Whois command windows

Updated on Nov 20, 2017 3 min read Performing a WHOIS lookup is a trivial task when it comes to finding information about a domain name/website. However, unfortunately, Windows 10 (even previous version of Windows) doesn’t have a native WHOIS command built-in with the command prompt. In this article, we will show you how you can get the ‘whois’ command to work on Windows command prompt.If you own a Mac or Linux machine, then you may already be familiar with the ‘whois’ command. It allows you to perform lookup of owner information of a website by querying databases that store the registered users of a domain or IP address. When you try to run the same command on a Windows machine, you will face the following error:> whois techbuzzonline.com'whois' is not recognized as an internal or external command,operable program or batch file.In order to fix this issue of ‘whois’ not recognized, we need to manually install a Whois program. Find instructions below, these instructions would work on any version of Windows including Windows 10:How to Run WHOIS Command on Windows?Download Whois Program from Microsoft’s site.Extract the content of the downloaded zip file to a location such as c:\toolsYou will find whois.exe and whois64.exe under your extracted location. In our case it is c:\tools\whois.exe and c:\tools\whois64.exeOpen command prompt. (Press Win+R keys and type ‘cmd’ then hit enter)Navigate to the directory when you extracted the whois.exe. In our case we will type> cd c:\toolsRun ‘whois’ command now and it should work. Example shown below:c:\tools> whois techbuzzonline.comWhois v1.14 - Domain information lookupCopyright (C) 2005-2016 Mark RussinovichSysinternals - www.sysinternals.comConnecting to COM.whois-servers.net...Domain ID: 1663819488_DOMAIN_COM-VRSN Registrar WHOIS Server: whois.godaddy.com Registrar URL: Updated Date: 2017-10-26T16:55:43Z Creation Date: 2011-06-26T05:36:06Z Registry Expiry Date: 2022-06-26T05:36:06Z Registrar: GoDaddy.com, LLC Registrar IANA ID: 146 Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected] Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: 480-624-2505 Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited Domain Status: clientRenewProhibited Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited Domain Status: clientUpdateProhibited Name Server: JIM.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM Name Server: MARY.NS.CLOUDFLARE.COM DNSSEC: unsigned URL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: Last update of whois database: 2017-11-20T07:52:52Z Using the method shown above, you will now be able to run ‘whois’ command from the directory where you stored the program. However, if you want to run the ‘whois’ command from anywhere then you can add the directory (in our case c:\tools) to the system PATH environment variable. Find out how you can do this below:Add WHOIS Command to Windows PATHOpen System in Control PanelGo to Advanced System SettingsClick on Environment VariablesDefine a new System Variable with PATH=C:\toolsClose and reopen your command prompt for allowing the changes to take placeNow, you will be able to run the WHOIS command from any path inside command prompt.There are many online websites that you can use to query the WHOIS information as well as perform other analysis of websites, however having the ‘whois’ command working in your Windows command prompt is more convenient, just like checking the internet speed from command line.We hope you found our tutorial useful and got the WHOIS command working on

Whois may refer to any of the following: 1. WHOIS is an Internet service and utility that shows additional information about a domain, the registrar of the domain, and the IP address. When trying to come up with a domain name for a new website, performing a WHOIS lets you determine if that name is registered or available. How is WHOIS pronounced? What information is contained in a WHOIS? How to perform a domain WHOIS search. How do I know if a domain is available? Example of WHOIS output. Related information. How is WHOIS pronounced? The WHOIS command and service is pronounced as two separate words "who is" and is not an acronym, even though it is typed in all uppercase. What information is contained in a WHOIS? When a domain is registered though a domain name registrar, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) requires that the registration information be made publicly available. The WHOIS record must include the registrars name, the creation date, updated date, and expiration date. Other information can include the name servers and the registrant, admin, and technical contact information. TipThe personal contact information can be made private as a free or paid service, depending on the registrar. How to perform a domain WHOIS search When a WHOIS search is performed, the service queries several domain registrars since there is no central database to display the final results. A WHOIS can be done through the command line or an online service. Below is a brief overview of how to use each of the different WHOIS options. NoteIf a domain is private, you cannot see any personal contact information on any WHOIS. All users through online service Several online WHOIS services allow anyone to look up any online domain on any device with Internet access. Below are a few examples of these online services. Some of these services may show additional information if the domain is being hosted through the service providing the WHOIS. Cloudflare Domain Lookup. GoDaddy WHOIS. The Network Solutions WHOIS lookup website. Microsoft Windows users With Microsoft Windows and Windows Sysinternals installed, you can run the whois command from the Windows command line (MS-DOS). Linux and macOS users The macOS, Linux, and Unix Terminal come with a pre-installed whois command. See the whois command page for further information on using the command. How do I know if a domain is available? When performing a whois lookup on a domain name, if the domain is available a message like "No whois information found" is shown. If there is no whois information, that domain is available for purchase. Example of WHOIS output The following is an example of what you may see when doing

A WHOIS in the Microsoft Windows command line using the whois Sysinternals command. In our example, we are doing a WHOIS on the "microsoft.com" domain. Whois v1.12 - Domain information lookup utilitySysinternals - www.sysinternals.comCopyright (C) 2005-2014 Mark RussinovichConnecting to COM.whois-servers.net...Domain ID: 2724960_DOMAIN_COM-VRSNRegistrar WHOIS Server: whois.markmonitor.comRegistrar URL: Date: 2014-10-09T16:28:25ZCreation Date: 1991-05-02T04:00:00ZRegistry Expiry Date: 2021-05-03T04:00:00ZRegistrar: MarkMonitor Inc.Registrar IANA ID: 292Registrar Abuse Contact Email: [email protected]Registrar Abuse Contact Phone: +1.2083895740Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited Status: clientTransferProhibited Status: clientUpdateProhibited Status: serverDeleteProhibited Status: serverTransferProhibited Status: serverUpdateProhibited Server: NS1.MSFT.NETName Server: NS2.MSFT.NETName Server: NS3.MSFT.NETName Server: NS4.MSFT.NETDNSSEC: unsignedURL of the ICANN Whois Inaccuracy Complaint Form: Last update of whois database: 2020-05-05T17:57:00Z 2. A command used on some chat networks, such as IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Whois lets users find out additional information about other users, such as their hostname, IP address, channels, and how long they've been online. For example, if the username was mrhope, you could type the command below to display information about that person. /whois mrhope Internet terms, IP address, Lookup, Network terms