Getting Started with Command Prompts（开始使用命令提示）.pdf

Getting Started with Windows Command Prompt Ziheng Yang  University College London  Updated March 2015      What is a Command Prompt? In the good old days before Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS came about, users interacted with computers through a command prompt. This is a text- based window for typing commands and receiving text- based output (see screen shot above). Mouse and menu do not work here but the command line is a powerful interface and is very convenient for running certain programs. How do I start a Command Prompt? Different versions of Windows differ, so here are a few possibilities. Method 1. From the Start Menu, select “Programs” or “Programs and Features”. Scroll down to “Accessories” or “Windows systems”. Choose “Command Prompt”. Method 2. Press the Start button, type cmd in the search box, and click on Run or Press Enter. Method 3. On Windows 8, Press Win-S, type cmd in the search box and select “Command Prompt”. A text-based window like the above will pop up. By default this will have white text on black background. Below I will use black on white to save the planet. You can try “color 17”, “color 4f” etc. to get your favourite colours. Also you can right-click on the title bar and choose Properties, to change the height and width of the window, colour, font, etc. Hard drive and directory (cd, md) Your computer hard drive contains a number of directories and sub-directories arranged hierarchically. When I start the command prompt, I am in the “C:\Windows\System32” directory. Some of the methods mentioned above will start in the “C:\Users\ziheng” directory. The C: drive is the default drive letter of the hard drive. If you have several drives, 1 they will be labelled D:, E:, etc. I use the C: d