Windows 7 netcat error: 'nc' is not recognized as an internal or external command

Question

This is what's happening:

C:\Windows\system32>nc -v 10.1.2.205 22
'nc' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

Below is my screenshot:

Kindly help me on this issue.

Please include relevant code/commands and the error message in the question. Don't add them as comment, edit the post. — Mattias Lindberg, Jan 21 '16 at 12:42
just call NC with it's path, e.g. `c:\temp\nc -v 10.1.2.205 22`, using the correct path to nc instead of c:\temp. — RLH, Jan 21 '16 at 14:59

Dan Alboteanu · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-13T14:30:03.960

download NetCat from here https://eternallybored.org/misc/netcat/
unzip it and put is somewhere (eg: in C:)
use directly in the command prompt like: c:\netcat-1.11\nc google.com 80
optional: add to Environment Variables to be used from any context

Or install Nmap (includes Netcat)

for Windows https://nmap.org/dist/nmap-7.30-setup.exe
for Mac https://nmap.org/dist/nmap-7.30.dmg

To check whether ncat is installed and working, open up two terminals. In one of them, run ncat -l 9999 then in the other, ncat localhost 9999. Then type something into each terminal and press Enter. You should see the message on the opposite terminal. Look in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=qeQ6pKxUp-Q

Hi Dan, I apologize for delay in accepting your solution. – m.ghoroobi Oct 17 '19 at 11:54 — m.ghoroobi, Oct 17 '19 at 11:54

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 03 '20 at 10:25

Download netcat 1.12 from https://eternallybored.org/misc/netcat/
Extract the files (e.g. C:\NetCat)
Open two cmd prompts and navigated to cd \NetCat.
Execute nc.exe -l -p 9999 in one cmd window and nc.exe localhost 9999 in another. Note that I'm on a 32b windows7, for 64bit use nc64.exe.
Test by typing Hello in one command window and check if it is displayed in the other.

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

1

You should add the path to nc.exe to your PATH environment variable. Here's a walkthrough if you dunno how to acheive this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/28545224/5119765

edited May 23 '17 at 12:10

Community

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answered Jan 21 '16 at 12:47

ADreNaLiNe-DJ

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 28 '19 at 01:46

1

Download NMap from https://nmap.org/download.html and install it
Select Environment Variables under System Properties
Select PATH
Add C:\Program Files (x86)\Nmap\ at the end

answered Jan 28 '19 at 01:46

Jerry Chong

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Windows 7 netcat error: 'nc' is not recognized as an internal or external command

4 Answers4