Command Prompt(DOS) FCUKED?!?

SteamTrean

Hi,

I recently reinstalled XP pro. To my horror, none of the useful dos commands work.. even help. Does anyone know why this could be?

Oriel

Such as?
Help etc works fine for me.

GAAman

could be a botched install,try re-install it again and if the same thing happens there might be a problem with the installation cd

is this the first re-install using this cd?

Karoma

SteamTrean wrote:

Hi,

I recently reinstalled XP pro. To my horror, none of the useful dos commands work.. even help. Does anyone know why this could be?

Oo

Help us to help you- give SOME useful information.

Check the PATH var.?

SteamTrean

Firstly to relpy #1.. Of course it works fine on yours, why wouldn't it, I didn't report a problem with YOUR command prompt.. It worked fine on mine too but when I reinstalled the OS, with the same CD I used to install it in the first place, it didn't work fine. This is why I am posting, in the hope that some of yee that know a bit more about these things than I do might know why these commands don't work.

Background. XP worked fine, I was happy. I got riddled with Viruses and accumulated loads of sheeite over the months and decided to reinstall. This went without a hitch but My command prompt does not work as it is supposed to. As for the dude that tried to tell me how to open Command prompt.. what planet are you on? Didn't i say in the original post that ... ah forget it... Infact I don't want help anymore. I'll ring MS. Later. Thanks for the effort and if your incredible replies were down to my poor communication of the problem then I apologise for my outburst.. it's been a long day.

Karoma

Apology accepted.

If you need help here - you will get it. As long as you give more details of the issue.

SteamTrean

apologies, I can see that you are picking up what I'm laying down. I'm not at my laptop at the mo. If you could be kind enough to tell me the files that I should check.. Then I can give a more helpful post to you would-be problem solvers. soz.

Oriel

I thought you might have been new to XP and thought some of the functions may have been disabled by default.
My advice would be to immediately reformat and start again

Karoma

Check the Environment Variables (Control Panel -> System -> advanced or
Start -> run -> sysdm.cpl ,3 for shortcut) ; and check that the path variable includes the system directories.

It really would help if you could provide more examples, and the error message received... Also, it might be worth ddoing a Search to check that the program/files do exist (i.e. That they did install...)

irlrobins

I think Karoma has got it right here. Your path variable has prob been altered. Check that you have the following in it "%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;" If you don't that's your problem.

You may also need to set %systemRoot%. You can do this by opening a command window and entering "set SystemRoot=C:\WINDOWS"

Hope this helps.

GAAman

reason i said botched install rather then path was cos i came across somethin like this last week it turns out the cd was faulty,got in touch with micro****e and they sent out another disc and all was well

Capt'n Midnight

irlrobins wrote:

I think Karoma has got it right here. Your path variable has prob been altered. Check that you have the following in it "%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;" If you don't that's your problem.

You may also need to set %systemRoot%. You can do this by opening a command window and entering "set SystemRoot=C:\WINDOWS"

Hope this helps.

LOL
or
Control panel - System - Advanced - Environmental Variables

irlrobins

Am i missing something here? Capt Midnight's post has gone over my head....

MunsterCycling

Ok should I point out that its a problem with the command prompt or should we leave irlrobins to stew a while longer, oh well I guess the bat is out of the bag now!

irlrobins

Well OP said that none of the commands worked, not that he couldn't open a command window. I had someone with this problem recently and was fixed by adding the %systemroot% stuff to Path variable (using Control panel - System - Advanced - Environmental Variables) and using the set command in a command window to set system root.

th£gue$t

Try clicking > start going to > run and typing the below command

sfc /scannow

This command will immediately initiate the Windows File Protection service to scan all protected files and verify their integrity, replacing any files with which it finds a problem.

You may be prompted for your window xp cd, so have it handy.