Top 8 Command Prompt Secret Tricks & Hacks You might Don’t Know

What is Command Prompt (CMD)?

CMD is the executable file name of Command Prompt. Its command-line interpreter on Windows NT and Windows CE operating systems.

It is the counterpart of COMMAND.COM in DOS and Windows 9x systems. With Command Prompt you can do amazing cool tricks which GUI of Windows OS doesn’t have. In this post, we are going to Discuss Top 10 Secret Tricks of Command Prompt that You might Don’t know. Generally, simple windows user don’t prefer to bother with the command line and only programmers and developers are using CMD more often. But there are some simple command lines which are very useful to general users like You and Me. So have a look at the list:

How to Open Command Prompt (CMD)?

It’s really Simple. Click on START button => type CMD => Open Command Prompt

OR

Press Windows Key and R (WINDOWS + R) => Write cmd => Press Enter

Command Prompt Secret Tricks & Hacks

It’s really fun to play with Command lines. To some of the users, it’s only Black and White window but it can do wonders and make many tasks easy if you know the right command for that. These tricks and Command lines work in all the Version of Windows OS.

#1 Change the Color of the CMD Window

If you are using Command Prompt regularly then you might get Board of Black and White interface. So why not make it more interesting by changing CMD Window Color? Here you can see I have changed CMD Window Color to Black and Yellow. There is multiple color option:

To Change CMD Window Color simply type: help color

Now Choose any color code from the List. If you like Yellow type: color 06 and press enter

#2 Change the Title of the CMD Window

If you have observed that When you open Command Prompt then by default the title is your windows directory address like C://WINDOWS/system32/emd.exe but it’s confusing if you are working on multiple command prompt windows. At this time need to change the title of every CMD Windows.

To Change CMD Windows Title – “title“, followed by the text that you want the Title bar to read. In the Given Image You can see I have changed my CMD Windows Title.

Once you Close CMD Windows it will set to Default so it’s temporary action.

#3 Hide any Folders using Command Prompt

If you want to hide any folder in your PC then there are 2 ways. One is you simply Right Click on the folder and Change it’s property to HIDDEN and From Windows Header Select VIEW Tab and Check on HIDDEN TAB. But you if you want to make it easy then you can use Command Prompt as well.

• Open Command Prompt and navigate to the directory where your target folder exists.
• Now Type Attrib +h +s +r folder_name and replace the “folder_name” with the name of the folder that you want to hide, and press Enter.

• You can see the Folder is hidden in Explorer.
• Now to unhide the Folder type Attrib -h -s -r folder_name

#4 Find Complete Driver List of your Computer

Some Functions in Windows may not work without proper Drivers like You can’t connect your router without Wireless Drivers in Windows. In such cases, If you want to find out Which drivers are installed in your System you can simply write 1 line in Command Prompt and a complete list will come out in Terminal. (Check given figure for reference)

To check installed Drivers in PC Write down these Line and HIt ENter => driverquery

#5 Shutdown, Restart and Logoff PC using Command Prompt

Using CMD you can Shutdown, Restart and Logoff by Entering one single Command.

Open CMD and Type Follwoing Command to Shutdown – shutdown -s

For Restarting Computer – shutdown -r

For Logoff System – shutdown -l

#6 Create Wi-Fi hotspot using command prompt

You can also creat Wifi Hotspot right using Command Prompt and Set prefered Password. Using the Wifi Hotspot you can multiple devices with your system. Disabling Hotspot is also easy and required 1 line command.

Open Command Prompt and Write following Command:

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=Hotspotname key=yourpassword

Replace Hotspotname with your prefered Name and Yourpassword with Your Prefered Password

Now The Hotspot is enable an it’s time to Start the Wifi so that devices can connect to it. enter the follwoing command in next lines.

netsh wlan start hostednetwork

If you want to stop the Hotspot once you are donw with it then Right down following command in next window to DISABLE Wifi Hotspot.

netsh wlan stop hostednetwork

#7 Check Your IP Address using Command Prompt

This is the Most common Command Prompt hack and many windows user are using this. Using command prompt you can check your system IP Address inclusing subnet mask and default gateway.

#8 Uses of Function Keys in CMD Windows

Functions keys are helpful in Command Prompt. Using Functions key You can execute specific tasks in CMD. Here is a list of Outputs of Functions Keys:

F1: F1 function key Print characters of the previous command one by one
F2: F2 Function Key used to Repeat part of the previous command
F3: Paste the Last used command using this function key.
F4: This Function key Delete the command of specified command character.
F5: This function key pastes last used command.
F7: F7 key provides a list of already used commands.
F8: This function key pastes cycle-able used commands.
F9: F9 key is helpful to Run a specific command from the command history.

Wraping Up: These are some of the Top Secret Tricks and Hacks of Command Prompt. There are many more specific tasks that you can perform using CMD. I will cover more CMD tricks in upcoming Posts.