Is it possible to download using the Windows command line?

Question

Without using any non-standard (Windows included) utilities, is it possible to download using the Windows command line?

The preferred version is Windows XP, but it's also interesting to know for newer versions.

To further clarify my question:

• It has to be using HTTP
• The file needs to be saved
• Standard clean Windows install, no extra tools

So basically, since everybody is screaming Wget, I want simple Wget functionality, without using Wget.

Solution 1

You can write a VBScript and run it from the command line

Create a file downloadfile.vbs and insert the following lines of code:

' Set your settings
    strFileURL = "http://www.it1.net/images/it1_logo2.jpg"
    strHDLocation = "c:\logo.jpg"

' Fetch the file
    Set objXMLHTTP = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP")

    objXMLHTTP.open "GET", strFileURL, false
    objXMLHTTP.send()

If objXMLHTTP.Status = 200 Then
Set objADOStream = CreateObject("ADODB.Stream")
objADOStream.Open
objADOStream.Type = 1 'adTypeBinary

objADOStream.Write objXMLHTTP.ResponseBody
objADOStream.Position = 0    'Set the stream position to the start

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
If objFSO.Fileexists(strHDLocation) Then objFSO.DeleteFile strHDLocation
Set objFSO = Nothing

objADOStream.SaveToFile strHDLocation
objADOStream.Close
Set objADOStream = Nothing
End if

Set objXMLHTTP = Nothing

Run it from the command line as follows:

cscript.exe downloadfile.vbs 

Solution 2

Starting with Windows 7, I believe there's one single method that hasn't been mentioned yet that's easy:

Syntax:

bitsadmin  /transfer job_name       /download  /priority priority   URL  local\path\file

Example:

bitsadmin  /transfer mydownloadjob  /download  /priority normal  ^
                  http://example.com/filename.zip  C:\Users\username\Downloads\filename.zip

^{(Broken into two separate lines with ^ for readability (to avoid scrolling).)}

Warning: As pointed out in the comments, the bitsadmin help message starts by saying:

BITSAdmin is deprecated and is not guaranteed to be available in future versions of Windows.
Administrative tools for the BITS service are now provided by BITS PowerShell cmdlets.

... but another comment reported that it works on Windows 8.

Solution 3

Windows 7 includes PowerShell and there's pretty much nothing you can't do with PowerShell.

Native alternative to wget in Windows PowerShell?

Solution 4

PowerShell (included with Windows 8 and included with .NET for earlier releases) has this capability. The powershell command allows running arbitrary PowerShell commands from the command line or a .bat file. Thus, the following line is what's wanted:

powershell -command "& { (New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadFile('http://example.com/', 'c:\somefile') }"

Solution 5

I found a way of doing it, but really, just install Wget.

You can use Internet Explorer from a command line (iexplore.exe) and then enter a URL as an argument. So, run:

iexplore.exe http://blah.com/filename.zip

Whatever the file is, you'll need to specify it doesn't need confirmation ahead of time. Lo and behold, it will automatically perform the download. So yes, it is technically possible, but good lord do it in a different way.

View more solutions

Comments

[Arjan]

More ideas in "If the only browser in Windows is dead, how to connect to the Internet?" at superuser.com/questions/50427/…

[Arjan]

And which out of the dozen Windows XP versions would that be?

[Robert Massa]

Let's say it can be any windows XP SP2 version and everything released later.

[Robert Massa]

@arjan Interesting question, but there's still no definitive answer.

[Arjan]

I should have asked for "edition". Like Starter, Home, Professional, Media Center, Tablet, maybe even Embedded (good change for tools there I guess!)... Or the European versions without Windows Media Player. :-)

[Anderson Green]

More answers to this question can be found here: stackoverflow.com/questions/4619088/…

[DaveParillo]

I'm pretty sure 'cygwin' counts as a non-standard utility ;-)

[DaveParillo]

+1 good answer. ftp is pretty universal, as long as the server you're trying to download from supports it.

[Robert Massa]

Telnet is an interesting option, is there a way to pipe the output to a file without corrupting it? And can we pipe HTTP GET command into telnet to make the request?

[Robert Massa]

I understand it's possible using wget, but my question states without the use non-standard windows utils.

[Satanicpuppy]

Install telnet? Telnet is like ftp; it comes with windows. Don't know about redirecting the output though.

[Robert Massa]

I know wget is a much better way, it's just a hypothetical question ;) Your answer comes pretty close, but still requires user intervention(clicking "Save", or configuring not to display this dialog)

[DHayes]

Like I said, you have to deselect the option to prompt to save for that file type. For example, download a zip file, disable that prompt, and then in the future any zip files accessed from the command line will automatically save.

[Arjan]

For XP (as in the question) telnet is installed by default, but I heard that on Vista that's no longer the case? But no, it does not allow for file downloads, unless all is returned in a single HTTP response, and one can strip the headers and decode the stuff on the command line as well. Quite unlikely one can control that.

[Arjan]

I wonder if this relies on Internet Explorer, but I guess this would be a fine answer for "If the only browser in Windows is dead, how to connect to the Internet?" at superuser.com/questions/50427/… :-)

[innaM]

Why install cygwin just to use wget? There is a native win32 binary available.

[EvilChookie]

@DaveParillo: My answer was posted before the requirements of clean install. @Robert: I'm not sure. I've never used telnet in this fashion. I said 'I imagine you could'. @SatanicPuppy: As Arjan pointed out, it's not in Vista by default. @Manni: I did not know there was a win32 binary available.

[sinni800]

Strangely this version is not always compatible. On my Windows 7 computer it wasn't because libraries were missing. You'd want to use wget without any extra libraries most of the time. users.ugent.be/~bpuype/wget

[Reed Hedges]

This looks like the kind of tool the OP was looking for, but it is not a standard part of a Windows install, you have to install it separately. Useful tool though.

[akira]

it is part of windows7.

[user1533603]

(New-Object Net.WebClient).DownloadFile('someurl', 'somepath')

[jyz]

didn't work on my windows 7...

[lenkite]

This should have been the top-voted answer. bitsadmin is deprecated in favor of Windows powershell though.

[Furqat Ubaydullayev]

It was part of my windows 7 install. Thanks!

[Kip]

this requires user interaction. probably not what most people who want to download a file from the command prompt want

[Luigi Ranghetti]

Confirm working on Win7

[TrickyDBA]

Note: BITSAdmin is deprecated and is not guaranteed to be available in future versions of Windows. Administrative tools for the BITS service are now provided by BITS PowerShell cmdlets.

[user2428118]

@EvilChookie Telnet comes with Windows Vista+, it simply isn't enabled by default in these versions of Windows.

[barlop]

@jyzuz It is part of Windows 7 Ultimate. I don't know what you have.

[barlop]

@user2428118 the telnet service exists sure, but the telnet CLIENT does not exist in Win7, telnet.exe it can be copied from XP though.

[barlop]

I have a strange telnet.exe on win7 32bit ultimate here C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-telnet-client_31bf38‌​56ad364e35_6.1.7600.‌​16385_none_b807e7888‌​65dfff7> and similar on a win7 64bit ultimate C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-telnet-client_31bf‌​385 0.16385_none_1426830c3ebb712d> but it/they don't do anything. A working telnet.exe has to be copied from XP

[user2428118]

@barlop The client does exist. You can just go to here and enable the Telnet client.

[Janus Troelsen]

@harrymc sure it's an answer. it downloads a file. what more do you want?

[Janus Troelsen]

from cmd.exe: powershell -command "& { iwr http://www.it1.net/it1_logo2.jpg -OutFile logo.jpg }". also works from the run prompt

[harrymc]

(1) Some text to explain what does this one-liner, (2) Verify that your answer isn't an alternative formulation to a previous answer, since if it is, it should at most be expressed as a comment on that answer.

[Peter Mortensen]

What version of Windows and PowerShell is required for this to work?

[jcarpenter2]

Yeah, there's nothing you can't do without powershell. It's a real turing tarpit :)

[Vaibhav Garg]

Doesn't run from a Batch file via task scheduler. I get this error: Unable to add file - 0x800704dd The operation being requested was not performed because the user has not logged on to the network. The specified service does not exist.

[hello_there_andy]

that's if permission to cscript.exe is permitted

[hello_there_andy]

Confirm working on this Win8

[hello_there_andy]

@VaibhavGarg you need to make sure the name of the downloaded file is exactly as appears on the last part of the download URL (after the final '/' and preceding, say, the '.exe')

[rogerdpack]

@JanusTroelsen my version of PowerShell responded "The term 'iwr' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet,..." but after some investigation this similar worked: powershell -command "$clnt = new-object System.Net.WebClient; $clnt.DownloadFile(\"https://host/name\", \"outpufilename\")"

[kgadek]

It's present in Win10… though doesn't handle FTP protocol :(

[Peter Mortensen]

This will not work with most FTP servers as passive mode is not supported by this Windows ftp client (with NATs inbetween passive mode is required).

[Peter Mortensen]

This works, even on Windows XP 64-bit, PowerShell 2.0.

[Satanicpuppy]

@PeterMortensen It also doesn't remotely answer the question since he edited it to specify he was looking for wget functionality. But don't let that stop you from resurrecting a 7 year old wrong answer just to add some pedantry.

[Wayfarer]

I can confirm that I have tested this script in Windows PE 5.1 and it has worked like a charm. I intend to use it for offline deployment, in order to check the version of the platform in the USB drive against a text file stored on the server.

[knocte]

this doesn't work in Windows Server 2012 FYI, it throws a MethodInvocationException

[kayleeFrye_onDeck]

Nowadays, it depends on your default-browser. Mine is chrome, and it auto-downloads to a known location, so I consider this solution to be sufficient for my needs. Thx!

[amenthes]

It's not present on my Win10 - at least not in safe mode.

[DimiDak]

Must be the only answer in the whole internet about using cmd to download a file without powershell or the need to install tools like curl and wget.