Fun With The Command Prompt Power users are all about shortcuts, workarounds, and customizations, and the Command Prompt is the most powerful utility on your PC for performing these. There s almost nothing you can t do if you manage to learn its ins and outs. We all know the more common commands, including IPCONFIG for taking a peek at network settings and connection statuses or CHKDSK for scanning storage devices for problems, but in this article we ll cover a handful of the more obscure-but-useful commands and parameters you can use to whip your PC into shape. But first, some clarification: Command Prompt can refer to either the CMD.exe utility itself, which we ll use to perform the various tasks listed in this article, or to the right angle bracket followed by the blinking cursor where you type commands. To clarify, we ll refer to the latter as merely the prompt, and the former as the Command Prompt. What you type here we ll refer to as commands, operations, and parameters (the latter of which is usually preceded by a forward slash, dollar sign, or other symbol). To Elevate Or Not To Elevate Because the Command Prompt is capable of reaching into and tweaking every system and subsystem of your PC, Microsoft needed to make sure only administrators had access to many of its core functions. As such, to use the Command Prompt for many of the following tasks, you ll need to log on to the PC using an administratorlevel user account and then run the utility in an elevated mode, referred to as Command Prompt (Admin). To access this in Windows 10, click in the search box on the Taskbar, type cmd, Launch an elevated session by searching for Command Prompt and right-clicking it or selecting it from the Windows Key + X menu. right-click Command Prompt from the search results, and then click Run As Administrator. A faster way to launch the elevated Command Prompt is by pressing the Windows Key + X, then clicking Command Prompt (Admin) from the list. For the commands covered in this article, except when specified, we ll be running them in an elevated Command Prompt. The F2 key lets you quickly re-enter previous commands up to a given character.
Pressing F7 displays a scrollable list of the commands you ve entered this session. Function Key Commands The 12 Function keys that run along the top of most standard keyboards generally don t get a whole lot of use in everyday computing. But when it comes to the Command Prompt, many of them can save you some serious time. When working with a long string of commands followed by multiple parameters, using the F1 key lets you paste the last command you entered, character by character. For instance, if you just ran CHKDSK /F to check a storage device and recover bad sectors, you can press F1 six times to input CHKDSK again, letting you execute a read-only version of the operation to determine how successful the fix was. Using F2 can make short work of your commands, especially if you need to run the command repeatedly, but with different parameters. When prompted, simply type the character you want to paste up to (but not including). For instance, after running the CHKDSK /F command, press F2 then type / to display CHKDSK followed by a space. Now you can add all the parameters you want. One obvious limitation of using this Function key is that it ll only paste up to the first time a character appears. Pressing F3 simply inserts the last command executed. Pressing F4 differs from pressing F2 in that F4 lets you delete the front part of a string up to a given character. To use this command, make sure to move the cursor to the beginning of the command, press F4, then press the character you want to delete up to. This command will retain the character you typed. Pressing F5 displays the last command you entered. Press it again to display the one previous, and again to show the one before that, all the way up to the first command You can rename the Command Prompt using the TITLE command. you input since you began the current session. Press F8 to do the same, but it ll cycle through the commands repeatedly if you keep pressing it. If you type F7, you ll get a scrollable list of the commands you previously input. Just use the arrow keys to highlight the one you want to input again and then press ENTER to execute it, or you can press the right arrow key to simply input it after the prompt. Using F9 lets you simply type the number of the command you want to use from the list that appears after pressing F7. Arrow Keys Shortcuts The Function keys can make short work of entering long commands, but the arrow keys are even better. After manually entering a handful of keys, you can quickly bring back up recent entries by pressing the Up and Down arrow keys. Press the Right arrow key to input the most recent command you entered, one character at a time. Command Prompt By Any Other Name The Command Prompt, with its unmistakable white text on a black background, is unlikely to be confused for another program, so why not change the text in the title bar to anything you want? Type TITLE followed by the text you want to
REGISTRY TIP OF THE MONTH: Personalize The Command Prompt This month we have two tips, and both let the Registry Editor and Command Prompt tag team to great effect. The PROMPT command can be extremely useful or merely silly. Personalize The Prompt By default, the Command Prompt displays the current working directory, which on our Windows 10 Enterprise system is C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32. But that information is only useful if you re performing location-based functions such as creating, moving, or deleting files or folders or checking and repairing specific drivers. If you re going to be spending a decent amount of time using Command Prompt, you might find it useful to change the text displayed before the prompt. To do this, type prompt followed by the text you want displayed. to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\CONTROL\ SESSION MANAGER\ENVIRONMENT and right click in the empty space; click New, Expandable String Value; and type PROMPT. Now edit the string by typing your desired text into the Value Data box. Some parameters you might like to employ include $D (current date), $N (current drive), $P (current drive and path), $T (current time), $V (Windows version number), %USERNAME% (current logged on user), %COMPUTERNAME% (local computer name), and %USERDOMAIN% (local domain name). A Technicolor Command Prompt This tweak lets you change the foreground and background colors used in the Command Prompt windows, but to perform it, you ll need to carefully fiddle with the Registry using the Registry Editor. In Windows 10 s search box on the Taskbar, type regedit and press ENTER. Next navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\ MICROSOFT\COMMANDPROCESSOR and then double-click the DefaultColor DWORD value. The Value Data field is what determines Command Prompt s background and text color, and by default, 0 displays white text on a black background. You can use two hexadecimal values that correspond to 16 colors to really make Command Prompt pop. The first character denotes the background color and the second is the text color. For example, when we put 5A into the Value Data field and clicked OK, Command Prompt had a purple background with green text. The hex values correspond to the following colors: 0 (black), 1 (blue), 2 (green), 3 (aqua), 4 (red), 5 (purple), 6 (yellow), 7 (white), 8 (gray), 9 (light blue), A (light green), B (light aqua), C (light red), D (light purple), E (light yellow), F (bright white). Beyond simple text, the PROMPT operation also supports a handful of parameters that let you include dynamic information before the prompt. For example, if you type prompt $t $d, the current time and date will appear in place of the current working directory. Some changes to the prompt appear immediately and revert back to the default mode if you close and restart CMD.exe. Other changes only take hold after you ve signed out and back in again. If you want to make your change a little more permanent, use the Registry Editor. Click into the search box in the Taskbar, type regedit, and then press ENTER. Next, navigate You can change the aesthetics of the Command Prompt utility from the Registry Editor.
we re assigning to the folder, and we easily input the path using the CTRL + V (paste) command. Making any folder into a dedicated drive is easy with the SUBST command. display, for instance, TITLE CPU s Command Prompt, and then press ENTER. Keep in mind this cosmetic tweak will only remain in place for the current session, and the boring default name will reappear the next time you launch the utility. Assign A Drive Letter To A Favorite Folder If you find yourself accessing a rather buried folder again and again, Drag and drop folders to quickly input long paths. you can add it as a separate drive to easily access it from Windows Explorer. To do this, we ll need to use the SUBST command. First we navigated to the folder using Windows Explorer, right-clicked in the Address bar, and clicked Copy Address As Text. Next, in Command Prompt, we typed SUBST M: C:\USERS\username\ MUSIC and pressed ENTER to execute the command. In this instance, M: refers to the desired drive letter The Drag & Drop Shortcut Some of the most common Command Prompt activities involve moving, copying, and creating files and folders in specific locations. But one of the more frustrating parts of this is the need to type out long folder and file paths again and again. As long as you don t need to use the elevated Command Prompt this trick won t work when using Command Prompt (Admin) you can snag folder addresses directly from the Address bar in Windows Explorer. Just navigate to the location you need, click the folder icon to the left of the address, and drag and drop it right into the Command Prompt window. Tab Completion When typing a command that depends on a file path location, you can use the TAB key to cycle through the available options. For instance, when using the CD (change directory) command, type CD, press the Spacebar, then press the TAB key repeatedly to cycle through the folders in the current working directory. You can even build these into a full file path by adding in a backslash after a tabbed-to folder, then add a space and cycle through that folder s subfolders using the TAB key, and so on. Keep in mind that folder names that include a space (such as Program Files) will show up with quotes around them, so make sure to close the quotes when building a long path using this method. If you accidentally tabbed past the folder you were looking, you can press SHIFT + TAB to cycle back the opposite way. Redirection Parameters The data that you can access from within Command Prompt can be particularly handy outside of it. To easily output a large block of
information to a text file, you can use the greater-than (>) and double greater-than (>>) parameters. The first one lets you perform an operation and save the output to a file, which you specify. For instance, type IPCONFIG > C:\My Network Settings.txt and then press ENTER to create a text file on your C: drive that contains your system s IPCONFIG data. This parameter will create the specified file if it doesn t already exist, or it will overwrite its data if the file does exist. To append the output of a command to the end of an existing text file, use the double greater-than symbol, like this: IPCONFIG >> C:\My Network Settings.txt Tree Command If you ve ever wanted to see a comprehensive map of every folder or subfolder on a given drive, use the TREE command. If you use the command by itself, it ll display a folder tree for the current working location, by default Use the redirection (> or >>) and TREE commands together to get a complete view of a drive s folder structure. C:\WINDOWS\ SYSTEM32. To specify the drive by name, type the drive letter followed by the folder path, for instance, TREE C:\USERS, and then press ENTER. There are two parameters you can use to alter the output. Type TREE /A and press ENTER to display the folder structure using text (ASCII) characters instead of graphic characters. When you type TREE /F and press ENTER, you ll see the names of the files within each folder and subfolder. You may notice that this command will display more lines than you can easily view at once, so use the redirection parameter to dump the result into a text file, for instance by typing TREE /F C:\ > C:\File Tree.txt, and pressing ENTER. This is an easy way to get into Safe Mode, especially if down the road your system becomes unbootable. Create A Safe Mode Boot Option If a few of the operations we ve covered so far could be categorized as frivolous, put this next one in the critical column. You may have noticed that Windows 10 doesn t let you jump into Safe Mode by holding F8 during boot. (From within Windows, you can hold SHIFT then click Start, Power, and Restart to boot into Safe Mode.) We can use an elevated Command Prompt session to create a Safe Mode option that you can select during the boot process. At the prompt, type BCDEDIT /COPY {CURRENT} /D Windows 10 Safe Mode and press ENTER. You should get a message that a new entry was successfully created. Now click the search box on the Taskbar and type msconfig and press ENTER to open up the System Configuration utility. Click the Boot tab, highlight the Windows 10 Safe Mode (C:\WINDOWS) entry, put a check mark in the Safe Boot box and then click the radio button next to Minimal (offline Safe Mode) or Network (Safe Mode with networking), as desired. You can also adjust the time out down to a minimum of three seconds, if you re the impatient type. Click the box next to Make All Boot Settings Permanent and then click OK to complete the operation. Now when Windows boots, there will be an option to go right into Safe Mode. Take Command As we ve proven here, the Command Prompt is capable of some mighty feats, but like any powerful tool, using it carelessly can really mess things up. That being said, the real power comes from exploring the Command Prompt s functions and discovering your own tricks and workarounds.