Terminal tricks cheat sheet

1. Battery health

   powercfg /batteryreport

   Saves an HTML report. Compare design capacity with full charge capacity.

2. What woke the PC

   powercfg /lastwake

   Names the device or timer that woke it from sleep.

3. Apps using the internet

   netstat -nb

   Open the terminal as administrator. App names show in [brackets].

4. Saved Wi-Fi password

   netsh wlan show profile name="NAME" key=clear

   Read "Key Content". Only for networks this PC has joined.

5. Devices on your Wi-Fi

   arp -a

   Lists addresses on your network. Ping the range first to see more.

6. Wi-Fi signal and channel

   netsh wlan show interfaces

   Shows signal strength, channel and speed of the current connection.

7. Router address

   ipconfig | findstr Gateway

   Then ping -n 20 that address to test your Wi-Fi.

8. What websites see of you

   curl.exe ipinfo.io

   Your public IP and rough location. Check that your VPN works.

9. Where a short link goes

   curl.exe -sI https://bit.ly/YOUR-LINK

   Read the Location line. The link is not opened.

10. Shutdown timer

    shutdown /s /t 3600

    Shuts down in 1 hour. Cancel with shutdown /a.

11. Pictures out of a Word file

    tar -xf report.docx word/media

    A .docx is a zip file. The pictures land in word\media.

12. Move apps to a new PC

    winget export -o apps.json

    On the new PC: winget import -i apps.json --ignore-unavailable

13. Firewall check

    Get-NetFirewallProfile | select Name, Enabled

    All three profiles should say True.

14. Who signed a program

    Get-AuthenticodeSignature .\setup.exe | select Status, @{n='Signer';e={$_.SignerCertificate.Subject}}

    Valid is not the same as safe. Read the signer name.

15. Apps that are not responding

    Get-Process | ? { -not $_.Responding } | select Name, Id

    Only lists them. Nothing is closed.

16. Cheat sheet for any command

    curl.exe cheat.sh/tldr:robocopy

    Swap robocopy for any command name.

17. Dictionary in the terminal

    curl.exe dict://dict.org/d:serendipity

    Swap the word. Use m: instead of d: to check a spelling.

18. Clipboard history

    Win+V

    Paste anything you copied earlier. Turn it on the first time.

19. Restart a frozen display driver

    Win+Ctrl+Shift+B

    The screen flickers and your apps stay open.

20. Search one site on Google

    site:reddit.com best budget laptop

    Paste into Google, not the terminal. Add before:2024 for older posts.

Full steps and what each output means: usepromptup.com/terminalOutputs differ on every PC. Mac and Linux commands are in the posts.