First we had command lines and you had to know: Net use \\bigserver\sharedspace e: Then we had GUI and if you didn't know net use you could click on 'the little box with a star in the corner' and fill in the dialog box. Then we forget about the command line and find ourselves opening explorer and doing that stuff loads of times. At least with net use there is a command line equivalent; for lots of stuff there isn't (DCOMCNFG), so you end up traipsing round several machines doing the same 20 clicks or you have to call a load of c API calls to do the same thing. At the worst extreme, GUI procedures get written down and some poor junior has to follow the script each time something has to be done.