The command prompt is powerful, and there are many other things that can be achieved with it. So, in this post, we are going to tell you 7 useful command prompt tricks that Windows 10 users should know
Change the drive at the command prompt
If you want to run the command on a specific disk, change the disk drive with "Drive Letter +:". For example, if you want to change the drive from C: to G:, type G: and press enter. You will then see that the drive has changed.
Clear the command line window
After executing multiple commands, the screen of the command prompt often looks cluttered. In this case, the CLS command comes in handy.
Type cls and press enter. Then, all the previous commands on the screen will be cleared.
Be careful not to conflict with command-line tools. If you want to clear the screen after using a command-line tool like DiskPart, you need to exit it first and then type cls to clear the screen.
Launch PowerShell from the command prompt
1. Open cmd. Type powershell and press enter. The command prompt will go to PowerShell.
2. If you want to run PowerShell as administrator from cmd. Type the command start-process powershell-verb runas as per step 1.
Empty the recycle bin
1. In the taskbar, type cmd in the search box. Right-click on the command prompt and select Run as administrator.
2. Type the following command and press enter to empty the recycle bin of a specific drive:
rd /q /s drive-letter:\$Recycle.Bin Remember to replace the drive letter with the one you want. If you want to clean up multiple disks, change the drive letter and repeat the steps above.
Add the user account from the command prompt
1. Type cmd in the search box on your desktop. Right-click on the command prompt and select Run as administrator.
2. Type net user username password /add and press enter. In this command, username is the name you give to your account, and password is the password you want to log in to your account.
For example, if you want to create a user named iSunShare with a password of isonshare123. You can type net user isunshare isunshare123 /add and press enter.
3. (Optional) When you want to grant administrator rights to a new network user, type net localgroup Administrators username /add, and then click Enter. Replace the username with the new username.
Check for corrupted system files via the command prompt
If there is something wrong with your computer, you can run the system file checker to find corrupted or missing system files.
1. Type cmd in the search box, right-click the top result, and select "Run as administrator".
2. Type the sfc /scannow command in the command prompt and press enter. Wait for the repair process to complete.
If your system files are not corrupted, you will see the message "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity conflicts" after completing the repair process.
Use the command prompt to show hidden files
1. Type cmd in the search box, right-click on the top result, and select "Run as administrator".
2. (Optional) View hidden files. Type dir drive letter: /a:h /b /s and press enter to view the hidden files for a particular drive. Remember to replace the drive letter according to your situation. For example, type dir C: /a:h /b /s and press enter.
Then you will see all the hidden files of the C drive. Note that you can use the dir command to view the hidden files, but you can't see them in the respective drive.
3. Use the attrib command to show the hidden files. Type attrib -h -r -s /s /d drive letter:\*.* and press enter to display the hidden files in the specific drive. If you replace the drive letter with C, type "attrib -h -r -s /s /d C:\*.*" and press enter.
Exit the command prompt and you can see all the hidden files in the C drive.