Download web content through CMD - windows

Question

I want some way of getting an online content on the command prompt window (Windows CMD).
Imagine some content online stored either on a hosting service or the MySql database provided to you by that hosting service. It can be any data stored in any form. I just want to remotely view it with the help of a CMD window anywhere in the world. What command should I be using?
To make it more clear, lets just say you have one day to prepare for your exam. Rather than preparing for it, you are making a plan to cheat.
Now your exam is going to be conducted on a computer that has been allotted to you and you are not allowed to use a browser or download any new application on the PC. But you can use Command Prompt, so your task being a cheat is to put the answers somewhere online. You cannot install anything new.
How will you go about if you are stuck in the above scene?
P.S This is for educational purpose only. I have no such such exams.

Answer 1

It depends entirely on how the content is stored and accessed. CMD knows how to get things from SMB network shares (\computername\folder), but you need to run a program to access most other stuff. (eg: sqlcmd for a database)
CMD does not support downloading web content. You will need to use another program to connect to the website and download the page. Obviously a browser would work. Another option is to download wget.exe from UnxUtils. Or use another scripting language like PowerShell or Wscript.
If you have access to launch PowerShell (pre-installed on Windows 7-10), you can use the .NET library to download web resources.
PS> Invoke-Webrequest 'www.mywebsite.com/myfile.txt' -OutFile '.\myfile.txt'
This will use .NET to connect to the page and download it into the local directory. To download to another directory or filename, change the -OutFile argument.
To launch this from CMD, go into a PowerShell prompt by simply typing powershell in CMD, and running the PS commands from there. Alternatively, you can run PS commands from CMD using the powershell -c command.
powershell.exe -c "invoke-webrequest 'www.mywebsite.com/myfile.txt' -outfile .\myfile.txt"

Answer 2

You can check this question.The easiest way is with bitsadmin command:
bitsadmin /transfer myDownloadJob /download /priority normal http://downloadsrv/10mb.zip c:\10mb.zip
You can try also winhttpjs.bat:
call winhhtpjs.bat https://example.com/files/some.zip -saveTo c:\somezip.zip

Answer 3

Windows 10 build 17063 and later ships curl.exe (ref: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/containers/tar-and-curl-come-to-windows/ba-p/382409). Assuming you don't need to support earlier Windows versions, including earlier Windows 10 builds, you can use it in your batch files like this
curl http://example.com/ --output content.txt
notepad content.txt

Answer 4

Set Arg = WScript.Arguments
set WshShell = createObject("Wscript.Shell")
Set Inp = WScript.Stdin
Set Outp = Wscript.Stdout
On Error Resume Next
Set File = WScript.CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
File.Open "GET", Arg(1), False
File.setRequestHeader "User-Agent", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30618; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E; BCD2000; BCD2000)"
File.Send
txt=File.ResponseText
'Putting in line endings
Outp.write txt
If err.number <> 0 then
Outp.writeline ""
Outp.writeline "Error getting file"
Outp.writeline "=================="
Outp.writeline ""
Outp.writeline "Error " & err.number & "(0x" & hex(err.number) & ") " & err.description
Outp.writeline "Source " & err.source
Outp.writeline ""
Outp.writeline "HTTP Error " & File.Status & " " & File.StatusText
Outp.writeline File.getAllResponseHeaders
Outp.writeline LCase(Arg(1))
End If
General Use
Filter is for use in a command prompt. Filter.vbs must be run with cscript.exe. If you just type filter it will run a batch file that will do this automatically.
filter subcommand [parameters]
Filter reads and writes standard in and standard out only. These are only available in a command prompt.
filter <inputfile >outputfile
filter <inputfile | other_command
other_command | filter >outputfile
other_command | filter | other_command
Web
filter web webaddress
filter ip webaddress
Retrieves a file from the web and writes it to standard out.
webaddress - a web address fully specified including http://
Example
Gets Microsoft's home page
filter web http://www.microsoft.com
Filter with 19 example command prompt scripts avaialable at https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=E2F0CE17A268A4FA!121&authkey=!AAFg7j814-lJtmI&ithint=folder%2cres

Answer 5

Apart from VBScript & JScripts, there's a utility (resides with CMD) on Windows which can be run from CMD (if you have write access):
set url=https://www.nsa.org/content/hl-images/2017/02/09/NSA.jpg
set file=file.jpg
certutil -urlcache -split -f %url% %file%
Cmdlets in Powershell:
$url = "https://www.nsa.org/content/hl-images/2017/02/09/NSA.jpg"
$file = "file.jpg"
$ProgressPreference = "SilentlyContinue";
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $url -outfile $file
.Net under PowerShell:
$url = "https://www.nsa.org/content/hl-images/2017/02/09/NSA.jpg"
$file = "file.jpg"
# Add the necessary .NET assembly
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Net.Http
# Create the HttpClient object
$client = New-Object -TypeName System.Net.Http.Httpclient
$task = $client.GetAsync($url)
$task.wait();
[io.file]::WriteAllBytes($file, $task.Result.Content.ReadAsByteArrayAsync().Result)
C# application built on command-line with csc.exe:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-reference/compiler-options/command-line-building-with-csc-exe
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
namespace DownloadImage
{
class Program
{
static async Task Main(string[] args)
{
using var httpClient = new HttpClient();
var url = "https://www.nsa.org/content/hl-images/2017/02/09/NSA.jpg";
byte[] imageBytes = await httpClient.GetByteArrayAsync(url);
using var fs = new FileStream("file.jpg", FileMode.Create);
fs.Write(imageBytes, 0, imageBytes.Length);
}
}
}
Built in Windows applications. No need for external downloads.
Tested on Win 10