If you need to copy output from a command and paste it into a Windows program, such as Notepad, while working at the command prompt, chances are you’ll try to use the Mark and Copy commands on the command prompt’s Edit menu. A better way to get information from a command prompt and onto the Clipboard is the Clip.exe command line tool.

Clip.exe comes with Windows Server 2003, but it also works in Windows XP Professional. Simply copy Clip.exe from the Windows\System32 directory on a Windows Server 2003 system, and then paste it into the Windows\System32 directory on a Windows XP system. (If you don’t have access to Windows Server 2003, you can download a copy of Clip.exe from Daniel Petri’s IT Knowledgebase site.)

Once you have a copy of Clip.exe on your Windows XP system, using it is as easy as appending the pipe and the clip command (| clip) to the end of your command line. For example, you can use this command to copy the directory listing to the clipboard (Dir | clip), or you can use it to collect, copy, and paste the results of the Ipconfig command (Ipconfig /all | clip).

Note: This tip applies only to Windows XP Professional.