Computer programmers and system engineers often need to convert hexadecimal numbers such as FF to decimal numbers (255) and vice-versa, but don”t want to open up the Windows XP calculator tool?

Diagnosing Windows XP printer errors on a printer accessible either locally or via the network? One place to start would be to determine whether or not the printer drivers are completely installed and what versions of the particular DLLs and other files are installed. This can be done via the printdriverinfo command.

Need to make repeated copies of the same CD? Or do you want to burn a CD image from an .ISO file acquired via the Internet, perhaps of another operating system? If you don”t want to open up your CD burning application, you can burn CDs via DOS in Windows XP with the cdburn command.

The Sysinternals website, part of Microsoft TechNet, offers a free registry utility called regJump. This opens the Registry Editor to a specific key of your choosing.

For computer management, software error diagnosis, or spyware or virus diagnosis, it may prove useful to display the list, size, and version of all DLLs currently loaded on a particular Windows XP machine. This can be done on the command prompt with the listdlls command, available from the SysInternals site, part of Microsoft Technet.

Need to create DOS batch files in Windows XP where the prompt size is not the standard 25 lines by 80 columns? Perhaps the batch file needs to display large screens of information and extra lines are needed. Or the batch file may be deployed on a system with a large monitor that can handle 170 columns.

Need to make repeated copies of the same DVD? Or do you want to burn a DVD image from an .ISO file acquired via the Internet, perhaps of another operating system? Just as the cdburn command burns CDs from the Windows XP/DOS command line, the dvdburn command can be used to burn DVDs.

When writing a DOS batch file in Windows XP, have you ever needed to acquire the list of files in the current directory without all of the header information (volume name and serial number), footer information (number of files and/or directories, bytes used and free), or extra file information (date and time, file type, and file size)?