15 CMD Commands Every Windows User Should Know

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

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The command line may be considered old school these days, but savvy computer users still find a place in computing for the old reliable CMD command. MakeUseOf put together a list of 15 commands, what they are and what they do for you.

But there still are some commands that remain useful, and Windows 8 even added new features.
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Figured this would be a rehash of the most basic commands. There are actually a few I didn't know existed. Most of these have a GUI counterpart and likely share the same code, but I guess if you were trying to script something these commands could be useful.
 
They really should have ranked them according to usefulness since the text describing the first command, "ASSOC," ends with this sentence: "You can probably do this more easily in the GUI, but the command line interface is a perfectly functional alternative." Yes, you can absolutely do this more easily in the GUI.

For most users, I'd probably only point them to the network commands. IPCONFIG is the one command I use more than once a year.
 
Just a plug for the website this article came from.. MakeuseOf.com. Great site I have been regularly going to for almost a year. Covers a diverse array of tech topics, some useful, some just out of the ordinary. I especially like Sound Sunday when a topic is represented by music from different genres and usually the music downloads are "name your price".. usually from little known group/individuals who have music on bandcamp.com.
 
Ya... I'm thinking no. At least half of these are things that there is really no reason for regular users to make use of. Much easier to do in the GUI. Like the shutdown command. Sure, useful if you are dealing with stuff on the network. On your local system? The GUI is easier, there's no reason to do ti from a command.

Also some are flat out more complex for no reason. Doing file associations in a command prompt is just silly. Way more useful to deal with it in a GUI (where it is also easy to change). A text version is useful for scripting, not for general use.

Strikes me as "Oh look, you can be l33t by playing with the CLI and pretending like you are super knowledgable!" No man, usually the GUI is easier, gives better feedback, and does error checking on inputs. There's a good reason to use it by default, particularly for normal users who aren't that computer savvy.
 
Only thing i use shutdown for on my personal computers is to essentially put an auto sleep timer that will go off even though video/audio streams. But I don't even open the cmd prompt to do that i just have batch files for that. Essentially the only thing that doesn't seem to have a gui but is what i want since i use my computer as a htpc as well and waiting for idle isn't always a nice option.
 
I only have used a few of those commands. However, I have my dear friend to thank for painstakingly, and I seriously mean painstakingly, teaching me about DOS back in the early '90s. Due to that, I have an understanding of how DOS commands work so that I have no trouble following directions from a googled article.
 
ping... yeah I know it, but shit seriously haven't used it since Win95 days... and even then I probably didn't really need to use it, it was more "Why is the my 1.5Mbps DSL line so damn laggy!"

99.99% of Windows users don't need to know a single one of those commands.
 
How the hell did I not know about Cipher before this? That can really be useful in the workplace.
 
In windows 8 it used to be easier for me to hit Winkey + R then type shutdown /s /t 0 kill a machine. They kinda fixed that in 8.1.
 
I occasionally use msconfig and regedit in the run to get some things done in windows. I also use the Run to pull up configuration screens without having to click through the icons and menus, like access.cpl and accwiz and control. Plus applications like Calculator with calc and Paint with mspaint and Notepad with, uh, notepad; write summons up Wordpad.

There's ALOT of run commands though, and there were some new ones I never seen before in that short list.
 
First off, most of these have nothing to do with CMD and are instead command-line executables. Second, why are we still using CMD? The thing is ancient. Use Powershell instead.
 
True powershell is much more useful, i actually do use it to Rename/Ren a bunch of files in a folder as it gives you more freedom with the renaming structure. Great when dealing with pictures/music/videos.
 
sfsuphysics said:
ping... yeah I know it, but shit seriously haven't used it since Win95 days... and even then I probably didn't really need to use it, it was more "Why is the my 1.5Mbps DSL line so damn laggy!"

99.99% of Windows users don't need to know a single one of those commands.
Click to expand...

We still use it as a trouble shooting method at work for our internet customers from time to time if they have issues. For a "I can't get on the internet" when everything else looks fine, have the customer try to ping something like 8.8.8.8 and see if they can get any results.

But agreed most people have no need for those commands outside of sys admins, most of which probably have better ways of doing that stuff
 
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