How to get DOSKEY in W2K?

[Tannin]

Subject says it all, really. Working without command hisatory is such a pain.

 

[Handruin]

Are you speaking of pressing the up arrow in order to scroll through history? If so, it should work by default. My W2K box here at work has command history.

I run my command window by using "start" > "run" cmd. Maybe this has something to do with it...

If you open the properties to your command window. there is a section for "command History" which you can modify.

 

[Mercutio]

Yeah, cmd.exe actually can do some other good stuff that almost make it as nice a shell as some of the more primative Unix options.

Yes, cmd can keep a history. With a very slight hack that I don't remember at the moment it can also auto-complete file and directory names, something that makes navigating through directories at a prompt very, very fast if you can type.

DOSkey also offered character substitution, which I don't think cmd.exe does (e.g. doskey 'string1' 'string2'), but cmd DOES have a pretty complete syntax for programming. Moreso that DOS did, anyway.

 

[Tannin]

Ahh! There are two command processors! I have always gone:

START
RUN
command

This runs command.com and although it has that nifty options box, the options don't work - at least the command history doesn't.

START
RUN
cmd

gives me cmd.exe - and the history works just fine. So what is the differernce between the two?

 

[Handruin]

I didn't even know there was a command.com still floating around in W2K. I've always used cmd.exe.

Maybe cmd.exe is a full application and command.com is an emulation, or vice vers...

Either way cmd.exe is the way to go. (unless there is something command.com can do that cmd.exe can't...sorry I don't know)

 

[Mercutio]

Putting on my paper hat that says "MCSE"

command is a 16-bit application that runs in a 16-bit virtual machine. Just like good old DOS, it doesn't grok long file names or support advanced programming structures.

cmd is a 32-bit shell that understands all about LFNs, handles real shell programming, and lives happily in the 32-bit world that the rest of the OS is in.

I don't know of any reason to invoke command.com on a modern NT-ish system Application compatibility is already broken due to the fact that shell programs can't access the hardware of the virtual machine they're running in (limitations of the OS and all). The best thing I can figure is that some legacy applications might specifically call command.com for whatever reason.

 

[CougTek]

On Win2K, you can also access cmd.exe by going to Start - Programs - Accessories - Command Prompt. That's always the way I use to go to the command prompt. I'm a mouse man more than a keyboard man.

 

[flagreen]

Install the tools from the W2K CD.

 

[Adcadet]

I'm a mouse man more than a keyboard man.

I'm a rat man myself

Cool to know why the up arrow trick sometimes worked, sometimes didn't. Now, how can I get it to tab-complete?

 

[Will Rickards WT]

This technet article explains how to enable completion in winxp. I assume it is similary in win2k but I'm not on a win2k box right now.

 

[Will Rickards WT]

MS knowledge Base Article that explains process to enable it in win2k... registry edit.

 

[simonstre]

Here's the difference :

command : like in ME, Win98, Win95. Comes with absolutely nothing, not even LFN, I think.

cmd : Improved version of command. Have a Doskey-like feature.


Recommandation : use cmd.exe.