Microsoft Windows Inside OUT!
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Contents |
[edit] Introduction
The goal of this book is to provide you with a more advanced manual and for the Windows™ Operating System. Be careful with some of the information in this book, as you could do irreparable harm to your Windows system. The authors can not be responsible for the damage you cause.
There are two methods of exploring the Windows™ OS. We can literally 'explore.exe' it, using the Windows Explorer. The other way is the way this book was created for: Inside OUT! This might seem to be an extreme way to gather information about Windows, but the authors feel that if Microsoft Corporation isn't forthcoming in providing in-depth information about their operating systems, it has to be done manually.
Not only is this book going to cover the security (which is considered 'sensitive information') of this OS, the cosmetics and the configuration of the Windows OS are also on the list of topics we'll cover.
We've tried to provide ways to accomplish this that will be as low cost to you as possible. Most of the tools we'll suggest you use will be open source, but we may also suggest closed-source freeware. In some cases we might suggest a shareware program that you could use, but this will be kept to a minimum.
[edit] The Dos "Box"
MS-DOS was a big leap forwards in the home user PC market in the 80's. It allowed novice computer users to control their computers without having to learn languages like BASIC. DOS exposed the computers underlying hardware in a safe and usable way in the form of commands. eg. at the nostalgic dos prompt: A:/>_ , it was this prompt that spawned the ever increasing use of Microsoft DOS on personal computers. Today the prompt or CLI(Command Line Interface) has been replaced with the more interactive GUI (Graphical User Interface), though interestingly enough 'power users' still prefer the use of the CLI, or the 'DOS BOX' where repetitive or complicated tasks can be performed with a higher degree of control or use-ability. In cases where GUI software hasn't been developed to complete a specific task, commands can be strung together to accomplish a given task through a CLI.
[edit] Rediscover DOS on Win32 OSes
Microsoft termed their CLI the command prompt, and called the program that allows users to interact with the computer ie. the shell , as COMMAND.COM. This file can still be found in the WINDOWS operating system up to the 98 versions (including Millenium) in the WINDOWS\COMMANDS\ directory. The recent versions of Windows - the NT versions don't instantiate the GUI layer of the operating system from a shell. Today the modern operating system kernel is somewhat 'faceless' without loading a GUI. Macintosh were the forerunners in computing history in GUI lockout, where the PC will always need it's GUI interface loaded in order to be operable. The Windows modern 'NT' line of operating systems are now the same today, the most rudimentary loading of the operating system still loads the operating systems GUI therefore requiring specific hardware in order to be able to interact with the operating system. eg. without a Graphics device that is capable of display rich graphics content the operating system won't load. Microsoft windows still provides their rudimentary shell for nostalgic reasons and some backwards compatibilty. It is under the WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\ directory and is now called cmd.exe. This is what we now like to call the new 'DOS BOX'. It can be started by finding it on you programs menu in your start button or by typing in a run dialog cmd . Note: Command.com is still available in the new NT versions of windows, but is debatable to note any compatibility difference between it and cmd.exe.
[edit] Typing in a command
Let's try this - it's one of the first things we all learnt in the Good 'ol Days of dos... dir_ .At your prompt which should look like C:\Documents and Setting\MYUSERNAME\>_ .... type in three letters D, I, R and press enter. You will see all the folders and files that belong to you in that Directory.
Here is another one which is some thing new to the GUI enhancements of WIN95... start . when you type start with a space and a dot after it, windows will start an explorer shell containg the directory '.' ,ie the current directory you reside in. Note: in Windows powershell 'start' is no longer a built in command. Try it with more dots to see what happens , eg. start .. .
Redirection: you don't always have a visible responce from a shell. if you type dir > temp.txt you will not see any output. Instead the output of dir has now gone into the file temp.txt. Now if you type temp.txt you will see what is in the file. Alternatively, type start temp.txt and it will open in your default editor.
