Command Line Tips
When you’re working with the command line in Windows there are a few handy tricks worth knowing. Two of the most useful are the Quick Edit feature, and the ability to paste a path and file name into the command line. There are then other handy command line functions that can be useful.
If you’re using the command the command prompt, we’ll assume we can guide you through without using images in this guide. If you need the pictures, the command prompt probably isn’t something you should be using!
Quick Edit
Quick Edit means that whatever text is in your clipboard, if you right-click the command line, your clip-board entry will be pasted directly there.
To set Quick Edit, click the top left corner of the command box to bring up the menu. Select Defaults.
In the window that pops up, in the Options Tab is a box titled Edit Options. In there, select the Quick Edit check box. OK to save.
You’ll then need to exit the command line editor and run it again for Quick Edit to work.
Pasting Paths
Another handy feature in the Command Line is that you can drag a folder or object into the command line and the path and filename is rendered for you in full. If the path or object includes spaces, the pasting will be wrapped in quotes. So for example I just dragged a file in and the path was rendered as “C:\download\X Guard Software\12948\_SETUP.1″
We’ll be adding more hints and tips for all sorts of different things as time passes. Watch this space… or even better, why not set up an rss feed to this site so that any updates can be automatically seen by you? We’ll explain more about that soon….
Task list
Not a lot of people know about the tasklist command that came with XP on the command line. This is a wonderful way to view the tasks running on your machine… and even on others across the network. Use it (carefully!) in conjunction with the taskkill command and you have a huge control over your machine and the network. We don’t have space here to go into a full tutorial of the command, but the help option ( /? ) should provide good information for most techies.
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