1.
Use Ctrl-C to Abort a Command
Just about any command can be
stopped in its tracks with the abort command: Ctrl-C. If you haven't actually executed a
command, you can just backspace and erase what you've typed, but if you've
already executed it then you can do a Ctrl-C to stop it.
Warning: Ctrl-C isn't a magic wand and it can't undo things that
aren't undoable, like a partially complete format command.
However, for things like the dir command that seem to go on forever or
questions you're asked at the prompt that you don't know the answer to, the
abort command is an excellent Command Prompt trick to know.
2.
View a Command's Results One Page (or Line) at a Time
Ever run a command, like the dir
command, that produces so much information on the screen that it's almost
useless? You're not alone. One way around this is to execute
the command in a special way so whatever information is generated is shown to
you one page, or one line, at a time. To do this, just type the command,
the dir command for example, and then follow it with the pipe redirection operator and then the more command.
For example, executing dir /s |
more will generate the thousands of lines of results that you expect from
the dir command, but the more command will pause each page of results with --
More -- at the bottom of the page, indicating that the command is not done
running.
Just press the space bar to advance
by page or press the Enter key to advance one line at a time.
See Command Prompt Trick #7 below
for a different solution to this problem.
3.
Run Command Prompt as an Administrator Automatically
Many commands require that you
execute them from an elevated Command Prompt in Windows - in other words, execute them from a Command
Prompt that's run as an administrator.
You can always right-click on any
Command Prompt shortcut and choose Run as administrator but creating a
shortcut to do the same thing can be a huge time saver if you're a frequent
Command Prompt power user.
To complete this Command Prompt
trick, just create a Command Prompt shortcut on the desktop, enter the
shortcut's properties and then select the Run as administrator box
located in the Advanced button on the Shortcut tab.
4.
Become a Command Prompt Power User with Function Keys
The fact that the function keys
actually do something in the Command Prompt is maybe one of the best kept
secrets about the tool:
F1: Pastes the last executed command (character by character)
F2: Pastes the last executed command (up to the entered character)
F3: Pastes the last executed command
F4: Deletes current prompt text up to the entered character
F5: Pastes recently executed commands (does not cycle)
F6: Pastes ^Z to the prompt
F7: Displays a selectable list of previously executed commands
F8: Pastes recently executed commands (cycles)
F9: Asks for the number of the command from the F7 list to paste
Command Prompt Trick #17 is full of
arrow key shortcuts, a few of which are similar to these function key tricks.
5.
Hack the Prompt Text
Did you know that the prompt itself
in the Command Prompt is completely customizable thanks to the prompt command?
It is, and when I say customizable, I mean really customizable. Instead of C:\>, you can
set the prompt to any text you want, have it include the time, the current
drive, the Windows version number,
you name it. One useful example is prompt
$m$p$g which will show the full path of a mapped drive in the prompt,
alongside the drive letter. You can always execute prompt
alone, without options, to return it to its sometimes boring default.
6.
Get Help for Any Command
Believe it or not, 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.
I doubt that the help switch is the
coolest Command Prompt trick you've ever heard of, but it's hard to disagree
that it's one of the more useful.
Unfortunately, neither the help
command nor the help switch offer much in the way of explaining how to
interpret the syntax. See How To Read Command Syntax if you need help with that.
7.
Save a Command's Output to a File
An incredibly useful Command Prompt
trick is the use of redirection operators, specifically the > and >>
operators. These little characters let you
redirect the output of a command to a file, giving you a saved version of
whatever data the command produced in the Command Prompt window. Let's say you're about to post a
computer problem to an online forum, like my computer support forum
for example, and you want to provide really accurate information about your
computer. An easy way to do that would be to use the systeminfo command with a
redirection operator.
For example, you might execute systeminfo
> c:\mycomputerinfo.txt to save the information provided by the
systeminfo command to a file. You could then attach the file to your forum
post.
8.
View Your Hard Drive's Entire Directory Structure
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.
Tip: With so much information, it's probably a good idea to
export the results of the tree command to a file. For example, tree /a >
c:\treeresults.txt, just as explained in Command Prompt Trick #7.
9.
Customize the Command Prompt Title Bar Text
Tired of that Command Prompt
title bar text? No problem, just use the title command to change it to whatever
you like.
For example, let's say your name is
Maria Smith, and you want to express your ownership of the Command Prompt:
execute title Property of Maria Smith and the Command Prompt's title bar
will change immediately.
The change won't stick, so the next
time you open Command Prompt the title bar will be back to normal.
The title command is usually used to
help give a custom appearance in script files and batch files... not that I'm
saying titling it with your name isn't a good idea!
10.
Copy From the Command Prompt
As you may or may not know, copying
from the Command Prompt is not as easy as copying from other programs, which is
part of the reason why saving a command's output to a file, Command Prompt
Trick #7, is so handy. But what if you do just want to copy
a short section of text to the clipboard? It's not too hard but it's not very
intuitive either.
Right-click anywhere in the Command Prompt window and choose Mark.
Now, highlight with your left mouse button whatever you'd like to copy. Once
your selection is made, press Enter.
Now you can paste that information
into whatever program you'd like.
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