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Congratulations on completing unit 1. This next unit is about the operating system, software and PCs in the workplace.

We begin by discussing the importance of auditing computers and the principles of programming beginning with DOS.

Auditing

Audits are a necessary task in any organisation. For the IT industry these are usually on four levels

1. Health and safety
2. Hardware and capital equipment
3. Software and licensing
4. Security

Typically audits are used to gather information to meet legal requirements and to assist the IT department in managing the service and support of their equipment. Questions audits are designed to answer are;

• Is it safe?
• Is it secure?
• Is it fit for purpose?
• Can it be upgraded?
• Where is it?
• What is its value?
• Who has responsibility?
• Is it legal?

An audit report must include

• The signature of the auditor
• The signature of the person responsible for the rectification
• The signature of the auditor when the rectification has been carried out.

As can be seen this is a very thorough process and holds legal responsibility.

Hardware audits are more about the value of the equipment, its security and its current configuration. Hardware audits assist the IT department when attending service calls, making decisions about upgrades and replacements and also assess the security/vulnerability of the equipment to ensure there has not been any tampering of internal components.

Software audits are taken very seriously within organisations where users may decide to introduce foreign software products. The legal responsibility rests solely with the IT Manager so he/she must show due diligence in ensuring IT policy is understood and adhered to.

Health and safety audits assess the risks a piece of equipment and its immediate surroundings my have. A common test is the PAT (Portable Appliance Test) which should be done annually on all electrical equipment within an organisation. We will be looking more closely at risk assessment in later modules.

Disk Operating System - DOS

DOS is a Shell that consists of commands to interact with the Windows Kernel. There are two basic types of commands in DOS

1. Internal commands - Commands embedded in command.com (the command line interpreter)
2. External commands - Commands on the HDD that typically end in .com or .exe

A list of commands

Whenever a word is typed on a command line and the return key pressed the operating system attempts to interpret this by searching for a matching command. Windows uses a special system variable named %PATH% which gives typical locations for commands and if found they are executed. If they don't exist in the %PATH% then typically a Bad Command or Filename error occurs.

You can view the path by typing

C:\>path [enter]

PATH=C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem

When you type a command the operating system will search these locations for a .com, .exe or .bat in that order (as well as the current directory where the command was run).

The path variable can be modified by including your own directories to include in the Path. In fact, some programs you install may add their locations to the path. The following command will add the floppy drive to the path.

set path=%path%;a:\

System Variables - Variables are reserved words which are used to hold temporary values necessary to the operating system or program. Here is a typical list of System Variables for Windows XP.

Because DOS predates the GUI shell of Windows XP, it was designed to be operated from a keyboard and incorporates many keyboard shortcuts. The Windows GUI is built upon the DOS shell and these still functional in Windows. In fact these become essential when repairing machines when for whatever reasons the mouse is inoperative. Navigating Windows and DOS with the Keyboard.

Batching commands - The Batch file - .bat

Batch files are simply plain text files created in notepad which lists a sequence of commands to run. You can make batch files more flexible by incorporating user variables %1 to %9

When creating batch files you need to follow some basic steps.

• Ensure Hide Known File Extensions ... is turned off.
• Start with a new Notepad page
• Type your Bath file.
• Save you Batch file with a .BAT extension. Ensure your file name is not already a system command name.
• Go to DOS and run your file to test.

A simple BATCH file

@echo off
echo ##########################################################
echo  User %username% is currently logged in at %time% on the %date%          
echo ##########################################################

Save this as useron.bat (in the PATH) and run it.

Further Reading

Manchester Metropolitan University Software Audit Policy

DOS commands help