Command Prompt Tricks Every Windows User Must Know

1. Find your IP address and all Information about your Internet Connection

ipconfig/ all

Command Prompt can even let you know your IP address. Just type ipconfig/ all in the command prompt and press Enter. Along with your IP address and DNS servers, command prompt will also return a ton of information like your host name, primary DNS suffix, node type, whether IP Routing ,Wins Proxy, and DHCP are enabled, your network adapter’s description, your physical (MAC) address etc .  It can display following Informations.

• Host Name
• Primary DNS Suffix
• Node Type
• IP Routing Enabled
• WINS Proxy Enabled
• DNS Suffix Search List
• Connection-specific DNS Suffix
• Network Adapter Description
• Physical (MAC) Address
• DHCP Enabled
• IP Address
• Subnet Mask
• Default Gateway
• DNS Servers How many times have you used the ipconfig command only to copy and paste the output?  You will never have to do that again as you can simply send the output directly to the clipboard.
  ipconfig | clip

  2. Get Installed Driver Information

  driver query

It can be very useful when troubleshooting to know what drivers are installed on a system. This command will give you a complete listing of the drivers and when they were installed.

3. Retrieve Detailed System Information

system info

With this command, you can retrieve the following information:

• Host Name
• OS Name
• OS Version
• OS Manufacturer
• OS Configuration
• OS Build Type
• Registered Owner
• Registered Organization
• Product ID
• Original Install Date
• System Up Time
• System Manufacturer
• System Model
• System type
• Processor(s)
• BIOS Version
• Windows Directory
• System Directory
• Boot Device
• System Locale
• Input Locale
• Time Zone
• Total Physical Memory
• Available Physical Memory
• Virtual Memory Max Size
• Virtual Memory Available
• Virtual Memory In Use
• Page File Location(s)
• Domain
• Log on Server
• Hot fix(s)
• Net Work Card(s)

• 4. List All Tasks Running On The Computer

task list

It’s always good to know what is running on your system. This is the command line version of the processes tab in Task Manager.

5. Kill A Program

taskkill /im programname.exe

If, when using the tasklist command, you discover that there is something running you just want killed. This is the way to do it! Just note the program name and use it in place of programname.exe. Also you can force close any tasks by using below command

taskkill /im programname.exe /f

6.Recover Information From A Corrupt File

recover filename.ext

If you have a disk with damaged sectors, you can attempt to recover as much information as possible from the damaged file. Data that is not damaged can be retrieved but data in damaged sectors will be lost.

7. Know if someone is hacking your computer/ Trace a Hacker

netstat -a

Want to know if someone is hacking your computer? Command Prompt can help you find if someone you don’t know is connected to your computer stealing private data. Just execute netstat -a and the command prompt will return a list of computers that your computer is connected to. In the results returned, Proto column gives the type of data transmission taking place (TCP or UDP) , Local address column gives the port with which your computer is connected to an external computer and the Foreign Address column gives the external computer you are connected to along with the port being used for the connection. State gives the state of the connection (whether a connection is actually established, or waiting for transmission or is “Timed Out”).

8. Copy and paste from/to the command line

Click on the icon in the title bar and choose Edit > Mark. Now, drag over the area you want to copy, hit Enter and the text is copied to the clipboard. Similarly, you can click on the icon in the title bar and choose Paste to paste the text you already have on the clipboard. You can also do this by right-clicking inside the command prompt window

9. Get Help for Any Command

help or (command)/?

You can list all commands by help command. But, the help command does not provide help for every Command Prompt command. However, any command can be suffixed with the /? option, usually called the help switch, to display detailed information about the command’s syntax and often times even some examples. Unfortunately, neither the help command nor the help switch offer much in the way of explaining how to interpret the syntax.

10. View Your Hard Drive’s Entire Directory Structure

tree

I think one of the neatest little commands is the tree command. With tree, you can create a kind of map of your computer’s directories. Execute tree from any directory to see the folder structure under that directory.