Top 9 Useful Command Prompt Commands

Command prompt is a very useful tool in a computer but due to lack of GUI in cmd it is very boring to use.Leaving behind its interface it does many great tasks which other fancy looking softwares are not even able to do.

Here are some of the important cmd commands that are widely used and are very useful.

• systeminfo   This command is used to display all the system configuration like OS name,its manufacturer,version ,owner of computer,installation date of the OS, processor installed and its architecture, BIOS version, physical memory and other basic properties.

• ipconfig   It is the most useful command and is widely used for viewing the IP address, Subnet Mask, Default gateway.It is also used in troubleshooting the various network problems.

                       a. To view TCP/IP information use ipconfig/all

                       b. To view DNS cache use ipconfig/displaydns

• ping  It is used to determine whether a host is available across an IP network or not. Eg:- In cmd type ping www.yahoo.com. It sends requests to the host and receive response which shows the statistics  of how many packets are sent, received and percentage of loss in packets.

• tracert  It is used to trace or determine the route that the packets take across an IP network to reach the host. In cmd type tracert www.yahoo.com and it shows all the routes that the packets took to reach the yahoo.com.

• tasklist  This command shows all the processes that are running on your computer.In cmd typetasklist.

• taskkill  This command is used to kill the unwanted processes which are wasting the system memory.

         To kill a task type taskkill/im application name.exe

         Eg:- To kill chrome type taskkill/im chrome.exe

        You can also kill the task using its process id. Eg:- If pid of chrome is 1016 then type taskkill/pid 1016

• type  This command is used to read the text file.

         To  use this command type in cmd type filename.txt

• netstat -a  This command  is used to know whether your computer is connected to another network or not.It gives four columns proto,local address,foreign address and state.The protocolumn gives the type of data transmission used, local address gives your machine name or the port with which your computer is connected to foreign computer,foreign address gives the remote computer machine name and port used for the connection, state gives the state of connection(established,listnening,time-wait). 

        To use this command type in cmd netstat -a

• nslookup  This command is used to obtain ip addresses or domain name by quering DNS (Domain Name Server).It is used for troubleshooting DNS servers.

         Eg:-To use this command type in cmd nslookup www.google.com