Working with Basic Windows Commands
In this blog, we’ll explore all the windows commands
PING: Shows a Website IP Address, Lets you Know How Long it Takes to Transmit Data and a Get Response
TRACERT: Traces an IP address to a particular website and gives a count of hops to reach the website.
IPCONFIG: Shows Information about PC IP Addresses and Connections
SYSTEMINFO: Shows Your PC’s Details
If you want to see more detailed information about your system you won’t see in the GUI, this is the command for you
SET: Shows your PC’s Environment Variables
ASSOC: Lists Programs and the Extensions They are Associated With
DRIVERQUERY: Lists All Installed Drivers
It is important to have access to all drivers because they often cause problems.
That’s what this command does — it shows you even the drivers you won’t find in the device manager
PROMPT: Changes the Default Text Shown before Entering Commands
By default, the command prompt shows the C drive path to your user account.
You can use the prompt
command to change that default text with the syntax prompt prompt_name $G
:
CLIP: Copies an Item to the Clipboard
For example, dir | clip
copies all the content of the present working directory to the clipboard.
TITLE: Changes the Command Prompt Window Title Using the Format title window-title-name
FC: Compares Two Similar Files
If you are a programmer or writer and you want to quickly see what differs between two files, you can enter this command and then the full path to the two files. For example fc “file-1-path” “file-2-path”
.
CIPHER: Wipes Free Space and Encrypts Data
On a PC, deleted files remain accessible to you and other users. So, technically, they are not deleted under the hood.
You can use the cipher command to wipe the drive clean and encrypt such files.
NETSTAT -AN: Shows Open Ports, their IP Addresses and States
COLOR ATTR: Changes the Text Color of the Command Prompt
Enter color attr
to see the colors you can change to:
for /f "skip=9 tokens=1,2 delims=:" %i in ('netsh wlan show profiles') do @echo %j | findstr -i -v echo | netsh wlan show profiles %j key=clear
– Shows All Wi-Fi Passwords
SFC: System File Checker
This command scans your computer for corrupt files and repairs them. The extension of the command you can use to run a scan is /scannow
.
POWERCFG HELP: Controls Configurable Power Settings
You can use this command with its several extensions to show information about the power state of your PC.
You can enter powercfg help
to show those extensions.
DIR: Lists Items in a Directory
DEL: Deletes a File
attrib +h +s +r folder_name
– Hides a Folder
You can hide a folder right from the command line by typing in attrib +h +s +r folder_name
and then pressing ENTER
.
To show the folder again, execute the command – attrib -h -s -r folder_name
START WEBSITE-ADDRESS: Logs on to a Website from the Command Line
VER: Shows the Version of the OS
TREE: Shows the Tree of the Current Directory or Specified Drive
TASKLIST: Shows Open Programs
You can do the same thing you do with the task manager with this command:
TASKKILL: Terminates a Running Task
To kill a task, run taskkill /IM "task.exe" /F
. For example, taskkill /IM "chrome.exe" /F
:
DATE: Shows and Changes the Current Date
TIME: Shows and Changes the Current Time
VOL: Shows the Serial Number and Label Info of the Current Drive
CTRL + C
– Stops the Execution of a Command
-help
– Provides a Guide to other Commands
ECHO: Shows Custom Messages or Messages from a Script or File
MKDIR: Creates a Folder
RMDIR: Deletes a Folder
MORE: Shows More Information or the Content of a File
MOVE: Moves a File or Folder to a Specified Folder
REN – Renames a File with the Syntax ren filename.extension new-name.extension
CLS: Clears the Command Line
In case you enter several commands and the command line gets clogged up, you can use cls
to clear all entries and their outputs.
EXIT:– Closes the Command Line
SHUTDOWN: – Shuts down, Restarts, Hibernates, Sleeps the Computer
CONCLUSION: This article showed you several “unknown-to-many” commands you can use to get access to hidden functionalities on your Windows PC.
Again, you should be careful while working with these commands because they can have a lasting effect on your OS.
If you find the commands helpful, share the article with your friends and family.