Perform Useful Tasks From Command Line

Command-Line Trippers For Sleep
What is the command line shortcut to open and close the door of CD-ROM drive?
What is the command line shortcut to increase, decrease or mute system volume?
What is the command line shortcut to turn off the monitor ?
What is the command line shortcut to logoff current user?
What is the command line shortcut to empty recycle bin ?

NirCMD is the answer to these questions and many more. NirCMD is a small command line utility that allows you to perform useful tasks from the command line. The installation of NirCMD is pretty simple. Just download the zip file from the location given below and extract to a folder. Run NirCMD.exe and select Copy to Windows Directory. By selecting this option, you don’t have to give full path of nirCMD in the command line. Let’s take a look at the usage of this small utility. Once it’s copied to Windows directory, go to cmd and issue the following command:
C:\>nircmd cdrom open d:
where d: is the CD-ROM drive letter.
This will open the CD-ROM tray.
Here’s the full list of commands that can be issued in the similar manner as the command above.
Close the door of Y: CD-ROM drive
nircmd.exe cdrom close y:
Speaks the text currently in the clipboard (For Windows XP and Vista).
speak text ~$clipboard$
Increase the system volume by 2000 units (out of 65535)
nircmd.exe changesysvolume 2000
Decrease the system volume by 5000 units (out of 65535)
nircmd.exe changesysvolume -5000
Set the volume to the highest value
nircmd.exe setsysvolume 65535
Mute the system volume
nircmd.exe mutesysvolume 1
Unmute the system volume
nircmd.exe mutesysvolume 0
Switch the system volume between the mute and normal state.
nircmd.exe mutesysvolume 2
Create a shortcut on your desktop that switch the system volume between the mute and normal state.
nircmd.exe cmdshortcut “~$folder.desktop$” “Switch Volume” mutesysvolume 2
Turn off the monitor
nircmd.exe monitor off
Start the default screen saver
nircmd.exe screensaver
Put your computer in ‘standby’ mode
nircmd.exe standby
log off the current user
nircmd.exe exitwin logoff
Ask if you want to reboot, and if you answer ‘Yes’, reboot the computer.
nircmd.exe qboxcom “Do you want to reboot ?” “question” exitwin reboot
Turn off your computer
nircmd.exe exitwin poweroff
Turn off all computers specified in computers.txt !
multiremote copy “c:\temp\computers.txt” exitwin poweroff force
Dial to “My Internet” connection
nircmd.exe rasdial “My Internet”
Disconnect the “My Internet” connection
nircmd.exe rashangup “My Internet”
Make your Internet Explorer windows 75% transparent ! (192 / 256)
nircmd.exe win trans ititle “internet explorer” 192
Minimize all your Internet Explorer windows
nircmd.exe win min class “IEFrame”
Close all your Internet Explorer windows
nircmd.exe win close class “IEFrame”
Close all your Explorer windows (My Computer, folders, and so on)
nircmd.exe win close class “CabinetWClass”
Hide all your Internet Explorer windows
nircmd.exe win hide class “IEFrame”
Show all your Internet Explorer windows (after you made them hidden with previous example)
nircmd.exe win show class “IEFrame”
Center all top-level windows
nircmd.exe win center alltop
Remove the title bar of My Computer window.
nircmd.exe win -style title “my computer” 0x00C00000
Return the title bar of My Computer window that we removed in the previous example.
nircmd.exe win +style title “my computer” 0x00C00000
Set the My Computer window to right-to-left order (For hebrew and arabic languages)
nircmd win +exstyle title “my computer” 0x00400000
Set all child windows of My Computer window to right-to-left order (For hebrew and arabic languages)
nircmd win child title “my computer” +exstyle all 0x00400000
Create a shortcut on your desktop that closes all your Internet Explorer windows
nircmd.exe cmdshortcut ” “~$folder.desktop$ “Close All IE” win close class “IEFrame”
Create a shortcut on your desktop that hides all your Internet Explorer windows
nircmd.exe cmdshortcut ” “~$folder.desktop$ “Hide All IE” win hide class “IEFrame”
Create a shortcut on your desktop that shows back all your Internet Explorer windows
nircmd.exe cmdshortcut ” “~$folder.desktop$ “Show All IE” win show class “IEFrame”
Set the Windows Calculator as top-most window (above all other windows)
nircmd.exe win settopmost title “Calculator” 1
Set the Windows Calculator back to regular window (non top-most window)
nircmd.exe win settopmost title “Calculator” 0
Create a shortcut to Windows calculator under Start Menu->Programs->Calculators
nircmd.exe shortcut “f:\winnt\system32\calc.exe” “~$folder.programs$\Calculators” “Windows Calculator”
Hide the desktop window
nircmd.exe win hide class progman
Show the desktop window (After hiding it in previous example)
nircmd.exe win show class progman
Hide the start button on the system tray
nircmd.exe win child class “Shell_TrayWnd” hide class “button”
Show the start button on the system tray
nircmd.exe win child class “Shell_TrayWnd” show class “button”
Hide the clock on the system tray
nircmd.exe win child class “Shell_TrayWnd” hide class “TrayClockWClass”
Show the clock on the system tray
nircmd.exe win child class “Shell_TrayWnd” show class “TrayClockWClass”
Kill (terminate) all instance of Internet Explorer processes
nircmd.exe killprocess iexplore.exe
Create a shortcut on your desktop that opens the door of K: CDROM drive when you run it.
nircmd.exe cmdshortcut “~$folder.desktop$” “Open CDROM” cdrom open k:
Create a shortcut to NirSoft Web site on your desktop
nircmd.exe urlshortcut “http://www.nirsoft.net” “~$folder.desktop$” “NirSoft”
Add NirSoft Web site to your Favorities under Links folder.
nircmd.exe urlshortcut “http://www.nirsoft.net” “~$folder.favorites$\Links” “NirSoft”
Create a shortcut to NirSoft Web site on the desktop of all computers listed in computers.txt
nircmd.exe multiremote copy “c:\temp\computers.txt” urlshortcut “http://www.nirsoft.net” “~$folder.common_desktop$” “NirSoft”
Set the display mode to 800x600x24bit colors
nircmd.exe setdisplay 800 600 24
Create a shortcut on the desktop that set the display mode to 800x600x24bit colors
nircmd.exe cmdshortcut “~$folder.desktop$” &quot800x600x24″ setdisplay 800 600 24
Copy all shortcuts on your desktop to another folder (f:\temp\desktop).
nircmd.exe execmd copy “~$folder.desktop$\*.lnk” f:\temp\desktop
Restart your Apache server (under Windows NT/2000/XP/2003)
nircmd.exe service restart apache
Create a shortcut on your desktop that restarts the Apache server
nircmd.exe cmdshortcut “~$folder.desktop$” “Restart Apache” service restart apache
Restart your IIS
nircmd.exe service restart w3svc
Restart MySql
nircmd.exe service restart MySql
Open the desired Registry key/value in RegEdit
nircmd.exe regedit “HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion” “CommonFilesDir”
Open the Registry key that you copied to the clipboard in RegEdit.
nircmd regedit “~$clipboard$”
Disable the screen saver
nircmd.exe regsetval sz “HKCU\control panel\desktop” “ScreenSaveActive” 0
Enable the screen saver
nircmd.exe regsetval sz “HKCU\control panel\desktop” “ScreenSaveActive” 1
Change the date/time of the specified filename (creation time and modified time)
nircmd.exe setfiletime “c:\temp\myfile.txt” “24-06-2003 17:57:11” “22-11-2005 10:21:56”
Copy your desktop folder path to the clipboard
nircmd.exe clipboard set ~$folder.desktop$
Copy your start menu folder path to the clipboard
nircmd.exe clipboard set ~$folder.start_menu$
Copy the content of info1.txt (simple text file) to the clipboard
nircmd.exe clipboard readfile “c:\My Files\info1.txt”
Add the text content of clipboard to info1.txt
nircmd.exe clipboard addfile “c:\My Files\info1.txt”
Clear the clipboard
nircmd.exe clipboard clear
Create all folders specified in “c:\temp\folders.txt”. The folder path names are separated by CRLF characters.
nircmd.exe paramsfile “c:\temp\folders.txt” “” “” execmd md ~$fparam.1$
Install the specified .NET assembly in the global assembly cache (like gacutil)
nircmd.exe gac install “C:\temp\MyAssembly\bin\MyAssembly.dll”
Empty the recycle bin in all drives.
nircmd.exe emptybin
Answer ‘Yes’ to a standard Windows message-box.
nircmd.exe dlg “” “” click yes
Wait 2 seconds, and then save the current screen to shot.png
nircmd.exe cmdwait 2000 savescreenshot “f:\temp\shot.png”
Save 10 screenshots in a loop, and wait 60 seconds between the screenshot save calls. The filenames of the screenshot will contain the time and date of the saved screenshot.
nircmd.exe loop 10 60000 savescreenshot c:\temp\scr~$currdate.MM_dd_yyyy$-~$currtime.HH_mm_ss$.png
Wait until Firefox is closed, and then say “Firefox was closed”
waitprocess firefox.exe speak text “Firefox was closed”
Download NirCMD
Download NirCMD from the above location.


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Comments

One response to “Perform Useful Tasks From Command Line”

  1. TechToolbox

    Wow, thanks for compiling this list of shortcuts!