Netstat -an – Shows Open Ports, their IP Addresses and States You can use the cipher command to wipe the drive clean and encrypt such files. So, technically, they are not deleted under the hood. On a PC, deleted files remain accessible to you and other users. For example fc “file-1-path” “file-2-path”.Ĭipher – Wipes Free Space and Encrypts Data 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. Title – Changes the Command Prompt Window Title Using the Format title window-title-name assoc – Lists Programs and the Extensions They are Associated With You can type clip /? and hit ENTER to see how to use it. clip – Copies an Item to the Clipboardįor example, dir | clip copies all the content of the present working directory to the clipboard. N.B: If you don’t append $G to the command, you won’t get the greater than symbol in front of the text. You can use the prompt command to change that default text with the syntax prompt prompt_name $G: Prompt – Changes the Default Text Shown before Entering Commandsīy default, the command prompt shows the C drive path to your user account. Set – Shows your PC’s Environment Variables If you want to see more detailed information about your system you won’t see in the GUI, this is the command for you. That’s what this command does – it shows you even the drivers you won’t find in the device manager.Ĭhdir or cd – Changes the Current Working Directory to the Specified Directory It is important to have access to all drivers because they often cause problems. Windows Command Line Commands powershell start cmd -v runAs – Run the Command Prompt as an AdministratorĮntering this command opens another command prompt window as an administrator:ĭriverquery – Lists All Installed Drivers In addition, some of these commands require you to open the command prompt as an admin. This is because some commands can have a lasting negative or positive effect on your Windows PC until you reset it. N.B.: You have to be careful while using the commands I’ll show you.

In this article, I’ll show you 40 commands you can use on the Windows command line that can boost your confidence as a Windows user. With it, you can interact with the OS directly and do a lot of things not available in the graphical user interface (GUI). The Windows command line is one of the most powerful utilities on a Windows PC.

Dos commands windows 10