DOS-like look. For most purposes, there’s no advantage in using Command Prompt to issue commands instead of using the Run dialog box choose Start All Programs Accessories Run, or press Windows Key+R except that in Command Prompt you can see the history of the commands you’ve issued in this session.

Recalling a Command You’ve Used

Often, you’ll need to reuse a command you’ve used earlier in the current Command Prompt window, or you’ll need to issue a similar command. Command Prompt stores your recent commands so that you can recall them quickly. To recall a command from the current session,  key. The first press displays the pre- vious command, the­press the  second the command before that, and so on. If you go too far back in  key to go back through the list toward the later¯the list, press the  commands. Once you’ve reached the command you want to use, you can edit it or add to it, or simply press the Enter key to run it.

Selecting, Copying, and Pasting in Command Prompt

Selecting, copying, and pasting in Command Prompt windows is much clumsier than in graphical windows, but it works well enough once you know how. To use the mouse to select text in Command Prompt, you need to turn on QuickEdit mode. You can turn it on either temporarily or permanently:

Turn on QuickEdit temporarily Click the control-menu box at the left end of the title bar and choose Edit   Mark.

Turn on QuickEdit permanently    Select the QuickEdit Mode check box on the Options page of the Console Windows Properties dialog box or the Command Prompt Properties dialog box. Once you’ve turned on QuickEdit, click to place an insertion point, or drag to select a block of text. To copy, right-click after making a selection. Alternatively, press Enter, or choose Edit Copy from the control menu. Issuing a Copy command in any of these ways collapses the selection, so that it looks as though the Copy operation has failed, but in fact Windows has copied the selection to the Clipboard, from which you can paste it into another program or back into the Command Prompt window. You can also copy information from another program and paste it into Command Prompt by placing the insertion point, then choosing Edit Paste from the control menu.