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Take Command Powers Your Windows Command Prompts

For more than 30 years, JP Software has been helping programmers, system administrators, and advanced users save time and solve their CMD command prompt frustrations. Take Command offers a new approach to working with Windows console applications, bringing users the power of the command line and the ease of use of the GUI.

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Take Command Windows CMD Prompt Replacement

Take Command is the Ultimate Windows CMD Command Prompt Replacement

Take Command combines the best features of the GUI and Windows console (character-mode) interfaces. You can have multiple console applications open in tabbed windows, with a Windows Explorer interface available for those times when you need a visual look at your folders and files. Take Command is compatible with your existing Windows command prompt commands and CMD batch files, while adding hundreds of new commands and thousands of new features. (And Take Command tab windows display output faster than Windows command prompts, and run batch files faster than CMD!)

Take Command is composed of three elements which work closely together:

Take Command - A rich development and operations environment that allows you to easily:

      • Run multiple console and simple GUI applications simultaneously in tabbed windows, including our own Take Command Console (TCC), CMD, PowerShell and bash. Take Command will display output much faster (up to 10x) than running applications in the Windows console.
      • Cut and paste text in multiple formats (including line, block or column)
      • Drag and drop files into tab windows from Explorer, other applications, or the desktop
      • Create and edit command scripts with a full featured editor, including tab windows and syntax coloring
      • Debug batch scripts with a sophisticated batch debugger, including watch windows, single-stepping and conditional breakpoints

Take Command Console (TCC) - A Windows command processor upwardly compatible with CMD.EXE (the default command processor in Windows 10 / 11 / 2016 / 2019 / 2022) but substantially enhanced with thousands of additional features. TCC provides the ability to:

      • Edit your commands with a sophisticated command line editor, including tab completion, undo / redo, etc.
      • Interactively run commands, such as DIR, COPY, etc.
      • Use Command Dialogs to easily select options for commands like COPY, DEL, MOVE, etc.
      • Run batch script files, such as .CMD or .BAT scripts (or Python, PowerShell, REXX, or Tcl)
      • Run batch scripts as background processes based on timed schedules or operational triggers, such as changes in the system environment

Take Command Language - A mature scripting language based on and compatible with CMD commands, but massively enhanced. It includes:

      • 265+ internal commands (CMD has about 42)
      • 390+ internal functions (CMD has none)
      • 380+ internal variables (CMD has 6)
      • Hundreds of additional options for CMD commands (COPY, DEL, DIR, MOVE, START, etc.)
      • Additional underlying capabilities, such as the ability to access FTP and HTTP sites as if they were local disk drives
      • Optional 3rd-party plugins (or write your own) that extend TCC with new commands, variables, and/or functions

The image above shows how the pieces fit together. Each window can be hidden, moved, docked in a different location, or torn off and moved outside the Take Command window.

12 Reasons to Replace the CMD Command Prompt

The default Windows command processor is CMD.EXE. It is a Windows console mode application that runs the commands you enter at the command prompt and runs simple batch scripts (files with a .CMD or .BAT extension). Unfortunately, the CMD shell has always been woefully lacking in even the most basic features compared to the command processors available in other operating systems. And CMD hasn’t changed significantly since its first appearance in Windows NT 3.1 (released in 1993).

So What’s Wrong With CMD?

  1. CMD.EXE in Windows 10 has about 42 internal commands. That’s only a couple more than CMD had in Windows NT 3.1 30 years ago. Take Command has more than 265 internal commands, and offers major enhancements for CMD commands like COPY, DEL, MOVE, and RENAME. And with Take Command's command dialogs, it's easier to use than CMD!
  2. CMD has (almost) no configuration options. There are a handful of switches you can specify on the startup line, and that’s it. Take Command has hundreds of configuration options that are easily set with the OPTION dialog.
  3. There’s no way to extend CMD with new commands or variables; your only choice is writing new external apps. Take Command has a plugin SDK for writing your own plugins, and you can download dozens of third-party plugins.
  4. The CMD command prompt can set its foreground and background colors, and … nothing else. Take Command adds configurable command and variable syntax coloring, different colors for input, output, and errors, and colorized directories.
  5. Command line editing at the CMD command prompt is (extremely) simplistic. Take Command features the best command line editor of any command shell.
  6. Filename completion is crude and non-programmable. Take Command includes (optionally programmable) popup file completion, and adds command, directory, alias, and variable completion.
  7. Variables in CMD consist of the environment variables and a total of 6 internal variables. All of those internal CMD and Windows settings you’d like to query? Not from CMD. Take Command adds more than 780 internal variables and variable functions.
  8. File viewing is limited to TYPE. If you want to display a page at a time, pipe to MORE. Want to go back a page, search, scroll up and down? You can’t. Take Command includes The V File Viewer, the ultimate Windows text and binary file viewer.
  9. Aliases? Sort of. Just don’t try anything other than the most basic command alias. Take Command has command aliases, directory aliases, keystroke aliases, shared aliases, and more.
  10. 30+ years into the Internet era, and CMD commands that support the Internet consist of … nothing. No HTTPS or FTP(S) file access for internal commands. No SSL or SSH, and no SMTP. Take Command supports all of these, and more.
  11. Help is nearly non-existent. There is a paragraph or two of text output when you enter the command name followed by a /?. Want to see the command syntax while you’re constructing a command line or writing a batch file? Help on redirection, command line parsing, regular expressions, or batch file creation? Forget it. Take Command has an extensive interactive and context sensitive help system, available anytime at the press of a key.
  12. Creating, editing, and debugging batch files is a demanding task and needs an integrated solution. What is Microsoft’s solution? Edit the batch file in Notepad, run it on the CMD command line, and see what happens. Take Command has an easy to use and extremely powerful IDE for creating, editing, and debugging your batch scripts.

Take Command is our flagship product. Take Command is a complete and upwardly compatible Windows console replacement that solves all of the problems above, and provides you with thousands of additional features not available at the CMD command prompt. Learn more about Take Command.

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