Hey girls, the following steps will show you how to use the black window all hackers use. It might look a bit scary at first, but really, it is just a prompt, waiting for commands from you.

The window is usually called the command line, but you can also hear the following names: cmd, prompt, console or terminal.

Each operating system has a slightly different set of commands for the command line. Here is a summary of some useful commands:

These are just a very few of the possible black window commands. ss64.com contains a complete reference of commands for all operating systems.

• Up arrow - rerun previous commands. You can avoid typing the same commands again by using the up arrow key to rerun recently used commands.

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• Tab key - the tab key will autocomplete directory and file names. For example, typing **dir t ** + Tab will autocomplete to all directories starting with t in the current directory (such as task, test, tutorial). =======
• Tab key - the tab key will autocomplete directory and file names. For example, typing dir t + Tab will autocomplete to all directories starting with t in the current directory (such as task, test, tutorial).

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• exit - it closes the black window; it makes sense, right? No need to explain too much...

• cd - it allows you to change your current directory. To use it type cd [directoryname] and press enter.

For example: let's say you are in a directory called c:\test with three sub-directories: documents, photos, and music.

c
└───test
        documents
        photos
        music

To go to the documents directory, simply type cd documents and press enter. You are now in c:\test\A. To move back to the c:\test directory, type cd ...

• dir (Windows) / ls (others) - it lists files and directories located in your current directory. If you type dir \test or ls test, you will see the content of the c:\test directory. Note that for many commands you can use the * symbol which stands for all or wildcard. With this in mind, try typing dir *.txt for Windows or ls *.txt for other OS. It will list only files that end with .txt.

• copy (Windows) / cp (others) - it allows you to copy files from one location to another. To use this command, type copy [sourcefile] [targetfile].

For example: if you have the file c:\test\test.txt and you would like to copy it to c:\windows\test.txt, type:

copy c:\test\test.txt c:\windows\test.txt

• move (Windows) / mv (others) - it allows you to move files from one location to another. The syntax you use is the same as for the copy command.

• mkdir - it allows you to create a new directory. For example, mkdir temp creates a new directory called temp in the current directory.

• del (Windows) / rm (others) - it allows you to delete the specified file. For example, del test.txt deletes the test.txt file from the current directory.