If you’re a Windows user, you know how to run commands in the Windows Explorer address bar. But what if you want to run a command in the address bar of a different program? For example, if you’re working with a Linux computer, you might want to run the ls command in the address bar of your Linux terminal. But on Windows, there’s no way to do that. You have to use the Run button on the top left corner of the Windows Explorer window. When you click on that button, Windows will ask you for your name and password. Then it will let you run the command that you’ve chosen. If you don’t have your name and password set up yet, or if your computer is not currently connected to the internet, then Windows will ask for them when it starts up. Once it has done that, it will let you run the ls command in the address bar of your windows explorer window.
Here’s a fun little tip for you: did you know that you can run commands from the address bar in Windows Explorer? It’s true — any app that you could run on the command line can be run from the address bar, including opening a new command prompt.
For instance, if you were to type cmd into the address bar, you would end up opening a command prompt with the current path already set to whatever the current folder is. Useful.
You can also run other commands, like opening a file in the current folder with Notepad. Imagine that you have a file on your desktop called test.txt and you want to open it. From the Desktop folder in Explorer, type notepad test.txt into the address bar, and hit the enter key.
Just like that, Notepad will open the file. Easy!
You could also use other commands directly from the address bar — for instance, if you wanted to see a directory listing of the current directory in the command prompt, you could use cmd /k dir in the address bar. Obviously that would be silly, but you can do it.
