From a command prompt on a Microsoft Windows system, you can obtain details on the network configuration by issuing the command ipconfig or ipconfig /all, if you wish to see more details. If you are only interested in a specific value or values, though, you can pipe the output of the command to the findstr command. If you wish to see multiple values, e.g., the subnet mask and the default gateway address, you can put text associated with both values, separated by a space, within double quotes. Findstr will treat the space between strings as instructing it to perform a logical OR operation, i.e., it will find any lines that contain either of the strings. Findstr uses a case sensitive search, so you need to either match the case of the text or use the /i option with findstr, which instructs it to ignore the case of text and perform a case insensitive search.

C:\>ipconfig | findstr "Mask Gateway"
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.224
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

C:\>ipconfig | findstr "mask gateway"

C:\>ipconfig /all | findstr /i "mask gateway"
   Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.224
   Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

C:\>

You can also use a Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) command to obtain the same information.

C:\>wmic nicconfig get defaultIPGateway, IPSubnet
DefaultIPGateway  IPSubnet

{"192.168.1.1"}   {"255.255.255.224", "64"}












C:\>

[/os/windows/commands] permanent link

If you want to determine the model number of an optical drive, such as a CD or DVD drive, in a system running a Microsoft Windows operating system from a command-line interface (CLI), you can open a command prompt window and issue a Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) command: wmic cdrom get name (the value for caption may return the same information). E.g.:

C:\>wmic cdrom get name
Name
HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM DU90N


C:\>wmic cdrom get caption
Caption
HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM DU90N


C:\>

If you wish to determine whether media, such as a CD or DVD, is in the drive, you can use the command wmic cdrom get medialoaded. If there is no disc in the drive, the value for MediaLoaded will be FALSE. If there is a disc in the drive, the value will be true as in the example below where there is a CD in the drive.

C:\>wmic cdrom get medialoaded
MediaLoaded
TRUE


C:\>

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/commands/wmic] permanent link

If you need to determine the horizontal and vertical video resolution of the system you are working on from a command-line interface (CLI) on a Microsoft Windows systeem, you can open a PowerShell window (you can type PowerShell in the Windows "search" field and click on PowerShell when you see it in the returned results) and issue the Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) command Get-WmiObject win32_videocontroller | select caption, CurrentHorizontalResolution, CurrentVerticalResolution.

PS C:\> Get-WmiObject win32_videocontroller | select caption, CurrentHorizontalResolution, CurrentVerticalResolution

caption             CurrentHorizontalResolution CurrentVerticalResolution
-------             --------------------------- -------------------------
NVIDIA Quadro K2000                        2560                      1440


PS C:\>

If you need to determine the resolution on another system in the same Windows domain on the local area network (LAN), you can add -ComputerName followed by the name of the computer to the command as shown below.

PS C:\> Get-WmiObject -ComputerName apollo win32_videocontroller | select caption, CurrentHorizontalResolution, CurrentVerticalResolution

caption                         CurrentHorizontalResolution CurrentVerticalResolution
-------                         --------------------------- -------------------------
Microsoft Basic Display Adapter                        1024                       768


PS C:\>

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You can obtain information on the Central Processing Unit (CPU) in a system running a Microsoft Windows operating system (OS) using Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) commands. To see the value of all parameters, open a command prompt window and issue the command wmic /namespace:\\root\cimv2 path win32_processor get /format:list (using the /format option, you can see the information in a more readable fashion).

C:\>wmic /namespace:\\root\cimv2 path win32_processor get /format:list


AddressWidth=64
Architecture=9
AssetTag=UNKNOWN
Availability=3
Caption=Intel64 Family 6 Model 85 Stepping 4
Characteristics=252
ConfigManagerErrorCode=
ConfigManagerUserConfig=
CpuStatus=1
CreationClassName=Win32_Processor
CurrentClockSpeed=2195
CurrentVoltage=16
DataWidth=64
Description=Intel64 Family 6 Model 85 Stepping 4
DeviceID=CPU0
ErrorCleared=
ErrorDescription=
ExtClock=100
Family=179
InstallDate=
L2CacheSize=14336
L2CacheSpeed=
L3CacheSize=19712
L3CacheSpeed=0
LastErrorCode=
Level=6
LoadPercentage=3
Manufacturer=GenuineIntel
MaxClockSpeed=2195
Name=Intel(R) Xeon(R) Gold 5120 CPU @ 2.20GHz
NumberOfCores=14
NumberOfEnabledCore=14
NumberOfLogicalProcessors=28
OtherFamilyDescription=
PartNumber=
PNPDeviceID=
PowerManagementCapabilities=
PowerManagementSupported=FALSE
ProcessorId=BFEBFBFF00050654
ProcessorType=3
Revision=21764
Role=CPU
SecondLevelAddressTranslationExtensions=TRUE
SerialNumber=
SocketDesignation=CPU0
Status=OK
StatusInfo=3
Stepping=
SystemCreationClassName=Win32_ComputerSystem
SystemName=MUNICH
ThreadCount=28
UniqueId=
UpgradeMethod=1
Version=
VirtualizationFirmwareEnabled=TRUE
VMMonitorModeExtensions=TRUE
VoltageCaps=




C:\>

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[/os/windows/commands/wmic] permanent link

If you are logged into a system running the Microsoft Windows operating system and wish to run an application, e.g., Microsoft Outlook, under another account other than the one you are currently logged in under without switching to that other account, you can run the application as the other user using the runas command from a command prompt. If you don't know where the application is located on the system, you can find its location from a command prompt by changing the directory to the root directory of the drive where applications are stored, which is typically drive C:, then use the /s option of the dir command to search all subdirectories for the program, e.g., outlook.exe, which is the executable file for Microsoft Outlook.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office>cd \

C:\>dir /s outlook.exe
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 9420-A68C

 Directory of C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14

03/16/2021  12:41 AM        15,794,840 OUTLOOK.EXE
               1 File(s)     15,794,840 bytes

 Directory of C:\Windows\Installer\$PatchCache$\Managed\00004109D30000000000000000F01FEC\14.0.4763

03/23/2010  12:57 PM        15,889,248 OUTLOOK.EXE
               1 File(s)     15,889,248 bytes

     Total Files Listed:
               2 File(s)     31,684,088 bytes
               0 Dir(s)   3,328,741,376 bytes free

C:\>

In the example above, the program is located in the C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14 directory, so I can start the application as the user jdoe in the Windows domain Mordor with the command below (enclose the directory path and application name in double quotes if there are spaces in the directory path):

C:\>runas /user:mordor\jdoe "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\Outlook.exe"
Enter the password for mordor\jdoe:
Attempting to start C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\Outlook.exe as user "mordor\jdoe" ...

C:\>

If the account under which I wanted to run Outlook is not in a Windows domain, but is, instead, an account on the same computer, I could omit the domain specification and just use /user:jdoe. You can also use the format user@domain, e.g., jdoe@mordor.lan, instead of the format domainname\username. To run a program as another user, you will need to know the password for the other account. In this case, the graphical user interface (GUI) for Outlook will open with the email, calendar entries, tasks, and contacts for the domain jdoe account once the password for that account is provided.

[/os/windows/commands] permanent link

If you want to perform a "bare metal" backup of a Microsoft Windows 10 system to an external USB drive without a third-party application, you can use the Backup and Restore utility that is provided by Microsoft with the operating system. You can run the program from a command-line interface (CLI) by opening a command prompt window with administrator privileges and issuing the command wbadmin start backup -backupTarget:x -allcritical -quiet where x is the drive letter for the drive where you wish to store the backup. When you add the -quiet option, the backup will be run with no prompts for the user. The --allcritical option "creates a backup that includes all critical volumes (critical volumes contain the operating system files and components)."

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/commands] permanent link

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[/os/windows/commands] permanent link

You can use wmic os get commands on a Microsoft Windows system to view information related to the operating system via a command-line interface (CLI). E.g., to determine the version of the operating system you can issue the command Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) command wmic os get version.

C:\Users\Public>wmic os get version
Version
10.0.15063


C:\Users\Public>

Or if you know the system is running a particular version of the Windows operating system, e.g., Windows 10, but want to see just the build number for that version of Windows, you could issue the command wmic os get BuildNumber.

C:\Users\Public>wmic os get BuildNumber
BuildNumber
15063


C:\Users\Public>

[ More Info ]

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You can determine the antivirus software present on a system, if the antivirus software is registered with the Windows Security Center, using Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC). E.g., for a Windows 10 system using Microsoft Windows Defender:

C:\>WMIC /Node:localhost /Namespace:\\root\SecurityCenter2 Path AntiVirusProduct Get displayName
displayName
Windows Defender


C:\>

[ More Info ]

[/os/windows/commands/wmic] permanent link

You can use the date and time commands on a Microsoft Windows system to display current date and time information:

C:\Users\Lila>date /t
Sat 08/26/2017

C:\Users\Lila>time /t
02:07 PM

C:\Users\Lila>

Placing /t after the commands results in the current date and time information being displayed without an accompanying prompt to change the current settings.

You can display the information in a different format using the Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) command shown below:

C:\Users\Lila>wmic path win32_utctime get * /format:list


Day=26
DayOfWeek=6
Hour=18
Milliseconds=
Minute=16
Month=8
Quarter=3
Second=19
WeekInMonth=4
Year=2017




C:\Users\Lila>

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