I’ve used the command line less over the years, since the “good old days” of DOS filtering all the folks who could NOT manage linear thinking were filtered over to Mac. But eventually the laziness inculcated by easy-peasy GUIs managed to dull my command line “skilz”… making my relatively recent increase in use of ‘nix boxes more challenging for quite a while.
Still, I do use Windows in various incarnations a lot. But keeping command line skills from rusting has been a challenge. But since so very many things, even nowadays in the easy-peasyest Windows GUI of all, Win7, can still be best done at the command line, it’s a useful skill set that any moderately advanced Windows user ought to never let fade. Here’s a really great reference to help out in that regard: a command line reference for Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and Vista. Really useful for Windows users to have, IMO.
And here’s a fun little trick using one of those commands to cut one mouse click off a reboot. *heh*
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RIGHT-Click on the desktop and select New>Shortcut
In the Text box, type
shutdown /r /t 30
OK your way out (naming the shortcut anything you want)
The “30” is the time in seconds to reboot from invoking the command. You can, of course, set it to other time in increments of one second.
There, now instead of CLICK-ing Start>Shutdown(arrow)>Restart, you can simply CLICK on Show Desktop>Restart (as I named my shortcut). Or, if you wanted to save another CLICK, just put the shortcut on your Taskbar. (In Win7, RIGHT-CLick>Pin to Taskbar.) Then it’d be a one-click reboot.
A number of other parameters can be invoked to custom tailor just about whatever shutdown behavior you want to invoke.
And that’s just one of an abundant alphabet soup of powerful (OK, sometimes just fun) command line tricks at your fingertips. Batch files are a great way to automate some everyday maintenance using command line tools as well, but without a lot of time drilling those commands (and all the available switches) into one’s brain, OR a good reference like the one at M$TechNet referenced above, simple tools to simplify one’s life are not that simple to come by. *heh*
Neat! I remember when I used to dig through the guts of the system to come up with stuff like this. Now I just treat it like a cheap tool.
Thanks for the tips. **I** read them.
MC
Yeh, paradoxically, I’ve gotten more back to my DOS roots as I’ve used Linux more. The command line is sometimes the only way to get things done, even in today’s GUI-fronted Linux distros, so, even though the ‘nix command line is very different to the DOS command line, it’s led me to look back on (and look for–and find) command line things that make life easier for Windows users in general, as well. In the process, I’ve (re)discovered some of the good things about a Windows/command line combo that’ve made life easier for me, as well. *heh* It used to be (seriously) that DOS (and like environments–‘nix enviros, in particular) separated out those with good critical thinking skills from those who were… less strong, shall we say, who migrated to Macs. Less so in recent years as Windows has made PCs easier and easier to use as simply appliances, or as you put it “cheap tool[s]”.
My first computer was a discarded TRS-80 (discarded because its owner found it too difficult to use) with no manuals save for a TRSDOS Basic workbook. There were a bunch of program diskettes but no manuals for them, either. Getting to the place where it was a useful tool (VisiCalc for the TRS-80–a Good Thing :-)) and (for its time) fun gaming rig took a lot of digging for a “music major, long out of school” autodidact. *heh*
Sweet! Thank you for those precious tips! I am also a command line fan but it is hard to stay in shape! But nothing is impossible for the brave, is it?