The Windows command line is one of the most powerful utilities on
a Windows PC. With it, you can interact with the OS directly and do
a lot of things not available in the graphical user interface (GUI).
some of these commands require you to open the command
prompt as an admin.
Windows Command Line Commands
powershell start cmd -v runAs – Run the Command Prompt as
an Administrator
Entering this command opens another command prompt
window as an administrator:
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.
or cd – Changes the Current Working Directory to the
chdir
Specified Directory
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
– Changes the Default Text Shown before Entering
prompt
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:
N.B: If you don’t append $G to the command, you won’t get
the greater than symbol in front of the text.
clip – Copies an Item to the Clipboard
For example, dir | clip copies all the content of the present
working directory to the clipboard.
You can type clip /? and hit ENTER to see how to use it.
assoc – Lists Programs and the Extensions They are
Associated With
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
– Shows a Website IP Address, Lets you Know How
ping
Long it Takes to Transmit Data and a Get Response
color – Changes the Text Color of the Command Prompt
Enter color attr to see the colors you can change to:
Entering color 2 changes the color of the terminal to green:
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
– Shows Information about PC IP Addresses and
ipconfig
Connections
This command also has extensions such as ipconfig
/release, ipconfig /renew, and ipconfig /flushdns which you
can use to troubleshoot issues with internet connections.
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 – 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.
For example, you can use powercfg /energy to generate a
battery health report.
The powercfg /energy command will generate an HTML file
containing the report. You can find the HTML file in C:\
Windows\system32\energy-report.html.
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
tree– Shows the Tree of the Current Directory or Specified
Drive
ver – Shows the Version of the OS
tasklist – Shows Open Programs
You can do the same thing you do with the task manager with
this command: The next
command shows you how to close an open task.
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
dism– Runs the Deployment Image Service Management
Tool
CTRL + C – Stops the Execution of a Command
-help – Provides a Guide to other Commands
For example, powercfg -help shows how to use
the powercfg command
echo– Shows Custom Messages or Messages from a Script
or File
You can also use the echo command to create a file with this
syntax echo file-content > filename.extension.
mkdir – Creates a Folder
rmdir – Deletes a Folder
N.B.: The folder must be empty for this command to work.
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
– Shuts down, Restarts, Hibernates, Sleeps the
shutdown
Computer
You can shut down, restart, hibernate, and sleep your PC
from the command line.
Enter shutdown in the command line so you can see the
extensions you can use to perform the actions. For example,
shutdown /r will restart your computer.
