Published: Jan 07, 2009
How can I open a Command Prompt (CMD) window during the Windows Vista installation process?
As a Microsoft Windows Vista support professional, one of your tasks may be to install the operating system. You can read more about it in the Install Windows Vista article.
There might be times where you’d want to perform various tasks during the installation process. I can’t think of a more specific example other than, for example, picking the Product Key of the Windows installation from within a text file that’s on the installation CD (DVD in case of Windows Vista).
Here come a neat trick that’s been around for many years yet not many know of it:
During the GUI phase of the installation you can simply press the SHIFT + F10 keys, and bingo! a nice and black CMD window opens!
Some screenshots:
and even a nice screenshot of Notepad.exe and Regedit.exe running while the setup process runs in the background:
As more and more files are copied to the installation folder on the hard disk, more and more *.exe programs are available to be run from the CMD window:
Lamer Note: Make sure you know what you do, don’t blame me if you wreck your installation while running all sort of programs…
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