You can open the file in Notepad immediately from the PowerShell prompt by just typing “activity.txt” and then hitting Enter. When you’ve stopped recording data, you’ll need to open the activity.txt file to see the results. We’re then using the piping symbol “>” to save the results to a text file named “activity.txt.”Īfter issuing the command, wait a couple of minutes, and then press Ctrl+C to stop the recording of data. The 5 option causes the command to poll every five seconds for connections (to make it more easy to track what is going on). The –f option displays the full DNS name for each connection option, so that you can more easily understand where the connections are being made. The –b option adds what application is making the connection to the results.

The –a option tells it to show all connections and listening ports. We’re using four modifiers on the netstat command. And if you’re using a version of Windows before Windows 7, you’ll need to run the Command Prompt as administrator.Īt the prompt, type the following command, and then press Enter. If you’re using Windows 7, you’ll need to hit Start, type “PowerShell” in the search box, right-click the result, and then choose “Run as administrator” instead. If you’re using the Command Prompt instead, you’d also have to run that as an administrator. If you’re using Windows 8 or 10, fire up PowerShell as an administrator by hitting Windows+X, and then selecting “PowerShell (Admin)” from the Power User menu. And, you can do it using either PowerShell or Command Prompt. You can do this on any PC running Windows, from Windows XP Service Pack 2 all the way up to Windows 10. This option uses the netstat command to generate a list of everything that has made an Internet connection in a specified amount of time.

Option One: Check Active Connections with PowerShell (or Command Prompt) Then, we’ll show you two free tools-TCPView and CurrPorts-that also get the job done and may be more convenient. The first uses the good old netstat command from PowerShell or the Command Prompt. We’re going to cover three ways you can view your PC’s active connections. Here’s how to see what’s going on under the hood. While some of these connections are harmless, there is always a chance that you have some malware, spyware, or adware using your Internet connection in the background without your knowledge. Your PC makes lots of Internet connections in a day’s business, and not all of them are necessarily sites you’re aware connections are happening with.

How tcpview works