21 Command Prompt Tricks and Hacks
The Windows Command Prompt tool, and many of its commands, might seem boring or even relatively useless at first glance, but as anyone who has ever used the Command Prompt very often can tell you, there's much to love!
Below are several Command Prompt tricks and other Command Prompt hacks that I guarantee will get you excited about many of the mundane sounding Command Prompt command like telnet, tree, or robocopy... okay, robocopy sounds pretty cool.
Some of these Command Prompt tricks and hacks are special features or uses of the Command Prompt itself, while others are just neat or relatively unknown things you can do with certain commands. Enjoy!
1. Use Ctrl-C to Abort a Command
Just about any command can be stopped in its tracks with the abort command: Ctrl-C.
If you haven't actually executed a command, you can just backspace and erase what you've typed, but if you've already executed it then you can do a Ctrl-C to stop it.
Warning: Ctrl-C isn't a magic wand and it can't undo things that aren't undoable, like a partially complete format command. However, for things like the dir command that seem to go on forever or questions you're asked at the prompt that you don't know the answer to, the abort command is an excellent Command Prompt trick to know.
