Tuesday, 22 September 2015

CMD TRICKS

Watch ASCII Star Wars in Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 & 10


Every one of us has watched Star Wars on television, computer or in a theater. It is the same movie with aliens fighting each other for galaxies and such stuff. There is nothing new in it. But wait, have you watched an ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) version of Star Wars and that too in Windows usingtelnet? A network protocol known only to computer wizards. Well if you have not, then you must do it now!


There is a complete copy of Star Wars done entirely in ASCII characters that you can watch in the Windowsoperating system (or any OS that supports telnet). The only thing required to watch it is an internet connection; speed does not matter.



To watch it on Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux
   1.    Go to Start, Run. (Only for Windows users)
   2.    Now type "telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl" without the quotes and press Enter. Users of Mac OS X and Linux can directly execute this code in the terminal window.



On Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 7 and Windows Vista

Telnet is turned off by default in the latest versions of Windows. So, in order to watch star wars, you must first enable telnet by going to Control Panel › Programs › Turn Windows Feature On or Off and ticking both the telnet check boxes. After doing that, follow the steps given below:-
    1.    Go to Start, Search in Windows Vista and Windows 7 and Windows 10. On Windows 8 and Windows 8.1, open the main Start page.
    2.    Type telnet and press Enter.
    3.    In the following command prompt window, type "o" without quotes and press Enter.
    4.    Now type "towel.blinkenlights.nl" without the quotes and press Enter.

If you do not need telnet anymore, you can turn it off.


A command prompt window like the one in the image will open with the movie being played in it. See the movie yourself. Did you enjoy watching this new version of Star Wars? Well, I did and know it for sure that you would have too.

Make Undeletable, Unrenamable Folders

Have you ever wondered how you can make a folder which neither can be deleted nor be renamed. Well, if you have, then you have come to the right place. With this trick, you will be able to create folders in Windows which cannot be renamed or deleted.


Basic Concept
The basic concept behind this trick is the use of Keywords. Keywords are reserved words in any programming language that cannot be used as names of variables. Windows also uses certain keywords in its programming. Some of them are con, aux, lpt1, lpt2, lpt3, lpt4, lpt5, lpt6, lpt7, lpt8 and lpt9.



A Test
To test this concept, make a new folder in Windows and try to give it a name same as any keyword mentioned above.

Result
Windows will not rename your folder to any of the keyword given above.

Trick
So the question arises, how can we make a folder with a keyword as its name? The solution to this problem is included in Windows itself. As we know that Windows has evolved from D.O.S.(Disk Operating System), its commands can be used in Windows. You can use D.O.S. Programming in Windows to create a folder with a keyword as its name using the steps given below:-
    1.    Click on Start.
    2.    Click on Run. Type in "cmd" without quotes.
    3.    In the Command Prompt Window that opens, type the name of the drive you wish to create your folder in the format <drive-name>: and press Enter. e.g. If you wish to create the undeletable folder in D drive, type "D:" without the quotes. Note that the folder cannot be created in the root of C: drive (if C: is your system drive).
   4.    Type this command- "md con\" or "md lpt1\" without the quotes and press Enter. You can choose any of the keywords given above as the name of your folder.



Now Windows will create an undeletable, unrenamable folder in the drive you entered in Step 3. However, the folder can be renamed to another keyword using Windows Explorer.

Deleting the Folder

Although, it is not possible to manually delete the folder, you can delete the folder by typing "rd con\" or "rd lpt1\" in Step 4 instead of "md con\" or "md lpt1\".

Windows Compatibility: This works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 8.1.

Try it yourself to create one such folder which can neither be deleted nor be renamed.


Shutdown Your Computer or a Remote PC via Command Prompt


Most of us shutdown our computers using the power button given in the Start menu. Some of us use the physical power button on our machines. Very few people actually use other means of shutting down a computer and even less is the number of people who use the command prompt to shutdown a computer.


A reason for this is that most of us don't know that the command prompt can be used to not only shutdown, restart or log off our computer instantly but also to shutdown a remote computer provided you have administrative access. It can also be used to hibernate a computer and give a comment containing the reason for shutdown. This post will show you how to do all this.

Required

A computer running Windows (XP, Vista, 7, 8 or 8.1) with the command prompt working perfectly, i.e. not disabled by a virus.

Initial Steps 
1) Press Windows Key + R.
2) Enter CMD and press Enter.

This will start the command prompt. Follow the instructions below depending on what you want to do.

Shutdown Local Machine (Your Computer)
Type "shutdown -s" without the quotes in the command prompt and press Enter. Shutdown is the command being executed and the switch -s tells the computer to shutdown.

Restart your Local Computer 
Type "shutdown -r" in the command prompt and press Enter. In this case, the command switch -r is telling the computer to restart after shutdown.

Log Off the Current User
Type "shutdown -l" in the command prompt and press Enter. The -l command switch tells the computer to log off.

Shutdown a Remote Computer
Type "shutdown -s -m \\name of the computer" in the command prompt and press Enter. Replace \\name of the computer with the actual name of the remote computer you are trying to shutdown. As mentioned earlier, you must have administrative access to the computer you are trying to shutdown. To know if you have administrative access, press Windows key + R and then type the name of the computer and press Enter.

Note: If you don't remember the name of the remote computer, you can look for it by opening a list of all the computers you are connected to by executing "net view" in command prompt.

If you can connect to the computer, you will be asked to login with your username and password. Upon entering them, a window will display the list of all the directories available to you. This should help you know whether you can or cannot shutdown the remote computer.

Hibernate a Local Computer
Type in "Rundll32.exe Powrprof.dll,SetSuspendState" without the quotes and press Enter. Your computer should hibernate, if it does not, then you must enable hibernation to do this.

Shutdown your or a remote computer after a specific time
Type "shutdown -s -t 60" to shutdown your computer after 60 seconds. Upon executing this, a countdown timer displaying a warning message will be shown. This command uses the -t command switch followed by a variable (which is 60 in this case) which represents the number of seconds after which the computer will shutdown.

Display a Message containing the reason for shutdown
Type shutdown -s  -t 500 -c "I am tired. I don't want to work anymore." (with the quotes) in the Command Prompt and press Enter. The -c switch is used in the code to give the reason for shutting down and what is followed in quotes will be displayed in the dialog box as the reason. This can be used to display all sorts of funny messages. One example :-

Skynet has become self aware. John Connor did not stop me. You can not use your PC anymore.

Stop a System Shutdown
Type "shutdown -a" and press Enter. This will stop the system from shutting down if the countdown to shut down has not reached 0.

5- Know your IP address, DNS Server's address and a lot more about your Internet Connection

Command Prompt can even let you know your IP address. Just type ipconfig/ all in the command prompt and press Enter. Along with your IP address and DNS servers, command prompt will also return a ton of information like your host name, primary DNS suffix, node type, whether IP Routing ,Wins Proxy, and DHCP are enabled, your network adapter's description, your physical (MAC) address etc . 

6- Know if your neighbours are stealing your WiFi connection

Command Prompt can let you know if someone is connected to your Local Area Connection and using it. Just follow the steps:- 

1) Open your browser and visit http://192.168.1.1 or http://192.168.0.1 depending on your router. 
2) Find the tab that mentions “Attached Devices” or something similar.
3) Find the computer name, IP address and MAC Address (sometimes called Physical Address or Hardware Address) of your computer using the previous trick.
4 )Compare it with those displayed by your router in Step 2. If you notice some strange devices, then your neighbour has been sneaking in on your internet connection and it is best to add a password.
Create a Shortcut to lock your Computer

Have you ever left your PC in a hurry? Have you ever felt that it is a pain to lock your system in the simple way by doing CTRL+ALT+DEL? I would imagine that you have and then, this trick is for you. This trick enables you to create a shortcut to lock your computer instead of doing the regular CTRL+ALT+DEL, thus providing you a way to quickly and easily get away from your PC whenever you are in a hurry.


To use this trick, follow the instructions given below:-

Steps
1.    Right Click on an empty space on the Desktop, point to New and click on Shortcut.
2.    In the dialog box that pops up, type the following code without quotes in the Type the location of the item.
rundll32 user32.dll,LockWorkStation

     3.  Click on Next and type a name for the shortcut in the Type a name for this 

          Shortcut textbox.
     4.  Click on Finish.




    Now you will be able to lock your computer by double clicking on the created shortcut. You can also add this shortcut to the Quick Launch toolbar to lock your system with only a single click.

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