Command Line in Windows (cmdreference.site) is a free, ad-supported reference for people who work with the Windows command prompt, batch files and the scripting tools that ship with Windows. Every page is plain HTML, loads without a login, and is open to anyone.
What this site is for
Most Windows users never open a command prompt, and most of the material written about it assumes you already know your way around. This site exists to close that gap. It collects, in one place:
- A command reference covering the commands that ship with Windows — what each one does, the switches that matter, and the form the syntax actually takes.
- Batch file tutorials that start from the basics and move through branching, iterating and parameter handling.
- Practical task guides: disk management with Diskpart, the registry through
reg, networking withnetstatand the TCP/IP utilities, service control withsc, process management withtasklistandtaskkill, and the recovery console. - Notes on configuring the command prompt window itself so it is pleasant to work in.
The aim is that someone who arrives from a search engine with one specific question can answer it in under a minute, and that someone who wants to learn the subject properly can read the tutorials in order.
Where the content comes from
The written material on this site originates from The Command Line in Windows, the reference work of Victor (Vic) Laurie, a retired Princeton University chemistry professor who spent decades writing about personal computing for a general audience. His original articles are the backbone of the command reference and the batch file tutorials, and a short biography of him is kept on the About the author page.
We maintain and publish that material in a modern form: the pages have been rebuilt as a static site so they load quickly, read properly on a phone, work in both light and dark themes, and remain searchable. We have not tried to pass the work off as our own, and we credit the author on every page that carries his writing.
How the reference is maintained
- Corrections come first. Where a command’s behaviour has changed across Windows versions, we note the version rather than silently overwrite the older description.
- We do not pad pages. A page that answers a narrow question stays short. We would rather publish four screens of accurate text than forty screens of filler.
- Nothing is machine-generated and left unchecked. Anything added to the reference is verified against the behaviour of the command itself before it goes live.
- The site is versioned in public. Every change is a commit, and the site is rebuilt and deployed automatically from that history.
If you find something wrong — a switch that no longer exists, an example that fails, a typo — please tell us. Corrections from readers are the main way this reference improves.
How this site is funded
Command Line in Windows is free to read and always will be. Running it costs money (a server, a domain, the time spent maintaining the pages), and that cost is covered by advertising.
We work with Google AdSense and other third-party advertising vendors. These vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to this site and to other sites on the internet. Google’s use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to this and other sites.
You can opt out of personalised advertising by visiting Google’s Ads Settings, and you can opt out of third-party vendors’ use of cookies for personalised advertising at aboutads.info.
We keep advertising clearly separated from the reference material. Ads never appear inside a command’s syntax block or a code example, we do not accept payment to alter the content of a page, and no advertiser has any say in what this site says about any product.
Your privacy
We do not ask you to register, and we do not collect your name, address or phone number in order to read the site. The full description of what is collected, what advertising cookies do, and how to turn them off is on our Privacy Policy page.
Contact us
Questions, corrections, takedown requests and business enquiries all go to the same place:
Email: support@regulad.com
We read everything and aim to reply within two business days. If you are reporting an error in the reference, including the page address and the exact command you ran makes it much faster to fix.
Last updated: September 2026.