Isn’t it cool how IT guys in your favorite movie or TV series never use a mouse during their entire film exposure?
Movies and TV shows stereo typically depicts computer enthusiasts as geeky people who mostly spend their lifetime in front of their PCs, more often a bunch of monitors.
Is it just me or have you also noticed how they do not bother to use a mouse but still let it co-exist with their PCs? Well in fact, we hardly really see them move a mouse at all!
Not only that, their computer screens usually show several dark windows with a white Lucida Console font style. Hmm. What’s the first thing that popped up your mind? Yep, the command line!
Cool right? Lucky you, in this blog you will learn some of the most basic uses of your command prompt and how to navigate your entire laptop without the use of mouse. At the end of this blog, you will have yet another new skill that you can show off your fellas!
What is a command prompt?
“It is a command line interpreter application available in most Windows operating systems used to execute entered commands.” In case you’re wondering why IT people prefer to use a command prompt instead of the regular Windows GUI, that is because cmd is much faster to use and navigate as compared to GUI. Also, there are helpful tools and commands that are only available in the cmd.
There are several ways to open a command prompt but here is my favorite:
Press the Windows key + R then type “cmd” and press Enter
Navigating directories
Changing from one directory to another:
Type cd<space>Folder Name then press Enter
Or if you wanted to go to a folder inside a folder
Type cd<space>Folder Name\Folder Name2 then press Enter
Going back to the original directory
Type cd<space>.. then press Enter
If you came from Folder Name2 and wanted to go back to the original directory
Type cd<space>../.. then press Enter
Viewing contents of the directory
Type dir and hit enter. The files and directories will show.
Type dir<space>Folder Name\Folder Name2 will show the contents of the Folder Name2 without having to change your current directory.
Listing all files based on file format
Type dir<space>*.file_format then press Enter
Opening a file using the default program
Type File Name then press Enter
Creating and Deleting directories
This is how to make a directory: Type mkdir<space>Folder Name
In case you want to remove a directory: Type rmdir<space>/s<space>Folder Name
It will ask a confirmation to delete the folder. Just type in ‘Y’.
Copying and Moving files
In copying a file to a folder destination,
Type copy<space>File Name<space>Destination Folder
In copying all files inside a folder to a folder destination, use this command
xcopy<space>Source Folder<space>Destination Folder
To copy all files inside a folder, including the directories inside that, follow this command
xcopy<space>Source Folder<space>Destination Folder<space>/s
Same command follows if you want to move a folder to a destination folder. Just replace “copy” command by “move” command
Type move<space>File Name<space>Destination Folder
Renaming a directory
This uses the same syntax as copy and move. You just have to replace the code to “rename”
Type rename<space>Folder Name<space>New Folder Name
Basically, that’s it for our short introductory to Command Prompt! Remember that there’s more to that than just navigating and changing folder names.
I hope this inspires you to learn more about the uses of Command Line and be the IT Guy that you wanted to be.
~비 씨
