Amit from Digital Inspiration has put up a list of useful dos command shortcuts ^[1] which will make your life much easier while using the command prompt. There are two shortcuts I am particularly happy at finding out.

F7 Key Shortcut

Pressing the F7 key will show you a list of commands you had typed in earlier, very useful if you repeat the same commands over and over again and dread typing them.

F1 and F2 shortcut keys

Typing in long commands can always result in mistakes in order to correct those mistakes you may have to type in the whole command again. Instead of typing in the whole command again you can simply press the F1 key and it output one character at a time from the previous command. if you think that is slow you can use the F2 key which will prompt you the number of characters you want to copy from the previous command.

Bonus Tips

Copying from a command prompt is not always easy and you have to always right click the command prompt and then select mark to copy the text. Many popular Linux shell clients like putty ^[2] and cygwin allow you to easily copy the text by selecting it with your mouse, in fact it auto copies the selected text which turns out to be pretty useful.

If you want to get the same functionality for the Windows command prompt you can do so easily by following the instructions below.

Open the command prompt properties

Select the Quick Edit mode

Once you have have done that click on Ok button. In some instance you may be prompted to choose to either limit your changes to the session or apply it to all future command windows that you may use. Choose the latter so that you do not have to do this again and again.

^[3]

Once you have done that you can now select any text on the command prompt by simply using your mouse.

^[4]

Note simply selecting the text will not copy it, you will have to hit the return [enter] button once you have made your selection for it to be copied.

Well hope these tips make your life easier using the dos command prompt. Let me know your views about these.