SE450: Windows 2000

Both command history and command-line completion are included in the default shell (cmd.exe) for win2k (and XP) If you are in the habit of running command.exe (from win95 or 98 days, get out of it, cmd is easier to type). But they are not both enabled by default.

To force Enable Command line completion : (I suggest this, but some people would object)

Modify the registry (use "regedit"): (if you are uncomfortable doing this, pay someone $80 an hour to do it instead... there are other ways to do cmdline cmpletion but they are tough to explain here)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\CompletionChar should be a REG_DWORD and set it to 0x9 (for tab completion).

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\EnableExtensions should be a REG_DWORD and set it to 0x1.

Next you need to check to see that these environment variables are not "shadowed" by the user settings. HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\CompletionChar HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\EnableExtensions should match the respective values from above or not be present.

For "up-arrow" command recall: (this should already be enabled) open a cmd prompt window (I would do start->[run] cmd ) right-click on the titlebar

	[defaults]->[options] 
	set your Command History numbers to something like 
	BufferSize: 64   Number of Buffers: 4

other fun stuff in 2000 Unlike NT, you can send textfiles as the first argument to more.

	so you can do 
		more myfile.txt 
	and view it a page at a time
	unfortunately it doesn't use vi keys, 
	<space> is nextpage
	<ret> is next line
	there is no way to go backwards that I know of.
	(also in NT,2K,AND UNIX, you can get in the habit of more <filename
	and it solves all your problems)

There is an analog to /dev/null in NT/2K. there is a file in every directory called NUL so you can append to it and your data goes nowhere. (yes > and >> work the same, but I am not sure if stderr and stdout are considered distinct from each other)

to open a window of the cwd from the cmd prompt

	start .

in 2000 you can drag a filename to an open cmd prompt window and it will append that filename (or directory name) to the current cmdline. (very very cool)

to quickly get a file with the wrong crlfs into 2000 format, use the old DOS editor to load then resave it.

	edit filename
	and then save it from the file menu with Alt + F, S

The NT Find command has similar functionality to grep. you can pipe output through it and look for a string...... 2 ways:

	type myfile.txt |find "yourname"
	find "yourname" myfile.txt