obscure cmd conflict errors

As one who grew up computer-wise in DOS, I still break out the cmd prompt now and then.

One that I use that I never see mentioned is COPY CON filename.ext 

The point is that it lets you create a file and put some text in right there, without having to open Notepad or whatever. It is useful if you want to create a file with an obscure file type. Note, you type what you want then hit F6 to save. (Logical right, F6, duh)

Anyway, this is my submission for obscure error of the week:

C:\>copy con test.txt
the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. (hit F6)

The I/O operation has been aborted because of either a thread exit or an app
lication request.
        0 file(s) copied.

At this point the Vonage Click-to-Call window pops up suspiciously. Click-to-Call is a little tool from Vonage that adds a button to Outlook that you can just click and it will dial the number and ring your phone when the number has been successfully dialed. I don’t use it much, but hey, it’s something I groaned about with my Cisco VOIP solution at work about, so I should do something about it at home.

Anyway, boring story short, Vonage’s app caused a twenty-five year old command line app to fail.

One more useful command for the day:

dir /s > directorylist.txt

This will output the contents of a whole tree of files to a text file. I actually do this as a hack around Copernic Desktop Search’s inability to index file names for file types it doesn’t know about.  

Published

2 comments

  1. Run the Copernic flaw again? If Copernic doesn’t know the file ext it doesn’t index it? That could be a problemo.

    T

  2. Copernic has a default set of types that it knows about and can index the entire contents.

    Users can add individual file types to be indexed by type or name only. I haven’t tried putting in *.* for name only. Perhaps that could work also. (this is in the advanted tab in options)

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