Ever wanted to create symbolic link on Windows? Here is how you can do that in cmd for shared folder:

mklink /d  C:\Folder\SymLinkName \\Server\Share\Directory

Same can of course be applied to physical folders or portable/USB drives.

Ever needed to change hostname of Windows machine on remote device from cmd? Here’s a quick way to it using wmic:

wmic computersystem where name="%COMPUTERNAME%" call rename name="NEW-NAME"

The wmic tool should be available on Win XP and newer.

To add a specific domain user to local administrators group, so he can install software on this particular machine, here’s a quick cmd command:

net localgroup administrators your-domain\user /add

 

To remove the user from admin group, simply run it again with /delete switch at the end:

net localgroup administrators your-domain\user /delete

Activating Windows from cmd usually takes two steps using slmgr.vbs tool:

Local Machine

Step 1: Change product key to valid one

slmgr /ipk XXX-YOUR-VALID-WIN-CODE-XXX

Step 2: Run online activation

slmgr /ato

If you prefer single-line command:

slmgr /ipk XXX-YOUR-VALID-WIN-CODE-XXX&&slmgr /ato

Process does take some time, so be patient.

Remote Machine

Same can be achieved on a remote machine, but success may vary depending on the permission/network settings:

slmgr 192.168.100.100 admin-user password /ipk XXX-YOUR-VALID-WIN-CODE-XXX
slmgr /ato

Your (usually volume licensed) PC should now be activated.