CIOS Lesson 4

At the Help Desk, employees will need to understand basic access to the computer systems in order to diagnose and fix problems. One of the ways you will access the system is through the Command Prompt. After opening the command prompt screen, you will use various commands to identify problems in the system.

The DIR command will show you the contents of any given directory. For example, if you type C:\DIR, you will see the contents of the C drive. A:\DIR will show you the contents of the A drive, and so on.

If you want to switch from one directory to another, use the CD command. For example, if you are in the C:\PROGRAM directory and want to switch to the C:\MENU directory, type CD\MENU. Typing just CD\ will return you to the root directory. Typing CD.. will move you up one level in the directory.

There may be occasions when you must create new directories from the Command Prompt. To create a directory called New, type MD NEW. Use the DIR command to check that the directory was properly created.

The opposite of making directories is, of course deleting them, and this is done with the RD (remove directory) command. From the C:\ prompt, type RD NEW, and the directory you just created will be deleted. Use the DIR command to check this.

It is important to note that RD will not delete a directory that contains files or subdirectories. To remove directories that contain files, type RD /S NEW in Windows NT, 2000 or XP. For Windows 9x or MP, type DELTREE C:\NEW. Be careful when using this command, as it is very easy to delete files you did not want to delete.