10 Command Prompt Tricks That You Should Know

With an interface as appealing as windows 10’s is, it’s clean to forget about that the OS comes with a command line interface as properly. properly, you might have forgotten the Command prompt, Microsoft hasn’t, because it delivered some virtually handy improvements to Command spark off with home windows 10. even as it’s now not as powerful as its Unix counterpart, there are really a whole lot of Command set off tricks that can make it a completely beneficial device to have. loads of factors that the Command activate (additionally called cmd) can assist you to do, aren’t even to be had inside the GUI of the windows OS, so it’s honestly some thing you ought to be the use of. In this newsletter, we are able to be sharing with you, 10 Command Prompt tricks that you should definitely know:

1.Encrypt Files using Command Prompt

One of the most beneficial things that you may do the usage of the Command prompt, is encrypting your sensitive information. Encryption is a way to prevent others from taking a peek at your data, and it’s a clearly critical part of ensuring (to some extent, as a minimum), that your files are most effective yours. With this simple Command prompt trick, you could without difficulty encrypt files on your windows pc.

• Simply launch the Command Prompt, and change your working directory to the folderwhere your files are. This can be done by using the “cd”
• Once you’re done, type “Cipher/E“, and hit Enter. This will encrypt all the files that were inside the folder.

Note: If you try and open these encrypted files, they will open normally for you, however, any other user will not be able to view the files, unless they log in using your account. So make sure that you have a password set.

2.Change the Color of the CMD Window

The Command Prompt window is as a substitute dull, in it’s default nation, and it doesn’t in reality look appealing, or whatever special. But, this simple command will let you exchange the historical past and foreground color of the cmd window.

• Launch the cmd window, and type “color 02“.
• Hit Enter, and you will see the Command Prompt window use a black background with green text.

Note: There are a lot of other colors available, and you can check out the entire list by typing “help color“.

3.Change the Prompt Text in Command Prompt

When you open Command Prompt, the default text of the prompt is very boring. It does replicate the present working directory that the user is in, but it sure could use some customization. If you would like the prompt in your cmd window to say something other than the default, you can use the following trick.

• Launch Command Prompt, and type “prompt”followed by the text that you want. Make sure you add “$G” to the end, to ensure that there is always the “>” sign at the end of the prompt, and you know where your command begins at.

• Hit Enter, and you will see the prompt in the cmd window change to your custom text.

Note: There are some more options like “$G” available, and you check out the entire list by typing “help prompt“. Also, you can reset the prompt back to its original state by simple typing “prompt” and hitting Enter.

4.Change the Title of the Command Prompt Window

When you release Command Prompt, you might have seen that the title bar reads “Command Prompt”, or maybe “Administrator Command Prompt”, if you release it with Administrator privileges. Though that is okay, but if you have a many cmd windows open, and each of them are working on a different task, then this “Command Prompt” title is not helpful at all. Fortunately, you can change that too.

• Open Command Prompt, and type “title”, followed by the text that you want the Title bar to read.

• Hit Enter, and you will see the Title of the cmd window change to the text that you entered.

Note: The title changes back to “Command Prompt” once you quit cmd and relaunch it.

5.Watch an ASCII Version of Star Wars: A New Hope

This one is a very cool trick, which can let you watch an ASCII textual content version of big name Wars: A new hope, completely inside the command prompt window. The approach is very simple, and it uses Telnet. Virtually observe the steps under to watch celebrity Wars within the cmd window.

• Launch Command Prompt, and type “telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl”,and hit Enter.

• The movie will start playing immediately.

6.Create a WiFi Hotspot

And also you can use the Command Prompt to make a WiFi hotspot on your Windows PC, and share your internet connection with more than one devices, all without having to use any third-party apps whatsoever. To do this, just follow the steps below:

• Launch Command Prompt, and type “netsh wlan set hosted network mode=allow ssid=Hotspot Name key=Password“. Replace “Hotspot Name”with the name that you want for your WiFi hotspot, and replace “Password” with the password you want to set. Hit enter.

• Next, type “netsh wlan start hosted network”and hit Enter, and your WiFi hotspot will be broadcast, and other devices will be able to connect to it.

Note: If you want to stop broadcasting your WiFi hotspot, simply use the command “netsh wlan stop hosted network”.

7.Hide Folders using Command Prompt

While there is an easy way to cover folders on Windows through the usage of the properties pane of the folder and checking the checkbox that says “Hidden”, the method is not very beneficial as the folders hidden the use of this method can without problems be regarded if the view alternatives are modified to “Show hidden files and folders”, making it a pretty vain characteristic. However, using this cmd trick, you can conceal your folders in the sort of manner that they may be completely hidden, and Explorer received’t be capable of display them at all. Certainly follow the steps outlined below:

• Launch Command Prompt, and navigate to the directory where your target folder resides.
• Type “Attrib +h +s +r folder_name“, replacing the “folder_name” with the name of the folder that you want to hide, and press Enter.

• You can now check that the folder is indeed hidden inside Windows Explorer and can not be seen by anyone.
• To unhide the folder, you can use the command “Attrib -h -s -r folder_name“.

Note: Hidden folders can be viewed using the cmd command “dir /AH”.

8.Copy Command Output to Clipboard

If you have ever attempted to copy stuff off the Command prompt, you must have realized that it’s exceedingly tough, no longer to mention un-intuitive. However, with this simple trick you could copy the output of any command which you need, directly in your pc’s clipboard, and you can then paste it into any text editor which you need.

• Launch Command Prompt and type the command that you need to copy the output for, followed by “| clip“. For example, I’m using the command “ipconfig | clip“. Hit Enter, and you will see that the cmd window shows no output.

• Open a text editor, such as Notepad, and press Control + V, and you can simply paste the output of the command directly inside Notepad.

9.List all Installed Programs

Another cool trick on the Command Prompt includes listing out all of the programs that are installed on your PC. This is particularly helpful if you need to uninstall a program using the Command Prompt. To list out all the installed programs, simply follow the steps outlined below:

• Launch Command Prompt, and type “wmic product get name“.
• Hit Enter, and you will see a list of all the programs that are installed on your PC.

You can also use wmic to uninstall programs, directly from the cmd window. Simply type “wmic product where “name like ‘%NAMEOFAPP%’” call uninstall /nointeractive” and hit Enter. Obviously, replace “NAMEOFAPP” with the name of the app that you want to uninstall from your PC.

10.Open CMD Window Inside a Directory

Let’s face it, the way Windows managing the changing directories using the “cd” command is rather weird. Fortunately, there is a simple way to open Command Prompt windows inside a directory so you don’t have to change directories. This is a really convenient trick, specially if the folders you want to access are suppressed deep inside the file system. To open a cmd window inside a directory, just follow the steps below:

• Open the directory in Windows Explorer. In the address bar, type “cmd”,and hit Enter.

• A command window will open inside the directory you had opened in Windows Explorer.

Bonus: Autocomplete, Command Cycling and Command History

Aside from the hints referred to above, there are a pair greater which are really worth bringing up. whilst typing in a command, or a route to a few record in the Command prompt window, you may press Tab to make Command set off autocomplete the command you have been typing, or the route you were seeking to get at, saving you numerous time. pressing the up and down arrow keys can permit you to cycle through the instructions you have used inside the contemporary consultation, and pressing F7 shows up a listing of commands that have been used in the present day cmd consultation, making it clean to re-use commands

Improve Your Windows Experience with These CMD Commands

Those were the 10 Command Prompt tricks that we liked and thought you would find useful. Using these tricks will definitely allow you to use Windows in a much more effective way, and also give you access to a host of power features that you otherwise wouldn’t be able to access. So, what are your favorite Command Prompt tricks that you use frequently and find useful? We would like to know about them. Also, if you know of a cmd trick that you think deserves to be on this list, do let us know about it in the comments section below.