8 CMD Commands to Manage Wireless Networks on Windows

To manage wireless network connections on your Windows 10 computer, you can use the Settings app or Control Panel. However, there are many advanced settings that you cannot find in the Settings app or Control Panel. In this case, you can use Command Prompt .

8 CMD Commands to Manage Wireless Networks in Windows

• Ping Command
• Tracert command
• Pathping Command
• Ipconfig command
• Getmac command
• Nslookup command
• Netstat command
• Netsh Command

Ping Command

Ping is one of the most basic yet useful network commands to use in the Command Prompt application. It tells you whether your computer can reach some destination IP address or domain name, and if so, how long it takes for data to travel there and back.

Usage and sample output:

This command works by sending multiple packets of data and seeing how many of them come back. If some of them don't come back, it will notify you. Packet loss leads to poor performance in games and streaming, and this is a handy way to test.

By default, ping sends 4 packets, each waiting 4 seconds before timing out. You can increase the number of packets as follows:

ping www.google.com -n 10

And increase the timeout as follows (value in milliseconds):

ping www.google.com -w 6000

Tracert command

Tracert stands for Trace Route. Like ping, it sends data packets as a way to troubleshoot any network issues that may be encountered, but it traces the path of the packet as it travels from one host to another.

How to use the template:

Pathping Command

Pathping is similar to tracert except it provides more information (which means it takes longer to execute). After sending packets from your location to a given destination, it analyzes the route taken and calculates the data loss on a per-transmission basis from one host to another.

Usage and sample output:

Ipconfig command

Ipconfig is the most used network management command on Windows. Not only is it useful for the information it provides, but you can also combine it with a few switches to perform certain tasks.

Usage and sample output:

The default output shows all network adapters on the system. The default gateway and IPv4 address details in the Wireless LAN Adapter and Ethernet Adapter sections are the most important to know.

Use this switch to clear DNS cache:

ipconfig /flushdns

Clearing the DNS cache can help when your Internet connection is working, but certain websites or servers are inaccessible for various reasons (for example, a website times out and won't load). If clearing the DNS cache doesn't solve your connection issues, try these quick troubleshooting tips to fix your Internet connection .

Getmac command

Every device that complies with the IEEE 802 standard has a unique MAC address. MAC addresses are assigned by the manufacturer and stored in the device's hardware. Some people use MAC addresses to limit which devices can connect to a network.

Usage and sample output:

You may see more than one MAC address depending on how many network adapters are on your system. For example, WiFi and Ethernet connections will have separate MAC addresses.

• How do IP addresses and MAC addresses work together?

Nslookup command

Nslookup stands for Name Server Lookup. It has a lot of power, but most users don't need it. For regular people, the main use of nslookup is to find the IP address behind a given domain name.

Usage and sample output:

Note that certain domains are not tied to dedicated IP addresses, meaning you may get a different IP address each time you run the command. This is normal for larger sites as they spread out the workload across multiple machines.

If you want to convert an IP address into a domain name, just type it into your browser and see where it leads. However, not all IP addresses lead to domain names, and many IP addresses are not accessible on the web.

Netstat command

Netstat is a network statistics, diagnostics, and analysis tool. It is powerful and complex, but simple enough if you ignore the unnecessary advanced aspects.

Usage and sample output:

By default, the command displays all active connections on the system, whether they are on a LAN or the Internet. An active connection does not mean that data is being transferred - it simply means that a port is open and ready to accept connections.

Netstat is mainly useful for casual users because of its ability to display port information (this can come in handy when you need to forward ports).

But the command also has many switches that change the type of information displayed, such as the -r switch which displays the routing table instead.

Netsh Command

"Netsh" stands for Network Shell. It is a cmd command for networking that allows you to view and configure pretty much every network adapter on your system in more detail and detail than any command before.

Running the Netsh command itself will switch the Command Prompt to Network Shell mode. There are a few different “contexts” in this shell, including one for routing-related commands, one for DHCP-related commands, and one for diagnostic commands, among others. But you can also use it to run individual commands.

To see all Network Shell contexts:

And to see all commands in one context:

You can drill down one more layer to find all the sub-commands within those commands:

So, for example, you can run this netsh wlan command to see all the wireless network drivers on your system and their properties:

netsh wlan show drivers

Network Shell is complex enough that it deserves its own article. Just know that if you want to get really technical about your network configuration, you’ll probably want to use this command line utility and explore the netsh commands for WiFi.

If Network Shell makes you want to explore more cmd network commands for your system, try these basic cmd commands that every user should know .

Good luck!

You can refer to some articles below:

• Opening and viewing photos on Windows 10 is too slow? Here's how to fix it!
• How to open the virtual keyboard in Windows 10
• Ways to shut down your computer on Windows 10