A part of what I do here on my About.com site is create PC troubleshooting guides. Many of those guides are focused on solving specific error messages.

A troubleshooting step in many of those guides is to update Internet Explorer to the latest version available. It tends to fix many problems because of how integrated IE is with the rest of Windows.

I know many reading this would have no problem doing that but for those that do: all you need to do to update IE is download the latest version from Microsoft and then install it. Piece of cake.

I created this document as a way to keep the latest version number updated and provide a link to Microsoft's download area for IE. I'll be linking to this page from my troubleshooting guides, which should help.

There are three major ways to install Windows XP on a computer and it's very, very important that you choose the right one.

A clean install will wipe EVERYTHING from the hard drive partition that XP is installed on. A repair install is like a "copy over" and shouldn't delete anything important. Finally, a new install is what you'd do if you just purchased a new hard drive to install Windows onto or you're building your own PC.

(OK, there's actually at least one other way - a parallel install - but it's not usually very useful.)

You can learn more here: How To Install Windows XP.

Anyone who's familiar with the Command Prompt in Windows knows that there's a huge number of commands... and many more than what that helpful help command will tell you about.

I did some research and it turns out there's almost 200 commands available in Command Prompt. That's a lot. There's a few more in Windows 7 than in Windows Vista and a few more there than in Windows XP.

For your command knowledge pleasure:

• List of Command Prompt Commands in Windows XP
  
• List of Command Prompt Commands in Windows Vista
  
• List of Command Prompt Commands in Windows 7

I've included a brief description of each command so hopefully this proves to be more of a resource than a simple listing. I'll be linking to more in depth guides for each command as time permits.

(Be sure to let me know if I missed a command!)

The Command Prompt is not DOS. I repeat, the Command Prompt is not DOS.

I have to say, I've been guilty of calling it what it is not as well. I chalk it up to habit - the Windows Command Prompt looks a LOT and acts a LOT like MS-DOS did.

But it's not DOS.

The Command Prompt is just a command line interpreter program - an application in and of itself. It's available in all Windows versions since NT - including the popular Windows XP, Windows Vista, and even Windows 7.

Windows does not operate within MS-DOS because MS-DOS no longer exists in these versions of Windows.

So there's my Monday rant! You can read more about Command Prompt here.