Over the course of my travels, I’ve found that having a quick reference to random Windows commands is helpful. Here are two sets of commands I use often enough to be useful, but not often enough that I’ve committed them to memory:
Managing IP Addresses from the CLI
Netsh! – This one predates PowerShell on Windows boxes, and went a long way to helping the everyday lives of Windows Admins.
Backup IP Address Config
netsh -c interface dump > c:\ip_address.txt
Restore IP Address Config
netsh -f c:\ip_address.txt
Set Interface to DHCP
netsh interface ip set address "Local Area Connection" dhcp
netsh interface ip set address "Local Area Connection" dhcp
Set Static IP Address
netsh interface ip set address name="Local Area Connection" static 192.168.0.100 255.255.255.0 192.168.0.1 1
netsh interface ip set dns "Local Area Connection" dhcp
Reset the TCP/IP Stack
netsh int ip reset all
Finding the Uptime of a Windows Box
Because you can not always plan on the presence of uptime.exe on a box, the following will get the info for you:
SystemInfo
systeminfo | more
Statistics
net statistics workstation
Don't forget that Windows has “findstr”, which is kind of like a designer imposter fragrance for the *nix “grep” utility.
Here is how to get just what you want on those two uptime commands:
SystemInfo:
systeminfo | findstr /C:”System Up Time”
Statistics:
net statistics workstation | findstr since
It may seem like a lot of typing but I can assure you that if you do this sort of thing often, it will become a habit.
Good list of netsh commands though, I don't use netsh as much as I should.
many thanks, you saved my bacon there!