If you are using Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8. 1, or 10, see the next section. The net send command was discontinued starting with Windows Vista, and replaced with a similar msg command.

net send name - You can enter a username or computer name on your network to send the message to someone specific. If there is a space in the name, surround the name in quotes (e. g. net send “John Doe”). net send * - This will send the message to all of the users on your current domain or workgroup. net send /domain:name - This will send the message to everyone in the specified domain or workgroup. net send /users - This will send the message to all of the users currently connected to the server.

For example - net send “John Doe” Let’s meet up in 10 minutes.

You can see what version of Windows you’re running by pressing ⊞ Win+Pause, or by right-clicking “Computer” and selecting “Properties”. Your version of Windows will be listed under the “Windows edition” section.

Windows Vista and 7 - Open the Command Prompt from the Start menu. Windows 8. 1, and 10 - Right-click the Start button and select “Command Prompt”. Windows 8 - Press ⊞ Win+X and select “Command Prompt”.

msg username - Enter a username on your network to send a message to that user. msg session - Enter the name of a specific session that you want to send the message to. msg sessionID - Enter the number of the specific session that you want to send the message to. msg @filename - Enter the name of the file that contains a list of usernames, sessions, and/or session IDs that you want to send the message to. Useful for department lists. msg * - This will send the message to everyone on the server.

msg * /server:servername

msg * /time:seconds (e. g. 300 seconds for a five minute time limit)

For example msg @salesteam /server:EASTBRANCH /time:600 Congrats everyone on exceeding your sales goal this quarter!

The msg command is designed to send messages to terminal users, not necessarily to different Windows computers on the same network.

‘msg’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.

  • If you receive this message, you are not running a version of Windows that supports msg. You’ll need to upgrade to the Professional edition to access the command. Error 5 getting session names or Error 1825 getting session names - There was a problem communicating with the recipient. Some users have fixed this problem by opening the Registry Editor on the recipient’s computer (Run “regedit” to open it), navigating to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Terminal Server”, and changing “AllowRemoteRPC” from “0” to “1”.