DVD Command Prompt

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J

john

Does anyone how I can get a list of the available commands at the Vista DVD
repair command prompt.
The command "help" is not supported.

TIA,
john
 
john said:
Does anyone how I can get a list of the available commands at the Vista
DVD repair command prompt.
The command "help" is not supported.
Click to expand...

It's not a direct answer to your question, but you might want to look at the
tutorial at

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial147.html

Recall that in Vista when you get into the repair dialogs you've got a WinPE
environment, so unlike the XP CMDCONS environment (which was able to run
only character-mode commands) you have many or most of the common GUI-based
maintenance commands such as NOTEPAD available to you under Vista. From the
command prompt you have a PATH variable pointing to X:\WINDOWS and
X:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 (X: points to the Vista boot DVD). Your C: disk is also
available (assuming it's not corrupt) but it's not in the path.

Watch out, though, for commands that assume the local system as their
context -- such as REGEDIT. Open the Registry editor under WinPE and you're
looking at the values associated with the WinPE system, not the one on the
hard disk. ERD Commander (and various other similar products) will do this,
but they're not part of the Windows Vista kit.

A simple summary of the available commands appropriate for the repair-mode
command prompt, and invoked using the familiar command HELP wouldn't have
been a bad idea...but somehow MS didn't bother to include it.

Joe Morris
 
Joe Morris said:
It's not a direct answer to your question, but you might want to look at
the tutorial at

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial147.html

Recall that in Vista when you get into the repair dialogs you've got a
WinPE environment, so unlike the XP CMDCONS environment (which was able to
run only character-mode commands) you have many or most of the common
GUI-based maintenance commands such as NOTEPAD available to you under
Vista. From the command prompt you have a PATH variable pointing to
X:\WINDOWS and X:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 (X: points to the Vista boot DVD).
Your C: disk is also available (assuming it's not corrupt) but it's not in
the path.

Watch out, though, for commands that assume the local system as their
context -- such as REGEDIT. Open the Registry editor under WinPE and
you're looking at the values associated with the WinPE system, not the one
on the hard disk. ERD Commander (and various other similar products) will
do this, but they're not part of the Windows Vista kit.

A simple summary of the available commands appropriate for the repair-mode
command prompt, and invoked using the familiar command HELP wouldn't have
been a bad idea...but somehow MS didn't bother to include it.

Joe Morris
Click to expand...

Thanks, knowing now that it's a PE explains a lot. I agree a HELP command
would have been nice.
I'm not confident enough yet to run GUI commands from X:, but a CD to C: to
make sure whatever changes I make are reflected to C:\ would be safer. And
thanks for the link.

john
 
There are a number of reference articles on Win PE on the MSFT Technet Vista
site.

CH
 
Chad Harris said:
There are a number of reference articles on Win PE on the MSFT Technet
Vista site.

CH
Click to expand...

Thanks, this a great resource. I din't know you could build your customized
WinPE.

john
 
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