Justin Cooney

Web Development Tips and Examples

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I am a Senior Applications Programmer / Analyst with years of experience developing enterprise solutions using the Microsoft technology stack including C#, VB.NET, ASP.NET, AJAX, IIS and SQL Server. I specialize in Web application development with a focus on building secure systems, integrating applications, and designing robust database structures.

CMD Program Startup Commands

This is my list of handy commands you can use to start up various tools and applications from the DOS Command prompt in Windows.

The Windows “cmd” DOS window is good for getting things done quickly from a single spot instead of having to hunt them down wherever Microsoft has decided to hide them in their latest update.

An added extra is that this will also let you look into details that can be hidden from you in the standard Windows UI. Also, these commands will come in useful if you ever want to automate a task.

I personally find the Windows command prompt useful if I get system instability or a start menu crash (which has been happening just recently on both my Windows 10 work computer and my Windows 11 home computers)

  1. Useful MS Office Tools
    1. MS Outlook
    2. MS Word
    3. MS Excel
    4. Remote Desktop Connection
    5. MS Teams
  2. Common Web Browsers
    1. Chrome Web Browser
    2. MS Edge Web Browser
    3. FireFox Web Browser
  3. Windows Native Utilities
    1. Windows Snipping Tool
    2. To start Windows Calculator:
    3. To start Windows Calendar – shortcut is:
    4. Windows Paint
    5. To open Windows Settings:
    6. To open Windows Control Panel:
    7. To open the Windows Add/Remove Programs Wizard:
    8. To open the Windows Event Viewer:
  4. Windows Native Tools
    1. ODBC Data Source Editor
      1. 32-bit ODBC data source editor:
      2. 64-bit ODBC data source editor:
    2. To edit your registry (careful with this one, and probably best to back up your old registry before making any changes)
    3. To get detailed system specifications
    4. To get detailed information about your network connection
    5. To update your Windows power settings

A shortcut to bring up the command prompt is to enter “Windows-R” to open the “Run” dialog, and type “cmd”. Alternately you can write “cmd” into the address search on the Windows task bar or you can type “cmd” into the cortana search.

You’ll see that the Windows “cmd” DOS window is also useful for launching programs quickly. Below I’m listing the commands you can use to launch common Windows programs from anywhere in the prompt. Alternately you can also create a ‘Batch’ file to execute the commands you need. To do this quickly and easily just create a text file with the commands and name the text file extension to be .bat. Then you can copy it to someplace convenient such as the Windows desktop and click it from there to run it. Or if you are feeling adventurous, open a “cmd” prompt and run the batch file from there.

Also, just to note: these are Windows CMD commands, to be used from the DOS CMD prompt or in a .bat Batch file

Useful MS Office Tools

MS Outlook

To open your Outlook client in the default email view:

start outlook

To open your Outlook client in the Outlook calendar view:

start outlook /select outlook:calendar

MS Word

To open a new blank Word document:

start winword

MS Excel

To open a new blank Excel document:

start excel

To open an existing excel file that is called ‘test.xlsx’. Note that if you are not in the folder with the file you’ll have to specify the full file path.

start excel "test.xlsx"

Remote Desktop Connection

To start a new remote desktop connection:

mstsc

Of course you can specify a saved remote desktop file as well as other parameters to streamline your connection, type the help option for details:

mstsc /?

MS Teams

Teams can be a bit tricky. You can open it by running teams.exe using the command below. If it is not already open then it will work without complaining, but if it is still running in memory even if it is not visible to you, then you’ll see an error in your command prompt.

Here is the command to start teams:

start "" "%userprofile%\appdata\local\microsoft\teams\current\teams.exe"

Here is the error message that appears for me if Teams is already running. I can ignore it and continue to work with Teams, but the cmd prompt is locked. If I close out of Teams and click the enter key then the command prompt appears again.

Error while parsing hooks JSON. Error: "ENOENT: no such file or directory, open "--path--"

Common Web Browsers

Chrome Web Browser

To start Chrome:

start chrome

To start Chrome in incognito mode:

start chrome /incognito

To start Chrome preloading a Web site:

start chrome "https://jwcooney.com"

MS Edge Web Browser

To start Edge:

start msedge

To start Edge in inprivate mode:

start msedge -inprivate

To start Edge with a Web site:

start msedge "https://jwcooney.com"

To start Edge with a Web site in inprivate mode just add the inprivate parameter:

start msedge "https://jwcooney.com" -inprivate

FireFox Web Browser

To start the FireFox Web Browser

start firefox

To start FireFox in private mode:

start firefox -private

To start FireFox with a Web site:

start firefox "https://jwcooney.com"

Windows Native Utilities

Windows Snipping Tool

To open the Windows Snipping Tool (to be deprecated after Windows 11)

snippingtool.exe

To start Windows Calculator:

calc

To start Windows Calendar – shortcut is:

Win key + alt + d

Windows Paint

To start Windows Paint:

mspaint

To open Windows Settings:

start ms-settings:

To open Windows Control Panel:

control

To open the Windows Add/Remove Programs Wizard:

appwiz.cpl

To open the Windows Event Viewer:

eventvwr

Windows Native Tools

ODBC Data Source Editor

On Windows 10 if you enter odbcad32 into the command prompt you will see the 64-bit ODBC editor pop up by default. I haven’t tested yet, but I believe that Windows 11 works the same way.

You may have to set up either 32 or 64 bit ODBC connections depending on your data source. Most modern ODBC data sources are 64-bit, but 32-bit is still in use. It’s handy to be able to open up either depending on what you need.

You can control which version of the ODBC data source editor that pops up by specifying the exact path to odbcad32.exe

32-bit ODBC data source editor:

c:\Windows\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe

64-bit ODBC data source editor:

c:\Windows\System32\odbcad32.exe

To edit your registry (careful with this one, and probably best to back up your old registry before making any changes)

regedit

To get detailed system specifications

sysinfo

To get detailed information about your network connection

ipconfig /all

To update your Windows power settings

The command powercfg is super useful if you want to manage your computer’s power settings. There’s also a Windows popup you can use, but almost inevitably I find the command prompt simpler to get to and use.

For example, my laptop fan is acting up and makes a crazy whirring sound every time I even cough or it moves. Then to fix it I need to shut down the computer completely and after booting it works again for a while. To get the fan to be used as little as possible I want to change my laptop power setting from ‘High Performance’ to a more fan-friendly ‘Power Saver’. To do this quickly and easily, powercfg to the rescue!

Steps:

  1. Open cmd prompt
  2. To get a list of your power settings type powercfg /list
    • Note that you can see the help options just type: powercfg /?
  3. To switch a power mode enter powercfg /s and then on the lines above (in the results of your powercfg /list query) highlight the power scheme GUID that you want to change to and then paste the GUID into your commend text … so in the end your command should look like this:
powercfg /s 57483-29oite-ruw34535
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