BCDEDIT - How to Use

I'm on Win7 Home Premium 64b, as an administrator. In a command window I keep getting:

'bcdedit' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

Is this a Pro tool?

Yes, it is there. Here's a path copy: C:\Windows\System32\bcdedit.exe. I just tried the full path in the command window, and I tried the full file name. Nothing. I definitely am the administrator here.

I had another odd command window occurrence yesterday. There was a file (rstrui.exe - system restore) that I could plainly see in Explorer, but no DIR command, with Archive switches, would show it in the command window. Let me see if that's happening here too...

Indeed, this seems to be the problem. Here's the output:

Code:

C:\Windows\System32>dir bc*

 Directory of C:\Windows\System32
07/13/2009  08:11 PM            80,896 bcrypt.dll
07/13/2009  08:17 PM           249,680 bcryptprimitives.dll
               2 File(s)        330,576 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  146,007,564,288 bytes free

C:\Windows\System32>dir /a:s bc*
 Directory of C:\Windows\System32

File Not Found

C:\Windows\System32>dir /a:h bc*
 Directory of C:\Windows\System32

File Not Found

C:\Windows\System32>

For some reason my command window is not seeing system files.

Ok, here's my problem. I just opened an elevated Command Window, and now I can see the system file without even using the a:s switch, just as you can. I don't understand why I need to take that step, however, since I am an administrator (and I just double-checked that). I've never had any problem doing anything via the command window before yesterday.

Thanks,
p.

Yes, I have command line access to the file now. What I don't understand is that I've had the machine for three months and have done countless installations and work under the hood, including via the command line, and never once did I have to elevate the window. And I've changed nothing in privileges in all that time, as I'm aware.

I wonder how this affects the command window in Safe Mode. That is where I would want to invoke System Restore in a dire emergency. There must be a way to elevate the window there too.

IAC, thanks for your help.

p.

I suppose it depends on the levels to which you can muck the system up. You can do a fair amount of mucking up with bcdedit. There is a level above elevated command prompt (hidden administrator) where you can do even more mucking up or fix things of course.

Greetings
First post here! I have installed a dual boot with WinXP and Win7 and it's working fine. I want to backup my BCD using bcdedit. I start my Win7 install DVD. Hit Shift F10 to get command prompt, enter bcdedit and I get that response that the file cannot be found. This is with the boot DVD!! Shouldn't we be at elevated prompt with the DVD?

When I was setting up that dual boot a few weeks ago I was using bcdedit just fine!

Well, now I am in big trouble. I tried imaging my main HD to external drive and it worked. Tried to boot from it into WinXP and it worked. Tried to boot into Win7 didn't work. I wanted to try another imaging program but things got so confusing, I had more than one bootable HD attached at once and now I can't get into any windows system. It says ntldr missing. I've disconnected all other drives from the machine and I've started the Win7 install disk to repair. I entered the command mode and entered "bootsect /nt52 c: /force /mbr" just to get the WinXP part working again and now it boots. When I get to the blue screen to sign on, there is no sign on button to click to enter my password at all. Nothing happens, can't click anything.

So...I started up the WinXP install CD, got into the recovery console, it found the c:\windows partition, but now wants the admin password which I type what I'm using currently and it doesn't take. Now what?? Can I somehow forcibly reset the admin password. I'm stuck.