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I need a utility built into several versions of Windows (XP to Win7 specifically) that can tell me if a particular port is in use. I've found a few different ways for each OS, but I'm looking for a single command that works across all of them.

Chris S
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dmeu
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  • by the way: i have seen this thread http://serverfault.com/questions/35218/in-windows-using-the-command-line-how-do-you-check-if-a-port-is-open, but it does not answer my queestion ;-) – dmeu May 25 '11 at 11:18
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    There is not one tool, just a bunch of well-documented commands that have been around forever. What EXACTLY are you trying to do? – KCotreau May 25 '11 at 12:00
  • I want to see if a port is in use or not. and it must work on all windows system mentioned – dmeu May 25 '11 at 15:05

3 Answers3

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Perhaps Netstat? netstat -h will give options.

Bart Silverstrim
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  • Ok, netstat is also an option thanks a lot! Somebody who knows about windows could confirm if it is present in all the windows systems? Thanks – dmeu May 26 '11 at 12:51
  • It's kind of a standard tool from the earlier days of UNIX, so I'd be surprised if it didn't go back to NT 3.x http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netstat – Bart Silverstrim May 26 '11 at 12:53
  • `netstat -ab` will dump a list of binaries and their ports. I'm sure there are gui versions of netstat, but I've no experience with any. – OldTroll May 26 '11 at 13:18
  • @dmeu, `netstat` is available on every version of Windows since at least NT4/Win95. – John Gardeniers May 26 '11 at 13:22
  • netstat was also there in 3.5 but prtqry is more specific – Jim B May 26 '11 at 13:24
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If you use netstat -n it will tell you the current in use ports. The -n tells it not to try to resolve hostnames from IPs. You could also run it with -a to have it TRY to resolve hostnames.

HostBits
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netstat -bona

This will link ports to processes. Very useful if you want to know what process is running on port X.

For easy reviewing I redirect the output to a file

netstat -bona > file.txt
Paul
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