15 Command Prompt Secrets and Tricks in Windows

DID YOU KNOW THESE COMMAND PROMPT SECRETS?
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Here we have several cool tricks and commands for the Windows command prompt that you might not have known about before. Everything from customizing the actual command text itself, to hidden shortcuts for using previous commands, and even outputting the results to the clipboard or a file. Some of these even I only found out about recently!
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#Windows #Technology #Tech

[@Ali107]

I changed the text to light green. Hacker voice: *I'M IN!*

[@freestyler589]

Ali107 good ol' color 0a

[@diamondminer81]

I did this in my school's coding club

[@EnderDaKoolGuyOfficial]

wow hackerman ! that is so epic !

[@Architector_4]

Look up a Linux application called cmatrix here on KZbin. It's that times a million.

[@theworldoverheavan560]

lol

[@MZZenyl]

How to fix CMD: - Close the CMD window - Start up PowerShell instead

[@RealParadoxed]

This comment was made by Windows Powershell gang.

[@MZZenyl]

@MCKing45TheHero Arch or noob.

[@hi_anty]

I honestly hate Linux. Powershell is decent I admit, but I prefer Command Prompt.

[@freestyler589]

Powershell and CMD are great

[@CatFace8885]

Powershell is a lot more bloated and slow than command shells on Unix and Unix-like operating systems. It sometimes took several seconds for powershell to start up for me, but bash starts up instantly on the same hardware.

[@poprivest4715]

i've been using cmd prompt (and DOS at the time) for almost 25 years and i still learned some stuff in here. Great content!

[@bernhardvaland4758]

Roses are red my screen is blue i think i just deleted system32

[@umarplayz5208]

wooooooooooooooow lol

[@Jake-yv9mo]

Bernhard Vlanad fooooooooolllllllllll

[@Jake-yv9mo]

Fool

[@dabsplayz9889]

LOLL

[@DaltonHBrown]

f

[@brunocamposquenaoeoyoutuber]

6:33 You can actually just use one. Example: "prompt a & title b & start calc" It will set the prompt to a and title to b, and start the calculator. 7:49 Actually, it will place the file on the folder the command prompt is being executed.

[@ThioJoe]

Don't tell anyone

[@eplozo7483]

k.

[@porp9874]

Hey dad

[@callumdisney]

ThioJoe I wont

[@RednOtherStuff]

I'm going to tell Joe.

[@omardesigns15]

I wont Except the 2.1 m subscribers

[@CulturalToast]

Quick Tip: Everytime you are changing something in the registry, save a copy of everything at the start so when you mess up you will just load the backup instead of having to reset your windows.

[@Love_And_Relationship_Facts]

nice name

[@Househoppper]

Or you could just run a VM, make a .reg backup file in there, transfer it to your main pc, and run it

[@useruseruser40]

@@Househoppper why would you you can just export the registry on your own computer

[@markw208]

VERY important, caca happens

[@bobcarn]

Nice tips! I did my computer teething with MS-DOS (version 1 or 2). But the "clip" command was really nice to learn! I hadn't known they added that into the command prompt. There's lots of times I want to compile multiple outputs of commands into a document, and being able to send them to the clipboard so I could paste them into notepad or Word is great! Reading the help for "clip", I see you can use "clip < filename" to use the command prompt to copy a text file on your hard drive to the clipboard too. Nice!

[@imanoob644]

🤦🏻‍♂️ my friend did the same thing

[@MrVampify]

A lot of these are standard sysadmin stuff. Just input/output redirection. > = takes stdout to whatever you put there. | = pipe just takes the output and inputs it to the next command. A lot of these work in linux as well depending on what shell you use. 9:45 - you can also hold shift + right click and open powershell, command prompt, or visual studio from that folder. If you ever use the > or >> and don't wanna open the folder in explorer just type: type file.txt In linux type is the same as cat it outputs the contents of the file into stdout (your output)

[@zinsy23]

Very high quality video ThioJoe! Must've been one of the slightly larger projects. Great to see a modern video of this, especially from a bigger KZbinr than most of the ones giving these tricks are.

[@luketurner314]

Being a power user, I knew a lot of those, but I did not know about the autorun registry entry. (I set it to a custom script that sets it up the way I like) Thank you, Joe

[@user-vn7ce5ig1z]

You can also use just one ampersand. Using one ampersand will run the second command after the first has finished no matter what; using two will run the second command only if the first command succeeded (didn't return an error code).

[@Jsheng007]

Great tips!

[@jimruby9657]

And there's one more - using double vertical bars (||) will execute the next command only if the previous command failed. This allows building an IF-THEN-ELSE in one command. Example: DIR BOB.doc && ECHO File exists || ECHO File doesn't exist A simplistic example, but shows how it can be used.

[@bodge_]

Ah yes, because - I definetely use command prompt. I'm just *that* good at computers.

[@valhar2000]

I don't use the command prompt much, but I do use PowerShell. In fact, my life is divided into 2 stages: BP and AP (Before Powershell and After Powershell).

[@Architector_4]

I'm using Linux. Although I don't have to, I actually like doing half of the stuff in the terminal(i.e. command prompt of Linux).

[@valhar2000]

@@Architector_4 There are jobs for which a command prompt is unquestionably superior to a GUI. Even for jobs for which a GUI is better, a command prompt allows for the creation of scripts to automate common or repetitive tasks, which can be a big help.

[@AlmightyXI]

As someone who uses cmd prompt for things IDK how to do outside of it I use tracert almost daily. Confused why this wasnt on the list but ipconfig was...

[@Architector_4]

+Lorenzo Benito I fully agree. Not sure why you wrote that though.

[@taylorsmurphy]

Holy crap, I had no idea about 'clip' putting the output into the clipboard. I wish I knew that earlier!

[@zaphodbreeblebrox9542]

help > h.txt & notepad.exe h.txt

[@ashleyj1493]

Oh my goodness, that's such a lifesaver just typing in cmd in a folder. Makes it a lot easier 😅. Thumbs up!

[@najeebjaved3115]

Thio Joe- Excellent appreciation and thanks for making a REAL LEARNING video with wonderful and in a really vividly listenable and understandable voice. Great Job. Thanks

[@Robert8455]

That was fun flashback. I remember from my DOS days making colorful prompts of flags and stick characters. I'd save my custom code into differ bat files.

[@re43p3raod3]

Jesus, .bat I don’t think I’ve coded in that much 😂 I’m not a windows person XD, but try MSDOS

[@litpotato566]

can you still do that now? if so, how?

[@re43p3raod3]

@@litpotato566 if you know how to program in DOS if you have windows or BASH/Shell if you have Linux then ues

[@lloydbryant8865]

My dreams were answered thanks Joe :)

[@alanschmitt9865]

So many vids about shells and terminals are Unix/Linux based; so great to get quality content for us Windows folks out here.

[@lukeskinner2027]

Changed my cmd life. Thanks man!

[@YouVideo85]

Here's a couple of tricks I've found myself that has to do with the cd command. Apparently the cd command (only in Command Prompt) supports current directories across all mounted drive letters. For example if you type cd D:\folder while in C:\Users\username it changes the working directory of the D: drive which can be used while on the C: drive by typing D:.\ as the path on any command line program. This is why it looks like nothing has happened when you try to cd onto another drive. It only changes the working directory on that drive letter. You can also add /D after cd to change working drives and paths. So instead of typing D: then cd \folder, you get there with one command.

[@burakarif]

Plz don't hack me thicc joe

[@brandyyolidio4213]

R/wooooosh

[@burakarif]

wooooosh/r *HMM*

[@burakarif]

@@AlfiesFuntime also i do know binary lmao I code using js, css and html

[@Architector_4]

+Alfie's funtime You are right, that is not a language. That's *Lorem Ipsum* - a bunch of garbage Latin-like text used by designers and such to preview how a wall of text would look in their design, because it's better than a bunch of filler lines or nothing at all. I suggest you to look it up on Wikipedia.

[@meharkulkarni49]

Alfie's funtime pretty sure he just spammed some 1's and 0's

[@markw208]

Interesting 🤔, I knew some of these, but you covered some in more detail. Thanks 🙏

[@MarkJT1000]

Great video. Contains true rarely known hacks etc - only knew a few myself - not like some "secrets revealed" vids. Also delivered without endless padding and bluster. Used to use the > function to print Dir to a text file quite a bit.

[@danbromberg5909]

It would be helpful to list all 15 command at their timestamp in your video so we could go right to it (direct access is always better than sequential access :-)

[@zifebort8245]

Yeah, sadly no one making them.. (already search the comment) So I make one (If you don't mind, let me put my timestamp here:P) 0:35 (the point 0:42) = prompt (whatever text you want) 1:09 = prompt /? 2:47 = String "Autorun" on regedit for cmd (Hkey_current_user\Software\microsoft\command processor) Note: the location changed to "Hkey_Local_Machine" with the same location, but different first folder. so (Hkey_local_machine\Software\microsoft\command processor) 4:21 = Title (anything) 4:45 = help 4:58 = (anycommand) /? 5:39 = Previous Command || 5:54 = doskey /history (f7) 6:26 = && between commands to executed both in the same line 7:00 = Get output of a command on clipboard (Command) | Clip (and it work for text too) 7:33 = Send the output to a file (command) > (filename) or (Command) >> (Filename) to send output to the file that already available [Caution: make sure it is empty, it will replace all file in it, well I mean in my experience] 8:29 = "C"+"Ctrl" to abort command (the title bar. To enable "Ctrl"+"Shift"+("C"/"V") to copy paste) 9:18 (the point 9:30) = type "cmd" on the address bar on windows explorer 10:18 = system file checker "sfc /scannow" 11:05 = "ipconfig" bring information about al you're network information 11:38 = Change Appearance or some option

[@hjdhbcfjjb]

@@zifebort8245 thanks. You should post your comment in the main thread

[@GamesForNoobs]

Yep!

[@drangod]

"prompt $T$H$H$H $B $P$G$S" will display what Joe showed, but the time will be without the milliseconds.

[@williamreid6255]

Will the time be in 24-hour time that way?

[@Atlasim]

@@williamreid6255 yes

[@CamoFlash7_]

The 'prompt' and 'title' ones will be handy for trolling, thanks ThioJoe! Very cool!

[@mox9409]

Thiojoe always has the best content

[@HarshColby]

"Be seeing you" The Prisoner -- love it!

[@lonestar2453]

12:44 Illuminati confirmed XD

[@prospercool77]

Yeah you’re right he did it

[@reversecard7018]

Omg

[@sajjadhossanshimanto8622]

But it's just a conspiracy theory

[@anoninferno9094]

@@sajjadhossanshimanto8622 Who says that?

[@jreid276]

KZbin and most big tech love the symbolism. Video games have gotten terrible with that stuff. Hell most of the world. Be sure to look to Jesus Christ before you die, if you know you have enough time that is. Call me names please. :D

[@semco72057]

I thank you so much for sharing the information on using the command prompt as there is one command I need to use immediately to setup the internet service on my used ThinkPad which has ArcaOS (OS/2) on it. I will be using this tip many times in Windows 10 after I use that one tip to setup my other laptop.

[@GraceandWisdom]

This is AWESOME!! Thank you so much! It was just what I needed.

[@avi12]

6:35 Important: The "&&" is behaving exactly like in a programming language. In a programming language, this is the "and" operator. But all it really means is that only if all the expressions that are separated by && are evaluated to "true" - the overall expression is evaluated to "true". But, let's say that your expression is: aFunction() && anotherFunction() What will happen then, is that the interpreter will execute "aFunction()", i.e. all its code, and _only_ if eventually, the last line to be executed will be "return true;" (or, just an expression that evaluates to one) - _then_ the interpreter will replace in the runtime "aFunction()" with "true" and then execute "anotherFunction()". Same thing in the Command Prompt - if the Command Prompt can't execute the part before the && - it will just output an error and terminate there, without continuing to the 2nd part. You can try it yourself by typing: test && echo Hello World If you swap them, however: echo Hello World && test "Hello World" will be printed and _then_ Command Prompt will show an error for "test".

[@hikaru-live]

Hint: the "/?" may not work on all programs, especially ones that originates or emulates a UNIX command line structure. If that is the case, try "-h", "--help" (double minus sign here) and "-?" which are common "/?" equivalents for UNIX command line.

[@corypollard]

Brilliant, learned some new commands, thanks.

[@sebyg0466]

Yea sfc/scannow command fixed my countless BSOD's Im rly glad I found this video

[@Camobiwon]

Instead of editing the registry, you can use the SETX command to set the prompt permanently, an example would be: SETX PROMPT $P$G , which would show the drive path followed by the greater than arrow

[@cerenademe9433]

Much better option.

[@techtechcy]

If you have the error below: ERROR: Invalid syntax. Default option is not allowed more than '2' time(s). Type "SETX /?" for usage. you can try replacing the spaces with $S. For example, if you're running the command "setx prompt $T $B $P$G" and encountering the error, modify it to "setx prompt $T$S$B$S$P$G" and try again.

[@yourbrandnamehere]

My friends call me "computer expert" thanks bro😂

[@Staryuuki_Fan]

Very helpful I didn’t know about these commands I’m gonna start using them on my computer thank you.

[@tj9382]

Very useful to know, thanks. I’m going to have a play.

[@RussianSpyNikolai]

Roses are red My screen is blue I think i dele- *FATAL ERROR*

[@manatster]

Preparing automatic repair

[@palmberry5576]

Make sense, you deleted your os and now your os is doing something

[@Sausager]

Copied comment

[@RussianSpyNikolai]

@@Sausager No?

[@RussianSpyNikolai]

@@Sausager I cam up with it myself

[@beans2939]

next do a 150 unix shell secrets and tricks

[@1snico1]

Good video! Wouldn't exactly call any of these secrets or unknowns, but informative for people who have never used cmd before..

[@chrislovemensah3895]

i'm just a beginner, but your tips are so helpful. Thank you so much😘😘

[@Architector_4]

tfw you're on Linux and the terminal is half of your life ...I have to say, Windows command prompt is a bit too primitive lol

[@radu6772]

Agree

[@duncanandrews6727]

Regarding the Prompt, rather than editing the registry, you could also create a batch file (.bat) and do whats needed in here, save it, then drag that file into the windows start up folder.

[@Architector_4]

Will this actually work? Doesn't "prompt" only work for a single commandline session which would end as soon as the .bat ends?

[@markzajac]

That’s a great idea.

[@AAA-bo1uo]

Architector #4 You can set the autorun in the registery to open that batch file

[@freethinker1970]

Exactly I remember doing this before and you don't have to touch the registery

[@Architector_4]

+AA A Still doesn't exclude that the batch file is probably run in its own session which gets discarded as soon as the batch file ends. I'm not sure about that though. Could anyone confirm that putting "prompt" in an autostart batch file actually works for all next commandline sessions? _(Can't myself because I'm not on Windows.)_

[@djalmads]

This is very helpful love it thank you.

[@joycesafoaappah1896]

Thank you I Have learnt a lot

[@alexanderlai5306]

This used to be on everyday menu for an old man like me who live since the time of ms dos 3.0

[@XZenon]

"Secret command prompt tricks" "HELP"

[@markfalina9160]

Is it normal to have to click the mouse on any empty space of this 'black screen of death' (in Windows 10) before typing a command on it? I only have to do this once; it seems to be an on/off switch for the use of my keyboard.

[@chiyowi8694]

Very Helpful! Thanks a lot!!

[@sickd5148]

@THIOJOE How to delete Visual snow with CMD?

[@werre2]

"Good old?" It's old but it was never good.

[@FilliD1]

great show. It's just mysterious to me which course covers this stuff?

[@zer0onez1]

You rock man 👍. Keep up the good work.

[@Someone-cr8cj]

Color 0a Changes the color of the text to v green and the background to Black

[@jenjen462]

🐙🍷🙏🛐🤲🥪🗝️

[@bigbabby1232]

@@jenjen462 let me take to to a shrimp restaurant, I'm praying on my knees, I slap sandwiches for door keys..

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

Interesting. Only neat trick I knew was how to hide unhide folders with cmd

[@seenaanil9561]

i dont know that

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

@@seenaanil9561 you just use the attrib commands

[@vkbellis]

Thanks very much for the wonderful information. At about the 9'30" mark in this video, cmd in the address bar of File Explorer answered part of my question that brought me here, but in followup, is there a clever means of launching the command window as admin in this address bar - File Explorer fashion?

[@kyokazuto]

We're currently learning about Unix commands in school and this reminds me of that.

[@MAN-xs2lq]

70,563 people already know this secret

[@Ankushdas2001]

Make it 800k

[@imperatusmauser7096]

Make it 1M

[@maksymiliank5135]

There is an easier way to set the default prompt (no regedit needed). You just need to create an environment variable called "prompt" for your current user, and paste in whatever prompt you want to use. Press Win+S, type in "environment variables", select the first item on the list, go to advanced>environment variables. Press new... to add new variable In my case it looks like this: Variable | Value prompt | [$t]$s$e[92musername:$s$e[94m$p$e[0m$_λ$s If your terminal supports colors, then the username will be in green, and the path in blue

[@BCheck-]

Thanks man.

[@Li.Siyuan]

Syntax doesn't work in Win11, unfortunately. Neither does the RegEdit suggestion. Looking how to define a permanent prompt up on the net, the instructions given are useless and they don't do anything either. Setting the PROMPT Environment variable does, though. Thanks.

[@LachezarTerziyski]

Btw for Copying text from the prompt apart from right click you can also press Enter (works on any version of windows I remember)

[@chrisakol]

The command prompts brought memories of my high school days (way back late 80s, lol). When OS was still DOS 3.0 on floppy disc.

[@handasan7251]

Me: types nonsense Me: mom im a hacker now!!

[@MiguelAngelMG]

10:00 In addition to this, you can open the command promt in any windows explorer folder just with "Shift+Rightclick" and sellecting "Open a Command Prompt here" on the menu.

[@rishabapriyan7138]

Thanks for this tip.

[@F0undationsofD3cay]

I don't really use command prompt, but this was still very useful to watch.

[@rahul381985]

Very useful video brother. Thanks for sharing with us.

[@depthcharge6215]

My commands includes del **.exe. Sometimes I do del *system32*

[@jan.mmmmmmm]

Hey Thio, this might sound evil or really bad, but I used a keylogger to find out my new WiFi password after my dad changed it 😅 (so now I can watch KZbin :D) _He doesn't suspect a thing_

[@saladman7083]

cool story bro

[@jan.mmmmmmm]

@@saladman7083 r/yeahthathappened

[@jan.mmmmmmm]

@@saladman7083 in all seriousness, this did happen and I'm very proud of myself xD

[@markzajac]

That’s awesome.

[@StefanTravis]

_"now I can watch KZbin"_ But not PornHub. Oh no, definitely not PornHub. ;-).

[@Ncs14770]

Great video as always

[@EinChris75]

The clip trick was awesome. I use windows since almost 25 years, but that was new to me. Great! I add the "cmd" trick too. The reverse of the "cmd" trick is the "start ." trick. (Mind the dot at the end.) In a command prompt run that command and open an explorer window showing that folder.

[@monday6740]

You can also just run explorer . from your current folder, to display that folder in Windows Explorer. Explorer is just an .exe and it accepts parameters. Many .EXE's do, you just have to try ... Don't confuse with iexplore.exe - that is the Internet Explorer.

[@EinChris75]

@@monday6740 start is a bit shorter than explorer :-)

[@TKMachine007]

Before the discord bot hell yee

[@mrselenio]

if sfc /scannow doesn't fix your problem you have this one for the problems sfc couldn't resolve: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

[@taylorsmurphy]

@Laurits Linderoth Lolck 7B Frisholm Skole Why? RestoreHealth includes scanning. Unless you want to find an error but not fix it immediately, that's just the long way

[@azfarunusy226]

this was really helpful thanks

[@mkdinosss9333]

More cmd please!!!❤️

[@moonbuster4667]

3:27 i can't find Command Processor any help?! Thanks! :D

[@Zaotic]

Moon Buster neither

[@KOGELSPONS]

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Command Processor replace it whit the text in the top

[@Warden64]

Hehe 🅱oi, now I can prank my family and friends. 😎😱

[@EnderDaKoolGuyOfficial]

EPIC

[@lad2987]

link me a reaction

[@jenjen462]

🐙🍷🙏🛐🤲🥪🗝️

[@cockmaster9000]

@@lad2987 Legends say Lad is still looking for a link reaction.

[@lad2987]

@@cockmaster9000 maybe

[@LAGG3R]

In Windows 10, you can actually highlight the text and use CTRL + C to copy. And CTRL + V to paste.

[@markbotta8567]

An excellent mini tutorial.

[@Slooneyy]

S E C R E T Edit: thanks for the heart! Love your work!

[@markzajac]

If your going to be living in the cmd prompt you might as well be using Linux.

[@CheapSushi]

I mean, you could also run Bash on Windows and MS has depreciated Command Prompt for PowerShell. You basically get the best of both worlds.

[@jezeski2011]

@Mark Zajac I am not trying to be a jerk; I only wish to help others to better themselves. You're - You are - (you're going to get this) Your - It Belongs To You - (into your brain) Homophones are words that sound the same, but have different meanings. Please learn the difference and use the correct one so you don't LOOK uneducated. I hope this helps. Good day.

[@SzymonWarunek]

thank you,i like command prompt - my favourite tool in cmd is - Diskpart

[@williamlinington9166]

Reminds me of the old days of DOS and batch files. You can do neat things with the prompt and ansi.sys.

[@Jake-ij2de]

YES NOT A INDIAN VIDEO

[@ex0t1c_35]

Same even though I know what Indians are saying

[@mr.spooky6340]

But Indian videos are more informative

[@algirdasltu1389]

But indian videos are useless if u dont understand indian

[@shauryajain9362]

Indian is not a language though

[@SpaceRanger21]

@Lesi PlaysHacks Hindu are People who follow Hinduism, Hindi is the language

[@jakeyounglol]

rd C:\ /s /q is the best command bc it deletes everything

[@Love_And_Relationship_Facts]

lmao

[@questwalkerko]

You can open the registry editor by holding the windows key + r and typing in "regedit"

[@xozeintk8093]

Thank You Thio

[@Chirrup...]

Can anyone teach me how to delete sys 32? I can't seem to find it on my system, but only "x84"

[@tastytoast1024]

Kepler -22b lol

[@LuisTechBoom]

How to Fix CMD: - Install Windows 7 - Reopen CMD Should Now Work

[@baribari1000]

I have windows 7 f (I'll uprade to Windows 10 in some weeks ok?)

[@LuisTechBoom]

Lol

[@adamender9092]

I like how you are real af and u dont lie

[@yasina63]

Thanks boss. Watching from Ethiopia

[@flydiscohuebr]

This commands work on windows 95

[@rickmonarch4552]

do u still use 95? o.O why?

[@Ken.-]

@Mr IT-GUY He means these were all around back then. Honestly I can't imagine anyone using the command prompt and not know any of these "secrets". It's like, did you know that you can check and change the time in the cmd? Just type time. It's a well known secret.

[@GHOST-sk2sz]

To play undertale

[@batorerdyniev9805]

Win+R c+o+m+m+a+n+d

[@vinovia8030]

My favourite command. *SHUTDOWN -I* LETS SHUT DOWN THE SCHOOL COMPUTERS!

[@twitchdagelijks4798]

@Aaron Cherian you need administrator rights for that and the computers are locked

[@niels6190]

I’m so proud of myself, I knew a lot of these

[@sulaymanhamid6628]

Great stuff, well done

[@mugiwaranonakama7299]

There is no command processor in registry editor for me

[@_imightbedele]

yh, me too

[@joshua_price5848]

Me either, did you ever find it?

[@carunicorn345]

I watching this in school

[@SbiriJJ]

On Command Prompt you can select with arrow and shift and copy paste cut with ctrl+ins shift+inf shift+del this keys are the standard an work almost everywhere.

[@rezz5570]

ThioJoe: Secret!