An Ode to the Command Prompt - the Most Powerful and Least Used Windows Tool

Mon, 12/06/2010 - 22:32 — Ciprian Adrian Rusen

At the beginning of 2010, we started a series on System Recovery tools for Windows 7. Little did we know that the series would expand tremendously and, in the end, we would cover quite extensively a very old and misunderstood tool: the Command Prompt. While working with it, we were fortunate to truly learn its power and usefulness. Therefore, we would like to end our series of articles with a recap about all the great things the Command Promptcan do.

The Basics about the Command Prompt

If you have not used the Command Prompt much, it is best to start with the basics. In our article about How to Customize the Command Prompt you will learn where to find this tool and how to start it and customize it. You might not think of your Command Prompt as something cute and colourful, right? Think again. Go through this tutorial and experiment with all the configuration options. The Command Prompt can be cute and pink too, right along with the newer, sexier Windows 7 tools such as Desktop Gadgets.

Before you run any command, it is best to learn how to run the Command Prompt in Administrator 'mode'. Many of its powers require administrator privileges in order to work.

In Command Prompt - How to Use Basic Commands we have covered the most basic and yet useful commands. You will learn how to navigate through partitions, files and folder structures and how to work with them. Also, you will learn how to launch other applications or how to get help while working in the Command Prompt.

Getting into Command Prompt's Advanced Powers

Now that you've got your basics right, it's time to fine-tune your ninja computing skills and learn some of the advanced commands you can run inside the Command Prompt:

• Command Prompt - Advanced Disk Management Commands - To complete the list of file and folder management commands listed in the basic guide, we've got more advanced stuff about how you can manage your partitions directly from the Command Prompt. You will learn how to create, modify or delete partitions with a few simple commands.
• Command Prompt - Advanced Commands for System Information & Managing Active Tasks - Do you want to know all currently running processes? Do you have an unresponsive application which you want to kill? Do you want complete system information by typing only one short command? This tutorial has the answers for you.
• Command Prompt - Advanced Networking Commands - If you want to be the ultimate geek, you need to learn a bit about networking and how to run some networking tasks in theCommand Prompt. This tutorial covers useful commands which help you retrieve information about your network connections and MAC address; and test and display information about active connections.

Repair Your Computer from the Command Prompt

The ultimate power users (such as geeks :)) are able to utilize the Command Prompt also for repairing broken computers and Windows operating systems. For them we've got the following tutorials:

• Command Prompt - Repair Missing or Corrupt Files - If you've got an operating system which doesn't want to boot or simply malfunctions due to missing or corrupt system files, then don't hesitate to read this tutorial.
• Command Prompt - Fix Issues with your Boot Records - If your computer simply won't boot, guess what? Command Prompt comes to the rescue with an extremely useful command and several "magic" parameters you can use to run it.

Conclusion

Our series on the Command Prompt tool is far from being complete. We did not manage to cover all the commands you can run. What we tried to do was to simply give you a taste of what this powerful tool can do for you and hopefully raise your interest in learning more about it. Do let us know if we've succeeded. Also, if you've got some other cool tips and commands to share, don't hesitate to leave a comment. We might decide to continue the series.