I was wondering how u get the icon that says restart to command prompt...I remember seeing somone's post just not sure if it was this site or someone elses but i think there was a key u had to hit to get that to show up when ur going to shutdown the pc...Thanks in advance

Sorry my friend, but unlike Windows 95/98/Me Windows XP does not run on top of DOS (command prompt) so you cannot "exit" into it. That is, Windows XP is the OS so there is nothing to "exit" into...you're there already! Yes, you can go into "Command Prompt" in XP but that is just an emulation i.e. XP "pretending" or simulating something to DOS. Does that make sense?

with windows running got to run and type cmd this will give you the command promt... or at boot up just keep hittng F8 and it will take to to a menu that allowsyou to boot into Safe mode, command prompt, and a few other options....

Or you have to boot from a Windows 98 Startup diskette, than you get the command prompt without starting Windows XP...

if windwos xp is partitioned with fat 32 or from the win9x/me fdisk program you can boot off the 9x/me floppy disk to a command prompt and do what ever dos commands you need. dual boot is great 9x/me or xp menu comes up. only 2 os are supported. (2000 and xp). or (9x and xp) or (me xp). etc. I can chose 9x, then command prompt. bear in mind if you boot to 9x os or command prompt it can not see ntfs. it is seen as unknown file system. fdisk can delete it then repartition to get fat 32 then reinstall xp chosing fat32. then 9x/me can see your files on windows xp.