Loading DOS prompt during setup

Personally I get extremely bored during a Windows installation, and often get a craving for a good game of Solitaire or Minesweeper. Jamie let me in on a little secret on how to load DOS prompt during Windows Setup, and this had me intrigued, Solitaire here we come, and a lot more.

While the blue Windows setup screen is visible, press Shift+F10 to bring up a DOS prompt window. You can now freely type in any commands you want. Remember firstly, that Windows isn't completely installed, so not everything will be there, and secondly not everything will work.

I've noticed that some commands don't work, such as taskman.exe, however if you load notepad.exe and then choose File > Open, put the filter to *.exe and browse to taskman.exe, then right-click and Open does work.

Below is a list of some of the programs I've had running during Windows setup.

* Wait until after network setup, provided Windows has a driver for your network card.
** Although I did load Alcohol, I didn't try burning a disc.
*** Was under development and required some modding of the registry.

When I was installing, I already had another installation of XP on another hard disk, which is where I'd run the non-Windows programs from.

To use programs that require specific hardware, for example MiniMP3 Player requires your sound card, you must wait until after the 'Installing Devices' stage of setup. To use networking, you must wait until after the 'Network Setup' stage of setup, note that not all networking drivers will be loaded, you will have difficulty accessing network shares etc.

This all assumes that Windows has the correct drivers required for your hardware.