The most commonly used and popular CMD commands on Windows are useful for network administrators and IT students, both at home and in businesses, when troubleshooting or checking network or computer system problems. This article explains the meaning and usage of CMD commands on a computer.
CMD commands require you to memorize the exact commands and use them in the black and white Windows window. Many people find these CMD commands tedious and dislike using them ; however, they offer significant benefits to users. Network administrators and hackers, in particular, consider them invaluable tools.
A compilation of commonly used CMD commands on Windows.
To use CMD commands, you need to open the CMD window as follows:
On your desktop, click the Start menu , then select Run . Type " cmd" in the Open box of the Run dialog box and press Enter . The Command Line window will appear for you to type commands. Many computers require running cmd with administrator privileges; you can refer to how to run CMD with administrator privileges here.
On a Windows 7 computer, simply click Start, type cmd in the Search box, and press Enter to use it.
SYSTEM INFO
Displays detailed configuration information about the computer and operating system, including operating system configuration, security information, product ID, and hardware attributes such as RAM, disk space, and network card.
IPCONFIG
Displays all current TCP/IP network configuration values and refreshes the Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) settings as well as Domain Name System (DNS) settings. Used without parameters, ipconfig displays the default IP address, subnet mask, and gateway for all network devices.
TASKLIST
Displays a list of applications and services with their names and process IDs (PIDs), along with all tasks currently running on the local or remote computer.
TASKILL
This terminates one or more running tasks or processes on your computer. Programs can be closed by force closing, similar to the Windows Task Manager you commonly use.
NETSTAT
Netstat displays active TCP connections, the network ports the computer is using, internet statistics, IP routing table, IPv4 statistics (for IP, ICMP, TCP, and UDP protocols), and IPv6 statistics (for IPv6, ICMPv6, TCP over IPv6, and UDP over IPv6 protocols). Used without parameters, netstat displays active TCP connections.
NET
NET helps you update, troubleshoot, monitor, and configure network devices. To start a service, you need to type the command `net start`.
NSLOOKUP
Applicable to: Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Windows 8. It provides more DNS information than the Ping method you usually use.
This tool displays information you can use to diagnose your DNS server infrastructure. Before using this tool, you should familiarize yourself with how DNS works. The Nslookup command-line tool is only available if you have TCP/IP protocol installed.
PING and TRACERT
You're probably familiar with this command; it verifies an IP-level connection to another TCP/IP computer by sending an ICMP request message and receiving corresponding messages back, displaying them on the command line along with the round-trip time. Ping is a key TCP/IP command used for troubleshooting connection issues, availability, and domain name resolution.
Tracert, on the other hand, is used to identify the route of data packets traveling through an IP network.
GPRESULT
For administrators, the command-line tool verifies all settings are effective for a specific user or computer. Administrators can run GPResult on any remote computer within their management scope. By default, GPResult returns the settings that are effective on the computer running GPResult.
NETSH
Netsh is a command-line firewall utility that allows you to control a computer locally or remotely, displaying or modifying the network configuration of a currently running computer. Netsh also provides a scripting feature that allows you to run a set of commands in a preset mode for a specific computer. Netsh can also save a configuration script in a text file for archiving purposes or to help you configure other servers.
The above CMD commands will certainly be very important for administrators and network students. Keep these CMD commands handy for use when needed with your home or business computer network. If you don't want to type the CMD commands, you can copy and paste the commands from CMD like this.