MS-DOS question

I have Windows XP SP3. From within the command.com window, I want to use the dir command to switch to the child directory "Program Files" which has a space in it. I tried single quotes, double quotes, to no avail. Any clue would be welcome. Thanks.

cd progra~1

I tried with no special symbol, but a space in between... and it worked :)

cd "Program Files"

might work too :)

If you are not on the root directory, you have to give:

cd "C:\Program Files"

or

cd C:\progra~1

Hi all,

I guess that the fundamental error is to use the 'dir' command. ;-)

As everybody said implicitly: the cd command should work.

Here's how to achieve the desired with command.com:

C: // switches to drive C: (assuming that your Program Files directory is on C:)

cd \ // changes to the root directory of drive C:

dir /X P* // shows the short 8+3 and the long names of all folders and files in C:\ starting with P*

cd PROGRA~1 // assuming that the short name of Program Files is PROGRA~1

So ypercube is 100% right. Hyphenation does not save you here, because DOS's not UNIX. :-D (Don't even think about masking the space with a backslash.)

I recommend CMD over COMMAND, though. It can handle long file names. Just press WINDOWS+R and enter CMD instead of COMMAND. In CMD, you go

C:

cd \Pro and the -key does some magical auto-completion.

Thomas

CMD did the trick. Thanks to all for your suggestions.

change the completion character to be tab, then just 'tab complete' everything.

Of course, I'm obliged to say "just do a proper OS, rather than a lame-ass piece of shite" - so consider it said.