How to Use CMD for Beginners (+Basic Commands)

What is CMD? CMD or Command Prompt is one of the Windows default programs that allows you to run commands that are not available in the GUI (Graphical User Interface) on Windows.

Not all of the windows users like to use CMD. Moreover, windows has provided a GUI mode which user friendly, where users can enjoy the available tools very easily without having to type a command to be able to run the required command.

Even though there are many things you can do using CMD, such as viewing device system specifications, viewing IP addresses, checking network connections and much more. However, it actually takes knowledge and experience to be able to run commands using this CMD. Because, there are many commands that must be known and their functions.

Well, for those of you who want to know how to use CMD, you can listen to the following explanation along with the basic commands you need to know.

How to Use CMD (Command Prompt)

How to use CMD is not difficult. You just do a Command Prompt search in the start menu column. Or more details, see the explanation below.

A. How to Open Command Prompt in Windows

The following will explain about three easy ways to open CMD on your laptop or PC.

Method One: For Windows 10 users, you can open CMD via search on Start menu, then type “cmd”.

how to use cmd

Second way: you can press the button Windows + R on the keyboard. Then type “cmd” in the search field and press Enter.

how to use cmd for beginners

Third way: Or you can open CMD via the Address Bar in File Explorer by typing the same words as before, namely “cmd”.

The third way to open cmd

B. 5 Basic Command Prompt Commands in Windows

1. Command to Open File Explorer

A simple command to open a file explorer via CMD can be done with the “start .” command. Sign “.” it says it stands for current folder when opening file explorer. You can replace the “.” with the desired folder or directory name. After typing that command, press Enter. Then the file explorer will open according to the command typed.

Start command

2. Command to Open Task Manager

Task manager is a program that is used to monitor activities running on the computer. You can open the task manager via CMD by typing the command “taskmgr”, then pressing Enter.

how to use cmd for windows

3. Command to Open System Configuration

The “systeminfo” command typed in CMD serves to display information about all configurations on the system.

systeminfo command

4. Command to Read Text Documents

Using CMD, you can also read text documents (.TXT) stored in your device directory. For example, in the E: directory, there is a document file with the name “coba.txt”. Now, to be able to read the file via CMD, you can use the “type (document_name)” command. After pressing Enter, then you can read the contents of the document.

how to use cmd pc

5. Command to Open On-Screen Keyboard

On-Screen Keyboard is a virtual component that allows you to input characters without using a physical keyboard. To open it via CMD can type the command “osk”, then press Enter.

how to use cmd

That’s an explanation of how to use CMD in Windows along with some basic commands that you can do to execute the desired command. Hopefully the article above is useful and good luck.