WHAT IS THE WINDOWS COMMAND LINE?
Generally, the “Windows command line” refers to a program called the “Command Prompt”, or CMD.EXE, that has been included with every version of Windows since Windows 2000. CMD.EXE is Windows’s built-in commander interpreter. If you’re not familiar with the term, a “command interpreter” is a program that takes lines of text entered by the computer operator (i.e, you) and converts them into commands the computer can understand. A command prompt is commonly referred to as a command-line interface or a CLI.
With the Windows Command Prompt, you can open up a command-line window on your Windows system. Within Command Prompt’s window, you can use the full range of command-line utilities included with the system. You can even open multiple command-line windows, if you want to run more than one command at once.
Of course, nowadays most computers use a graphical user interface (abbreviated GUI), with a mouse pointer, windows, scroll bars, icons, and other graphical metaphors instead of text commands. In fact, a great majority of computer users have never even used a command-line interface. Windows is famous for its graphical interface – even its name, “Windows”, refers to the graphical windows drawn on the screen of a Windows desktop or server computer. It might seem surprising that an operating system that relies upon a GUI like Windows still includes something as apparently archaic as a command-line interface.
However, Windows owes its existence to an older and simpler operating system – Microsoft Disk Operating System, MS-DOS, or as it is more commonly known, DOS. DOS originated during the early days of the personal computer revolution in the late 1970s and the early 1980s. As the personal computer market grew, IBM, a major manufacturer of high-powered mainframe computers, decided to market its own personal computer. Rather than designing specific IBM components for its personal computer, IBM decided to use off-the-shelf parts, and bought the operating system – specifically, MS-DOS, from a small Seattle company called Microsoft. IBM let Microsoft keep the rights to DOS, figuring that the real value of a personal computer lay in the hardware, not the software.
(IBM would come to regret this decision.)
As the IBM PC, and later IBM PC compatibles, took off, the PC platform faced competition from Apple’s Macintosh computer. The Macintosh relied on a GUI, which was far more user-friendly than the white text interface and cryptic error messages of the early versions of DOS. Recognizing the danger, Microsoft and IBM began joint work on a next-generation 32-bit graphical operating system called OS/2. Eventually Microsoft and IBM broke their alliance, leaving IBM with sole control over OS/2.
Microsoft pursued its own line of graphical operating systems, which it named “Windows.” The early versions of Windows were a graphical shell riding upon DOS – the user typed “win” at the command line to launch the Windows interface. The early versions of Windows – 3.0, 3.1, and 3.11, all were graphical interfaces on top of the old DOS operating system. Even the Windows 9x line of operating systems – 95, 98, and Millennium Edition – ran on top of DOS.
However, Microsoft had created a 32-bit version of Windows called Windows NT (the “NT” stood for “new technology”) to compete with IBM’s OS/2. Unlike the Windows 9x line of operating systems, NT was a truly graphical operating system – the GUI did not run on top of DOS. With the release of Windows XP in 2001, Microsoft’s consumer-based line of operating systems merged with the NT line of operating systems (Windows XP was technically Windows NT 5.1), and the days of DOS had come to an end.
However, Windows XP still kept the command-line interface in the form of the Command Prompt application. Windows Vista and Windows 7 & 8 followed suit, as did Microsoft’s line of server operating systems – Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2012. DOS is history, but thanks to the Command Prompt application, you can still use the old DOS commands on a modern Windows system.
WHY LEARN THE COMMAND LINE?
You might wonder why you would want to learn the command line, since Windows comes with a perfectly fine graphical user interface. Just because Windows comes with the command line doesn’t mean you have to run it, after all. And what possible use could you get out of it?
For one, the command line permits you to perform numerous repetitive and tedious computing tasks far more quickly. For example, let’s say you need to copy a large number of JPEG image files out of your Pictures folder and onto your flash drive (which Windows has assigned the letter J:). Your JPEGS are named for the month and day they were taken – August01.JPEG, March01.JPEG, and so forth. Specifically, let’s say that you need to copy every JPEG taken in the month of August to your flash drive.
To copy the files, you could drag-and-drop every single one of the files, or CTRL-click each of the files, and then drag them to your flash drive. Either way, it would take a great deal of bother and hassle.
Or you could simply type this command at the Command Prompt:
COPY c:\username\pictures\August*.JPEG J:\
This command will copy every JPEG file beginning with “August” in your Pictures folder to your flash drive. Needless to say, this is vastly more efficient than dragging and dropping, copying & pasting, or CTRL-clicking from the GUI.
Information technology professionals, such as help desk technicians and network administrators, have an even greater motivation to learn the command line. Everything in Windows can be done through the GUI. However, many tasks can be performed far more efficiently at the Command Prompt. In particular, it is easier to do numerous network tasks from the command line than through the GUI. For example, finding your IP address on a Windows 7 desktop system takes five different mouse clicks and four separate dialog boxes. Finding your computer's IP address from the Command Prompt takes one brief command.
And on a Windows system, many network diagnostic tools are available only through the command line. If your system loses its network connection, the graphical tools aren't terribly helpful. The command line utilities are far more efficient at discovering the root of the problem, if you know how to use them properly.
Finally, the command line offers the advantage of automation. An IT professional will often find himself dealing with repetitive and tedious tasks. Using the Command Prompt, is possible to create simple scripts called "batch files" to deal with these boring jobs. Instead of typing the same sequence of commands over and over again, or wading through graphical menu after graphical menu, a well-written batch file can handle these tasks with a single typed command.
A NOTE ABOUT WINDOWS VERSIONS
All the commands discussed in this site will work on Windows 7, Windows 8, 10, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2012. Most of them will work on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003 R2, and Windows Server 2003. Many of the commands will work on older versions of Windows, but the older the version of Windows, the less likely the commands will work. In particular, many of the network commands used in the modern versions of Windows will not work on the older Windows 9x family of operating systems.
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