Ten Useful Windows Native Command Line Utilities

Windows administrators are often maligned for our inane dependence on the Windows GUI. Generally, these are Linux and Unix admins who live their lives in the bash shell. Now, it is true that we definitely do not have the same flexibility in the Windows command line as our *nix brethren. However, there are some key command line tools that every aspiring Windows Administrator should learn to love. These are the tools in which the real work gets done.

1. ipconfig - This tool is probably used most often by Windows administrators. In its bare form, it displays a DNS suffix, IP Address, Subnet, and gateway. With additional arguments it allows you to release and renew dhcp addresses, register with DNS and even flush the local DNS cache.

2. ping - Ping may be tied for the most used utility. It uses ICMP packets to tell you whether a host is available on the network, if you are experiencing packet loss, and a whole host of other things.

3. shutdown - Does just as it says. This command works very similar to the *nix command of the same name. It allows you to shutdown, reboot both local and remote machines.

4. net - Alone it is nothing, but add "use" or "start" to the syntax and you can map drives, start services and much more.

5. gpresult - Shows a list of group policies applied to the user and computer

6. gpupdate - Refreshes the group policies that apply to the user and computer

7. cacls - Allows a user to output or change the acl's that apply to a directory or file.

8. chkdsk - Identifies and repairs disk errors. There are several arguements available that control it's behavior.

9. netsh - This utility give you the ability to modify the network configuration of a local or remote computer without having to use the gui. It is especially usefull when making changes on multiple machines.

10 . eventtriggers - Many people dont know about this utility. Which is shocking considering how useful it is. It allows you to set a trigger that will run a script or program when a specified event shows up in the event log.