ren (command)

Description of the RENAME command of RT-11SJ displayed on a VT100.

In computing, ren (or rename) is a command in various DOS, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows^[1] command line interpreters (shells) such as COMMAND.COM, cmd.exe, 4DOS, 4NT and Windows PowerShell. It is used to rename files and in some implementations also directories. It can also move a file to a new path, if it is on the same device. It is analogous to the Unix mv command. RT-11, RSX-11 and OpenVMS also provide the rename command which can be contracted to ren.

In Windows PowerShell, ren is a predefined command alias for the Rename-Item Cmdlet which basically serves the same purpose.^[2]

Example

ren filename newname
ren *.htm *.html

Another example. This will rename a default video found in Windows 7 with a new name:

ren C:\Users\Public\Videos\"Sample Videos"\Wildlife.wmv Wildlife2.wmv

Windows command-line programs and shell builtins

COMMAND.COM Command Prompt Windows PowerShell Recovery Console

File system navigation	cd (chdir) dir popd pushd tree

File management	attrib cacls cipher compact copy del (erase) deltree expand icacls makecab md (mkdir) move rd (rmdir) recover ren (rename) replace rmdir robocopy xcopy

Disk management	chkdsk convert defrag diskcomp diskcopy diskpart fdisk format label subst scandisk sys vol vssadmin

Processes	exit kill powercfg runas sc shutdown start taskkill tasklist

Registry	assoc ftype reg regini regsvr32

User environment	date mode path set setx time title ver whoami

File contents	comp edit edlin fc find findstr print type

Scripting	choice clip cscript doskey echo for goto if more pause prompt rem

Networking	arp getmac hostname ipconfig net use netsh netstat nslookup PathPing ping route tracert

Maintenance and care	driverquery msiexec ntbackup sfc systeminfo w32tm WBAdmin winsat wmic

Boot management	bcdedit bootcfg fixboot fixmbr

Software development	debug exe2bin QBasic

Miscellaneous	cls help

List of DOS commands Environment variables

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