Raymond.CC Blog

Have you ever wondered how people find out shortcuts and command lines on how to open Computer Management, System Properties, Device Manager and etc? Do they actually find out themselves or it is documented in Microsoft Knowledge Base? Or maybe Microsoft employees/programmers revealed it?

An example is an article on how to open Safely Remove Hardware dialog box when the icon is not located at the tray bar which I published 2 days ago. Just run the command line rundll32 shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL hotplug.dll and the Safely Remove Hardware dialog box will appear. As you’ve noticed, it’s not as easy as running a single executable file. It involves rundll32.exe, shell32.dll, the command Control_RunDLL and hotplug.dll. Who could have figured that out?

You will know how to unveil the shortcuts and commands yourself after you’ve finished reading this tutorial.


Actually it’s pretty easy. There’s a popular tool called Process Explorer from Sysinternals which can reveal information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded. At first I thought Process Explorer is just another task manager program, maybe it’s slightly more powerful than Windows Task Manager but I was wrong. When I explored Process Explorer deeper, I found that it’s VERY powerful.

Anyway, here is how I found out the command line for Safely Remove Hardware dialog box.

1. Run Process Explorer

2. Open Safely Remove Hardware dialog box by right clicking on the tray icon and select “Safely Remove Hardware”

3. You will notice that a new process has been added to Process Explorer and it’s green in color for a second. Double click the process to see the process properties.

4. At the Image tab, you’ll see Command Line. That’s the command line that will open Safely Remove Hardware dialog window.

5. To confirm that it is the shortcut command line for Safely Remove Hardware dialog box, copy the command and paste it to Run. If it opens Safely Remove Hardware dialog box, you got it right! If not, it must be another rundll32.exe process.

Using this method you can find out any and all shortcuts you want. I’ve tried on Computer Management, System Properties, Device Manager and I am able to find the command line shortcuts. If Process Explorer unable to capture the process, that means there is no command line for it. An example is My Computer. When you open My Computer, Process Explorer doesn’t capture anything.

[ Download Process Explorer ]