R. Craig Collins > ITSC 1305 > Tree, and the Art of DOS

Tree, and the art of DOS © R. Craig Collins, 2007

Normally, when browsing for files you can only see the contents of one folder/directory at a time.

But compare the following:

In the Windows My Computer view, the folders button has been turned on to let you see all of the subdirectories stored in the 'taxes' folder... the problem is, that is all you can see... folders. You still must open each folder to see if there are any files.

Now look at the tree /f command results to the right. Not only can you see the directories in taxes, but you can also see the single file that is there.

Now, think about how to rename files in Windows... right click--rename--type in the new name, etc. Simple, right? But, what if you wanted a million files? Using wildcards, you could rename a million files with one simple command.

Seems the command prompt can still do a few things Windows graphical user interface can't.