Im trying to find a way to get my own PID from a command prompt for later use in bat scripts so far the only useful way i found was to use getpids. Id like to easily save the log of the Windows command prompt into a file. Is there any alternative to select everything and rightclick on copy Batch files are a handy way to execute a series of commands in Windows, but is there anyway to run them invisibly in the background Read on find out how. F7H/LCMT/FEC1PNVQ/F7HLCMTFEC1PNVQ.MEDIUM.jpg' alt='Windows Command Prompt Echo File' title='Windows Command Prompt Echo File' />How to use the Windows command line DOSUpdated 0. Computer Hope. This document covers the basic in navigating and using the Microsoft Windows command line. On this page, youll learn how to move around in the command line, find files, manipulate files, and other important commands. Keep in mind that there are over 1. MS DOS and the Windows command line. If you are interested in learning about the command line in more detail, see our DOS and command prompt overview, which gives a description and example for every command. Get into the Windows command line. Open a Windows command line window by following the steps below. If you need additional information or alternative methods for all versions of Windows, see our how to get into DOS and Windows command line page. Click Start. In the Search or Run line, type cmd short for command, and press Enter. Understanding the prompt. After following the above steps, the Windows command line should be shown similar to the example below. Typically, Windows starts you at your user directory. In the example below, the user is Mrhope, so our prompt is C UsersMrhope. This prompt tells us we are in the C drive the default drive letter of the hard drive and currently in the Mrhope directory, which is a subdirectory of the Users directory. Key tips. MS DOS and the Windows command line are notcase sensitive. The files and directories shown in Windows are also found in the command line. When working with a file or directory with a space, surround it in quotes. For example, the directory My Documents would be My Documents when typed. File names can have a long file name of 2. When a file or directory is deleted in the command line, it is not moved into the Recycle Bin. If you need help with any of command type For example, dir Listing the files. Lets learn your first command. Type dir at the prompt to list files in the current directory. You should get an output similar to the example image below. Without using any dir options this is how dir output appears. As can be seen, you are given lots of useful information including the creation date and time, directories lt DIR, and the name of the directory or file. In the example below, there are 0 files listed and 1. Every command in the command line has options, which are additional switches and commands that can be added after the command. For example, with the dir command you can type dir p to list the files and directories in the current directory one page at a time. This switch is useful to see all the files and directories in a directory that has dozens or hundreds of files. Each of the command options and switches is listed in our DOS command overview. We offer guides for individual commands, as well. For example, if you want to see all the options for the dir command, refer to our dir command overview for a complete option listing. The dir command can also be used to search for specific files and directories by using wildcards. For example, if you only wanted to list files or directories that begin with the letter A you could type dir a to list only the App. Data directory, in this above example. See the wildcard definition for other examples and help with using wildcards. Moving into a directory. Now that weve seen a list of directories shown below in the current directory move into one of those directories. To move into a directory, we use the cd command, so to move into the Desktop type cd desktop and press enter. Once youve moved into a new directory the prompt should change, so in our example, the prompt is now C UsersMrhopeDesktop. Now in this desktop directory, see what files are found in this directory by typing the dir command again. Understand the files. In the Desktop directory, as shown in the above example, there are 2. In Windows, you are familiar with files having icons that help represent the file type. In the command line, the same thing is accomplished by the file extensions. For example, forum posts. Time. mp. 3 is an MP3 music file and minecraft. For most users, youll only be concerned with executable files, which as mentioned above, is a file that ends with. When the name of these files are typed into the command line, the program runs, which is the same as double clicking a file in Windows. For example, if we wanted to run minecraft. Note Keep in mind that if the executable file you are trying to run is not in the current directory youll get an error. Unless you have set a path for the directory that contains the executable file, which is how the command line finds external commands. If you want to view the contents of a file, most versions of the command line use the edit command. For example, if we wanted to look at the log file hijackthis. For 6. 4 bit versions of Windows that do not support this command you can use the start command, for example, type start notepad hijackthis. Notepad. Further information about opening and editing a file from the command line can also be found on the link below. Moving back a directory. You learned earlier the cd command can move into a directory. This command also allows you to go back a directory by typing cd. When this command is typed youll be moved out of the Desktop directory and back into the user directory. Dance Visualization Windows Media Player on this page. If you wanted to move back to the root directory typing cd takes you to the C prompt. If you know the name of the directory you want to move into, you can also type cd and the directory name. For example, to move into C Windows type cdwindows at the prompt. Creating a directory. Now with your basic understanding of navigating the command line lets start creating new directories. To create a directory in the current directory use the mkdir command. For example, create a directory called test by typing mkdir test at the prompt. If created successfully you should be returned to the prompt with no error message. After the directory has been created, move into that directory with the cd command. Switching drives. In some circumstances, you may want to copy or list files on another drive. To switch drives in the Windows command line, type the letter of the drive followed by a colon. For example, if your CD ROM drive was the D drive you would type d and press enter. If the drive exists the prompt will change to that drive letter. Creating a new file. You can create a new file from the command line using the edit command, copy con command, or using the start command to open a file. Creating a new batch file. Lightwave Open Beta 1'>Lightwave Open Beta 1. In the new test directory lets create your first file. In most circumstances, you never need to create any file at the command line, but it is still good to understand how files are created. In this example, we are creating a batch file. A batch file is a file that ends with. Adobe Flash Kiosk Mode. We are calling this batch file example, so type edit example. As mentioned in the document on creating a file, if the edit command does not work with your version of Windows, use the start command to open the batch file in Notepad. To perform this action, you type start notepad example. Both of the above commands open a new blank example. In the file, type the below three lines, which clear the screen with the cls command and then run the dir command. After these three lines have been typed into the file save and exit the file. If you are in the edit command click File or press AltF and then Save. After the file has been saved and you are back into the command prompt, typing dir should display the example.