Basic File manipulations in DOS

There are many commands you can use in DOS to help you speed up the process. Here are a few commands that are more commonly used:

Copy- Copies one or more files to another location
Date (time) - Displays or sets the computer's date, or time.
Del- Deletes one or more files.
Move- Moves one or more files from one directory to another directory.
Rd- Removes a directory.
Cls - clears the window and moves the command prompt to the top of the window.
exit- Closes the DOS window.

How to use DOS

DOS is an easy program to learn and it is a great way to get things done quicker and less keystrokes invovled. A mistype, for example missing the forward slash (del ?) will delete every file in the current directory that has a name one character long (with no extension). Mistyping the forward slash as a back slash (del \?) will delete everything in the root directory which is just one character long. "A" is a legal filename, windows doesn't save files to the recycle bin that are deleted while in DOS mode it does. If you delete a file in DOS these days, it's gone, so only delete when necessary.

To open a Microsoft DOS command prompt shell window:

1st. click the Start menu at the lower-left of your computer's desktop and select "Run..."

2nd. If your using windows XP, or vista, type "cmd" without quotation marks
Then if you are using Windows XP or Vista, type "cmd" (without the quotation marks) into the Run box and click "OK".

if your not using the windows above just type command into the run box and click "ok".