The books

One corner of Windows per volume, each made plain. Read them free here; buy the printed editions on Amazon.

Book One · Free online · print edition coming

Wizard's Guide to the Command Line

A Beginner's Reference Guide to Windows CMD

Every Windows machine ships with a spellbook already installed — and almost nobody opens it. This guide walks you into the Command Prompt from the very first keystroke: what the prompt is telling you, how to move through folders without a mouse, how to copy, rename and hunt down files, read your network, and repair the small daily disasters that used to mean a support ticket. Plain language, one idea at a time.

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In the forgeNetworking◇

Book Two · In the forge

Networking

Working title

Reading a network the way Book One taught you to read a folder — ping to see what's reachable, tracert to follow the path, nslookup to ask what a name really means.

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In the forgeBatch Scripting◇

Book Three · In the forge

Batch Scripting

Working title

Where a saved sequence becomes a small program: if to decide, for to repeat across a whole list of files, goto and call to move around inside a script.

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In the forgeSystem Administration◇

Book Four · In the forge

System Administration

Working title

Looking after the machine itself: disks and storage, permissions and ownership, services, scheduled tasks, and the Windows Registry — powerful tools, learned properly.

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In the forgePowerShell◇

Book Five · In the forge

PowerShell

Working title

The modern shell Microsoft now favors: objects instead of plain text, a far larger vocabulary, and real scripting power.

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