The power of the command line - Using Microsoft’s netsh

Note: I just tested, and this still works in windows 11 

I always encourage technical staff to get comfortable at the command line. This is for a lot of reasons: 

• More efficient than a gui  
• Learn about the device operation  
• Many times you can get information not available in the gui  
• A lot faster when working remotely over slow links  
• You can script common tasks 

A great example is when teaching Wireshark, I spend time on tshark/dumpcap at the command line.

In this article I will spend some time on Microsoft’s netsh that I use regularly to modify my IPv4 settings. The reason is quite simple, if I have to make the same change multiple times, it is far more efficient to do it at the command line or in a batch file rather than navigate through 4 or 5 menus/screens.

Referencing the examples provided in the video, you can easily create a batch file that will accept input instead of statically assigning values. Here is a summary of the commands in the video:
Display usage options and syntax netsh /? List of adapters netsh interface ipv4 show interfaces netsh interface ipv4 show config netsh interface ipv4 show address Show IPV4 global info netsh interface ipv4 show global To disable my Ethernet adapter labeled Killer netsh int set int name=“Killer" admin=disabled To enable my Ethernet adapter labeled Killer netsh int set int name=“Killer" admin=enabled Display TCP or UDP connections netsh interface ipv4 show tcpconnections netsh interface ipv4 show udpconnections Set a static IP Address (10.44.10.22), Subnet Mask (255.255.255.0) and Gateway (10.44.10.1) on a specific interface (Killer) permanently (persistent) Use “” around your interface name if it has spaces in it. netsh interface ipv4 set address name=Killer static 10.44.10.22 255.255.255.0 10.44.10.1 store=persistent Set DNS Servers without a DNS check, the set dnsservers command supports only one server as argument netsh interface ipv4 set dnsservers name=Killer source=static “8.8.8.8" primary Set your adapter IPV4 and DSN back to DHCP netsh interface ipv4 set address name=Killer source=dhcp netsh interface ipv4 set dnsservers name=Killer source=dhcp Enjoy

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