Windows XP was the last version of Windows to include the net send command. The msg command replaces this command in Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, and Windows Vista.
Net Send Command Availability
The net send command is available from within the Command Prompt in Windows XP, as well as in older versions of Windows and in some Windows Server operating systems. The availability of certain net send command switches and other net send command syntax may differ from operating system to operating system.
Net Send Command Syntax
net send {name | * | /domain[:domainname] | /users} message [/help] [/?]
Send to All Workgroup Users
In this example, net send is used to send the Please proceed to CR103 immediately for a mandatory meeting message to all the members * of the current workgroup or domain.
Send to All Server Users
Here, the command is used to send all the members of the current server /users the message Will the person with the A7/3 client file open please save your work and close it? Thank you!. The message is in quotes because a slash was used.
Send to Specific User
While it’s a completely unprofessional way to terminate someone’s employment, in this net send example, it’s used to send Mike Smith, with the username smithm, a message he probably didn’t want to hear: You’re Fired!.
Net Send Related Commands
The net send command is a subset of the net command and so is similar to its sister commands like net use, net time, net user, net view, etc.
More Help With the Net Send Command
If this command isn’t working, you might see the following error in Command Prompt: There are two ways to fix this, but only one is a permanent solution… You can move the current working directory to be System32, the path where the cmd.exe file is located, so that Command Prompt knows how to run the net send command. Do this with the cd command (it stands for change directory): From there, you can run the command without seeing that error. However, this is only a temporary solution that you’ll have to do all the time for every command. The real problem is that the current environment variable hasn’t been set up correctly. Here’s how to restore the proper environment variable necessary for Command Prompt to understand your commands in Windows XP: If net send commands appear to work in Command Prompt with a “successful” message, but the pop-up doesn’t show up on the computers the message is sent to, check that the receiving computers have the Messenger service enabled. or… Is one already in there? If so, it’s most likely the second one that reads “%SystemRoot%” at the beginning. If so, change that part of the path to be “C:\Windows\system32” (so long as your Windows installation is on the C: drive, which is most likely true). For example, you’d change %SystemRoot%\system32 to C:\Windows\system32. If it helps, copy all the text into Notepad and do the editing there. When you’re done, just paste the edited variable value back into that text box to overwrite the existing text. You can enable the Messenger service in Windows XP through Services: go to Start > Run, enter services.msc, double-click Messenger, change Startup type to Automatic, and then go to Apply > Start.
