The commands listed below are some that I use quite often, and by that I mean pretty much every day. On a typical day I will have two CMD consoles open, a PowerShell ISE console and at least one or two instances of some code editor application like TextPad or Visual Studio Express. Regardless, I will often jump back to one of my CMD consoles to do something that involves one of the items mentioned below. Maybe there's a few in here you haven't tried yet.
1. CMDKEY
I use this for managing my credential mappings between my laptop, my home domain environment, my various "work" environments, and TS/RDP environments. To list saved credentials, use "cmdkey /list". You can narrow down the list to one target, such as a server you connect to by SMB or RDP named "fubar", by typing "cmdkey /list:fubar". To add a new explicit mapping, such as connecting to server "fubar" from your tablet which is not part of the same domain or workgroup, use "cmdkey /add:fubar /user:dave /pass:p00rb@$taRd". For more information about this command, type "cmdkey" and press Enter.
Example: save login credentials for domain server "serverXYZ" from your workgroup laptop...
cmdkey /add:serverXYZ /user:dave /pass:Ih@teP@$$wordZ
2. WINRS
This is another command I find extremely helpful. There are a few times where it doesn't shine as brightly as I'd like, but that's rare. One such example (and don't let this put you off) is invoking a utility like "SendSchedule.exe" on a remote box, even when the associated XML config file is in the appropriate location. You just get nothing. Again, this is not worth tarnishing this powerful utility.
What does it do? Magical stuff. That's what. It's basically a remote shell wrapper, and lets you execute tasks on the remote computer as if you're on that remote computer. So if you have a script, say "dosomething.ps1" sitting in the c:\stuff folder on serverXYZ, and you're on your laptop named "dingy8", you can open a command console (or PowerShell console) and type:
winrs -r:serverXYZ powershell.exe c:\stuff\dosomething.ps1
Then watch the results unfold as if you were logged onto serverXYZ and running the script directly.
There's way more to this command than I can possibly blurt out here, so try "winrs -?" to begin exploring.
3. PUSHD and POPD
This one has been around almost as long as me. Same for its cousin: popd. The pushd command creates a temporary "ad hoc" drive mapping to a specified share. So if just need a drive letter, under the context of whatever the command console is running as, just type "pushd
Example: map a temp drive to share \\serverXYZ\stuff --> pushd \\serverXYZ\stuff
4. SC
The sc command is another golden-age oldie that provides command-line control over the Windows Services environment. SC allows you to stop, start, create, delete, and modify Windows Services. Nuff said.
Example: Check on the status of the WinRM service --> sc query winrm
Example: Stop the WinRM service --> sc stop winrm
Example: Change WinRM startup to manual --> sc config winrm start:demand
for more information, type "sc /?"
5. SCHTASKS
Like the sc command, this is one is a counterpart to a common GUI tool. This one provides management features for Scheduled Tasks (hence the abbreviated name: "SCHeduled TASKS"). You create, delete, modify, list, export and import scheduled task jobs with incredible detail and control. In many cases, it's easier to shove a command string using schtasks through a shell operation from within a script, than to use the direct API alternatives like WMI and .NET, but it depends on your circumstances of course.
Example: List all scheduled tasks on remote computer "Abc123": schtasks /s abc123 /query
Example: Run task "doit" on remote computer "abc123": schtasks /s abc123 /run /tn doit
6. SHUTDOWN
Ah, this is a most powerful, yet most simple command tool. Almost as flexible as "psshutdown" and some other third-party tools, it lets you request or "force" a shutdown, logoff or restart of a remote computer, as well as the local computer.
Example: Restart remote computer "abc123" in 30 seconds --> shutdown -m abc123 -r -f -t 30
Example: Restart "abc123" with a custom display message to the current users...
shutdown -m abc123 -r -f -t 30 -c "IT rulers are kicking you minions off in 30 seconds!"
7. REG
If you haven't heard of this command already, you might have guessed that it has something to do with the Registry. Yep. This cool gadget provides command-line capabilities for reading, writing, importing and export registry keys and values and a little more as well.
Example: Display installed apps...
reg query hklm\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\uninstall /s
Example: Import a .reg file
reg import regfile.reg
Example: Import a .reg file into 32-bit view on a 64-bit computer:
reg import regfile.reg /reg:32
8. ROBOCOPY
Oh boy. What can I say about this command that hasn't already been said? Once you get used to it, xcopy and the like will be flushed down the drain for good. Powerful. Flexible. Simple. Incredibly useful. And it was one command I was happy to see rolled into the base operating system configuration, where it was once relegated to Resource Kit add-ons.
One scenario I use this in quite often is wrapping in a .bat script to synchronize remote project folders to a central location, and then invoke the 7-Zip command-line interface to archive the backup content into .zip files and offload them to attached or removable storage. For me it's just another redundant redundancy of backups, in addition to server backups, DropBox, Google Drive and One Drive.
Example: backup only .vbs and .ps1 files which are newer than those already backed up, or added since last backup, from \\server123\stuff to d:\archives\scripts...
robocopy \\server123\stuff *.vbs *.ps1 d:\archives\scripts /xo /s
One interesting aspect to robocopy is showing the "help" information. On older versions, "robocopy /?" or "robocopy /???" and get very different results. However, on Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 both options were merged to produce the same results.
9. MSG
This sneaky little turd hijacked the old "net send" command like a stealthy ninja. Not quite a easy to implement due to the choke collar placed on the messenger service since Windows XP was taken out in a boat and shot in the head (GodFather homage). I wrote a blog post some years back on nothing but how to implement msg in a Windows 7 environment and enable the plumbing using a GPO.
If you don't have a GUI IM product in use, such as Communicator or Lync (same thing, different lipstick), and don't have an IRC app in use, this is another means to annoy your coworkers.
Example: tell my son Zach to get to bed, while he's uploading guitar demos at his computer in his bedroom... msg zachary /server:zachspc /v "bed time dude!" (the /v option says to wait for him to click the 'ok' button to indicate he read it).
10. MSTSC and MSRA
Holy crap, these are powerful and offer everything from really simple/basic/easy usage to up arguably complex yet powerful usage. MSTSC is the Remote Desktop utility. So instead of navigating the Start Menu or Start Screen for Remote Desktop, and entering a computer name to access, you can invoke it from a command-line aspect. It also offers command-line options for dealing with multiple monitors (/span and /multimon), shielding credentials (/restrictedAdmin) and invoking a preconfigured connection file.
Example: Remote into serverXYZ --> mstsc /v serverXYZ
MSRA is the command-line counterpart to Windows Remote Assistance. There are ton of options for this command (type msra /? for a list of them), but /offerra is the most commonly used of them.
Example: Initiate a Remote Assistance offer to the user on computer "fubar5"...
msra /offerra fubar5
You can go crazy with msra and invoke email invitations, password protection on assistance offers, and much more.
Conclusion
There are obviously many more command-line tools available on Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012 I could have included. Some that come to mind, which I also use quite often, include MSIEXEC, WEVTUTIL, WBADMIN, WMIC, OPENFILES, FTYPE, DRIVERQUERY, REGINI and FINDSTR. I won't argue that there aren't better alternatives outside of what comes built into Windows, even many that are "free", but it's nice that these still exist for times when you need them.
Cheers!
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