Cmd-line (insert Beatles song title), you know the one

When thinking of a title for this post, the Beatles song entitled, "Help" came to mind.  In fact, now the song is stuck in my head.  The link in the previous sentence seemed to "Help" with the condition.

There is one command that is very useful when you encounter the command prompt.  Since I am not very good at foreshadowing when writing, the command that I am trying to tell you about is the HELP command.


The HELP command can be used to provide you any information about some of the commands that can be used in the command line prompt.  If you type the word HELP at the prompt, you will get a long list of commands.  Unless you can read as fast as Johnny 5, then you need a way to read the list.  If you are using the command prompt within a window, then all you need to do is scroll up in the window.  Another way of looking at the list is using the MORE command with the character known as the vertical bar.  The  vertical bar key is located on the backslash key.  To type it, hold the SHIFT + \, and it looks like this, "|".  When you type at the command prompt, it looks like a broken vertical bar.

Type the following:

HELP | MORE

This will display the output of the HELP command, one screen at a time, and all you have to do is hit the SPACE BAR to go to the next screen.

In order to get further information about a command, just type the HELP along with the command that you need help with.

For example, HELP DIR, will give you a detailed description of the command in question, along with the switches (options) that can be used with the command.

If you get nothing from this posting, just know that at some point everyone needs some "Help".