I know Instructables on how to do this are already out there. Don't tell me that, please. I have my reasons for making this. All of the Instructables I have seen out there on how to open command prompt basically only show you one way to do it. I will show you basically all of the ways. If I leave one out, please tell me.

If you are using Mac-OS go right to step 5.

Linux, step 6.

Collaboration is now enabled. If you know of a way to start command prompt or an operating system that is not covered in this, please PM me and I will add you as a collaborator.

Remember, Instructables have licenses. This Instructable is using the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license. To see what freedoms this license gives you, click here.

By proceeding to the following steps you agree that I will not be held liable for damages to any computer you use information from this Instructable on, and that this information is for educational purposes only.

Step 1: Not Even Blocked

If you are doing this from home, command prompt probably won't be blocked. You can go to start, run, and type in cmd. Then press enter or click OK. For those of you who like hotkeys or shortcuts, pressing Ctrl+Esc+R will bring up run also.

P.S. I am assuming you are using a version of Windows if you are even here. I don't think Macs even have command prompt...

Step 2: No Run? No Difference!

Sometimes, command prompt may be more difficult to get to. For example, you may be at school or some other public place, and Run may be blocked! Gasp! There is no button on the start menu and the hotkey from step 1 doesn't work! Luckily, with windows there are usually multiple ways to do one thing. The first way we will try is to make a shortcut. Make a shortcut on your desktop that goes to C:\WINDOWS\System32\cmd.exe. If you can not right click, go to my computer and click the up button until you get to your desktop. You can then click File (on the menu bar) and then click New Shortcut. This is where you can enter the path above. If for some reason or other, you can't make shortcuts, you'd better go to the next step. If you can make a shortcut, but you get a error message like in the third picture down there, you had better keep going also, and you may even have to use the complex method.

Step 3: Using Notepad to Make a Shortcut.

Now we will try using notepad to make a shortcut to command prompt. Open notepad. If notepad is blocked, you can open up your web browser (for example Internet Explorer) and right click on a page and View Source. Or you can right click and click New, Text File. Or use the File Button on the Menu Bar instead of right clicking. However you do it, you need to end up with an instance of Notepad open.

Type this:
command.com

That is all you have to type. Now save it as a file with the extension .bat. Now go run it by double clicking.

STILL doesn't work? Try the next step.

Step 4: Use a Batch File

If none of these steps work, it means your IT department is actual good. Mostly, school IT departments are made up of one or two morons who can type. I know mine is. It is basically one guy in need of a shave who hates kids. What kind of moron works at a school if he hates kids? But now I am getting sidetracked. Bad me! Well, I had to include some kind of batch file in this; I love batch files. Now, lets see, I need some kind of test. I will include my batch file, but it will be compiled as an executable. Now before you protest because you want open source, give me a second to explain. I am including a decompiler with my batch file. To run it all you have to do is use the parameter "decompile" when you start my file.

Look at the two images below. Can you tell which one is real?

PseudoCMD.zip
Download

Step 5: Mac OS X

Mac OS X is built on a version of Unix called Darwin. To access the Unix command prompt in Mac OS X, open the Terminal application. It is located by default inside the Utilities folder, which in turn is inside the Applications folder.

For information about Unix commands, see Introduction to Unix commands.

This infromation was quoted from here.

Step 6: Xubuntu

There is really only one way to open a terminal window in Linux: run the file. There are several ways to do this though.

1: Use a file manager to go to the binary and run it. For me, it's under "usr > bin > xfce4-terminal".

2: Use some command-line to run it. Type either "x-terminal-emulator" or "exec x-terminal emulator".

3: A shortcut. My system (xubuntu, modded beyond recognition with openbox) isn't normal and I just have the shortcut in the right-click menu. If you're making a shortcut, just tell it to execute "x-terminal-emulator".

Anywhere you see "x-terminal-emulator" here you can also use "xfce4-terminal". The first thing is actually just a shell script pointing to the second thing.

If the file has restricted access and you don't know the password, then you're sunk.

This applies to most Linux systems (if not all of them), but you may have to change the file names (anything that I've put in quotes).

- yourcat