Command Prompt (cmd)

General Information

The Windows Command Prompt is the Windows version of command line access to the computer, comparable (but not nearly as powerful) to UNIX Terminals.

To bring up the Command Prompt, simply type cmd in the search box of the start menu or into the run command. The command prompt should also pop-up automatically if when Windows is booted into Safe Mode.

The Command Prompt is useful for looking up information on a Windows Machine quickly and from one place and is an example of legacy software on Windows --most of cmd has gone unchanged since the DOS days. Of course, this comes with the caveat that one needs to know what commands are useful and what they do (let alone what they are) before the Command Prompt becomes truly useful.

Below is a list of the some of the more common tools for cmd. See Here for a complete list of all Command Prompt tools.

Useful Commands

ipconfig

Used for configuring or displaying internet protocol (IP) information. At Knox, we often use ipconfig /all to show a complete list of all connection information. You can also use ipconfig /all to show the information one page at a time.
ipconfig /release and ipconfig /renew can be used to disconnect and reconnect a wireless connection.

chkdsk

chkdsk (followed by the drive letter to check) can be used to invoke the check desk operation, used to check for and repair hard drive problems.

tasklist and taskkill

This combination can be used to list active processes (tasklist) and this kill them (taskkill followed by the PID of the process). This replicates the Task Manager -> End Process routine (or rather, Task Manager is replicating this process from an easier to use space).