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Is there any way I can enable Ctrl+D to exit the command prompt, like we do in Unix?

I know that I can set an alias by using doskey, but as we use Ctrl+D or other in Unix, I also want to use this in the Windows command prompt.

I am using Windows 7.

Bill the Lizard
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Peeyush
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4 Answers4

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Unlike Unix, the line editing capabilities are part of the Windows console windows, not the shell. Because of this, the cmd.exe shell can simply read the input line-by-line and does not perform any special interpretation of your key presses – even CtrlD, Enter will be treated as any other command. You can even make a doskey alias for it:

doskey CtrlD=exit

Windows does have an "EOF" control character, CtrlZ, which works similarly to Ctrl-D in Unix; however, it won't work in this case since cmd.exe simply keeps reading even if hits EOF.

u1686_grawity
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  • really ? "doskey Ctrl D=exit" will work ? – Peeyush Apr 02 '12 at 07:31
  • You can do it using doskey, but entering Ctrl+D isn't easy. The full command is doskey ?=exit where you have to replace ? with the character of control code 4. You will need an editor that lets you enter special characters. For example in Vim, you would type (in insert mode) Ctrl+V, 4, Enter. – Florian Brucker Jul 26 '13 at 10:03
  • @FlorianBrucker: Unless you just enter it in the command line. – u1686_grawity Jul 26 '13 at 16:53
  • @grawity: Didn't think about that :) I always put this kind of stuff in some kind of startup script (see this thread for a Windows equivalent of .bashrc). Thanks for pointing out the direct way, though! – Florian Brucker Jul 28 '13 at 17:25
  • Entering Ctrl+D is pretty straightforward, actually, if you have a keyboard with a numpad: Hold Alt, press 004 on the keypad, release Alt. You can enter any ASCII character this way; it'll work with some Unicode (use the decimal value for the desired character), but I think many symbols are localization dependent. – hBy2Py Jan 13 '15 at 19:02
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How about you use 'exit'? It works on Windows and Unix/Linux.

uSlackr
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  • it takes four letters to type 'exit', while ctrl+d is considered as shortcuts. That's why we call them shortcuts so that we dont need to type the whole command. – Peeyush Mar 29 '12 at 16:38
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Since cmd.exe is one of the main and basic applications for windows OS, it is highly unlikely for you to be able to tamper with it, since it is probably

  • Hard coded in application
  • Restricted due to possible security issues (imagine if viruses could tamper with it)

You can always just use alternative tools for these options, or make one of your own. There should be some kind of application that would global change that by pressing ctrl + D you mean ctrl + C, thou it is probably not what you are looking for.

TheBW
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there are two shortcuts which will work out of the box: alt+f4 or alt+space, C both work with ALL windows.

horatio
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