NirCmd - Free command line tool for Windows XP and Vista
Posted on May 7, 2008 at 5:24 am
Are you scared of using the Windows command prompt to accomplish tasks? If so, you’re definitely missing out on some cool stuff you can do on your computer. However, it’s understandable as the syntax can be quite technical and you really don’t want to mess something up if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Luckily, there is a free utility called NirCmd that you can use that extends the functionality of the command prompt and makes it a little bit easier to use DOS commands without having to know DOS.
NirCmd is a small command-line utility that allows you to do some useful tasks without displaying any command prompt user interface.
You can use it to do all kinds of useful stuff for you such as writing and deleting values registry keys, writing values into INI file, dialing your Internet account or connecting to a VPN network, restarting windows or shutting down the computer, creating a shortcut to a file, chaning the created/modified date of a file, changing your display settings, turning off your monitor, opening the door of your CD-ROM drive, and lots more!
The best thing about this program is that you can create a scheduled task to simple run any command you want at a set interval. So you can create a scheduled task to turn off your monitor or turn off your computer every day at midnight or to mute the volume on your computer every morning.
Download the zip file (scroll all the way down) and un-zip the folder somewhere on your computer, preferably in My Documents or some location where it will stay permanently. Now double-click on the NirCmd.exe file and you’ll get a popup that has a button called “Copy to Windows Directory“.
Now you could simply run any of the commands by going to the Windows command prompt and typing something in. For example, go to Start, then Run and then type in CMD. Now type in any command that was listed in the command list.
This is great, but you still have to use the Windows command prompt. Another nifty way to use Nircmd is to create a scheduled task, like I mentioned before. So first, go to Start, then Control Panel and then Scheduled Tasks. Then go to File, New and choose Scheduled Task. Or double-click Add Scheduled Task.
Click Next to start up the wizard. Now you’ll have to choose the program you want to run. Click Browse and then go to the directory where NirCmd was unzipped and choose nircmd.exe (not nircmdc.exe).
You’ll automatically be brought to the next screen where you have to give your task a name. So if I want this to turn off my computer, I would name it something like “Turn Off Computer” and then choose whether you want it to be Daily, Weekly, Monthly, etc.
In the next screen, you can select the time and the date to start running the command. Click Next and type in the administrator user name and password for your computer. Make sure the account is an administrator.
Finally, review your settings and check the “Open advanced properties for this task when I click Finish” box. Then click Finish.
Now in the properties, you will see the tab Task and a box called Run at the top tha is pointing to the NirCmd.exe file.
Now to run any specific task, just add the parameters after the last quotation mark. So if you wanted to open the CD ROM drive, just add a space and then “cdrom open e:” after the quotes.
That’s it! Now that command will run according to the schedule you created. You can change that last part to any of the other commands that were specified in the command list. For example,
mutesysvolume 1 - will mute the system volume
monitor off - will turn off the monitor
exitwin poweroff - turn off your computer
Just add any of these to the Run box like shown above. If you want to have multiple commands run at different times, just create more scheduled tasks in the same way! Great way to automate tasks on your computer easily! Enjoy!
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Definitely looks like a good software to have, being a software engineer I use putty and cmd almost half my day. This would definitely be a good addition for me :).
Keith,
It’s definitely for someone like you then! I’m just starting to get into the whole Putty thing too!
This is awesome. It can help us increase our efficiency