Hi All Seasons greetings. When I go to my C prompt its trying to use visual studio command prompt and does not take any the dos commands ie (ipconfig or ping). I am not sure what caused this to happen and how to get back to the dos prompt. I do not use visual studio. thanks for any help on this matter

Exactly, what is it you are doing to get to the C: prompt? The normal way is to go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > Command prompt.

Thats exactly how I am trying to get there

Right click the 'Command Prompt' icon, select 'Properties' and post back what it has in the 'Target' window. It should have something like: %SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe

the first line is whats in the target next is what i get when i type a command at the prompt %SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600] (C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp. C:\Documents and Settings\mike>ipconfig 'ipconfig' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Try going to Start > Run > type c:\windows\system32\ipconfig If that works, there is a problem with your 'path' variable. If it doesn't work, your ipconfig.exe file would seem to be missing in action. You could do a search for it and see if it's elsewhere. You might find a copy in: C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386

that did not work either, but I did find that if i go to > start > all programs > Accessories > Command prompt > right click > properites > find target. there is a cmd.exe icon that works and understands the commands. Thanks for the help so for aegis1