You can actually have more control easily over your computer (whether pc or computer) with the windows command prompt often called the CMD. The windows command prompt is a feature of the Windows operating system which are so useful and easy to use that even regular users see the windows command prompt as a key part of the operating system.
In this post, I’m going to show you some amazing command prompt syntax you should get familiar with as they are very helpful.
It is always a good thing to know more knowledge about using the CMD syntax effectively especially if you are a windows user.
oh! if you are a newbie or not familiar with the command prompt, there are different ways you can open the command prompt interface whether you are using windows 7, windows 8, or windows 10.
Follow these steps to open the cmd
– You can type cmd in the start menu search bar, then right-click and open as administrator.
Alternatively,
– You can press your “windows key”+R to open the Run utility, type cmd, and press enter.
So let’s get learning guys!
SystemInfo
This command is one of my favorites because it is used to display basic windows operating system configuration information for a local or remote machine of your computer.
You can get the original Windows installation date, OS name & version, system manufacturer, model type, processors, bios version, boot devices, memory details, and more.
HINT: To get usage help for a particular command, type the “command”/?
E.g systeminfo/? This will display usage information of SystemInfo
Dir
The dir command is most useful in displaying a list of files and subdirectories in a directory. It specifies drive, directories, and/or files to list. The dir command also displays important information like the hard drive, serial number, the total number of files listed, their combined size, the total amount of free space left on your computer, and many more.
To get usage help for dir, type ” dir/?”
IPCONFIG
Ipconfig simply means internet protocol (IP configuration) which returns detailed information about your current network adapter connection including current IP address, subnet mask, default gateway IP, and current domain. Network troubleshooting is never simple but IP config can help troubleshooting router issues and other connection issues look really easy.
SFC/scannow
We can say this command is one of the most important Windows commands. The system file checker (SFC) is an automatic scan and repair tool that focuses on windows system files. If you’re concerned that a virus or some other software might have corrupted some of your system files, SFC/scannow command will check the integrity of all your system files, and if any problem is found, it will be repaired. You will need to open CMD as administrator to run this command.
To run Cmd as administrator,
search cmd in the start menu search bar and right click, click on run as administrator.
Ping
Most network administrators will be familiar with the ping command. This command is used to check TCP/IP Connectivity to a web host. It sends test packets over the network to the target system. You can use the ping command to test whether your computer can access another computer, a server or even a website.
Example ping www.google.com
Tracert:
Tracert command trace route to a remote host by sending internet control message protocol (ICMP) request message. The command tracks the path your internet traffic takes to get from your browser to a remote system like google servers. It also allows you to get the following information
- The time it takes to get to each hop
- number of hops
- The IP and most times the name of each hop.
Powercfg
The power configuration command enables users to control power settings on a local system. It is a very powerful command for managing and tracking how your computer uses energy. If you’re frustrated about how quickly your laptop seems to run out of power, you can use the powercfg to see whether there are any warnings or errors that might help you improve the power efficiency of your system.
You can use the command “powercfg/batteryreport” to generate a report of battery usage. Or “powercfg/energy” to get system analysis for common energy a efficiency and battery life problems.
Run CMD and type “powercfg/?” for usage help information for the command.
Read also: Update vs Upgrade – What makes the difference
Chkdsk
The command often referred to as “check disk” is used to identify and correct certain hard drive errors. This command checks your c:partition hard disk for errors and fixes bad sectors. While the SFC/scannow checks the integrity of core system files, chkdsk can scan the entire drive.
TaskList
Tasklist is very useful for advanced troubleshooting. The tasklist command displays a list of applications, services, and process ID (PID) currently running on your computer. Although task manager has made it somehow redundant, the command may however find task hidden from view in that utility. There are also a wide range of taskList switch commands. Type “taskList /?” to get usage help of the command.
Alternatively, typing “taskmgr” will open the task manager window and you can view all the processes.
Taskkill
While taskList displays a list of running apps and services, taskkill is used to terminate one or more running processes either by title or by process ID.
Example: taskkill-PID 3125
taskkill – in explorer.exe
Color
You may not like the default black and white screen of the cmd interface because it’s boring. The command sets the default text foreground and background color. The color command attributes are specified by two hexadecimal digits- the first corresponds to the background, the second is the foreground color.
For example, “color 02” will change the background to black and the text color to green.
Rmdir
The rmdir is used to remove/delete an existing folder or subdirectories completely. This is one of the basic commands of the cmd. The RD command can also be used in place of RMdir.
Drivequery
:Improper driver configuration or missing drivers may cause your computer to misbehave. Drivequery command enables an administrator to display a list of installed device drivers. If you are curious to know which drivers are being installed on your PC, the driverquery command is useful to obtain information about installed drivers including the directory in which the driver is installed.
Help
The help command displays more detailed information on any of the other command prompt and provides online information for them
Schtasks
Often referred to as schedule task is used to schedule command(s) to run at a specific time. Let’s say you have a batch file store on your PC and you want to run it at a particular time of the day. The schtask allows you to schedule when the program or command will run because it accepts arguments like minute,hourly, daily & monthly. The schtask can be used to create, change,run,delete,query and end scheduled tasks.
There are tons of other windows commands. But these are the few listed commands out of the many commands available in the windows operating system. I do hope you now have more knowledge and usage guides of the windows command line effectively.
If you want more further reading you can download this guide from microsoft or checkout more on lifewire
Which command are you most familiar with? Is there any command code you think should be included? Kindly drop your opinion in the comment box below.
Thanks a lot for this, very helpful
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