Wget/cURL alternative native to Windows?

Question

Is there a Wget or cURL type command line utility native to Windows Vista? How does it work?

Answer 1

Native to Windows (comes preinstalled and depends on the Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS) Windows service):

BITSAdmin

It can do what Wget does, and probably more (you can control an ongoing job via API-like commands - for example you can get the status speed and cancel if it is too slow).

Example usage from my own experience (you can do parallel downloads in the same .bat, or do sequential downloads in the same job):

bitsadmin /create thisissomejobname
bitsadmin /addfile thisissomejobname http://kakao.ro/Pictures.iso C:\john_pictures.iso
bitsadmin /SetCredentials thisissomejobname Server BASIC somehttpuser somehttppassword
bitsadmin /resume thisissomejobname
REM how to get status:
bitsadmin /info thisissomejobname

Note: It works on Windows XP, 7, 8 & 10 (tested on Windows 10 Pro). On Windows XP it must be installed manually from the SP2 Support Tools.

On the latest Windows 10 the deprecation warning is gone, so it looks like this useful tool is here to stay.

Answer 2

PowerShell v3 CTP1 comes with a command like wget/curl. It's called Invoke-WebRequest. To learn more, you can visit the post Windows Powershell V3 includes command like wget/curl.

Answer 3

I often use PowerShell for simple things, like WebClient's DownloadString:

$wc = New-Object Net.WebClient
$wc.DownloadString('...')

Or DownloadFile if you want something downloaded like wget does and package that off into a function. Of course, this is very rough and won't have any of the niceties like resumable downloads and similar.

Answer 4

It seems you only need to download an alternative browser. You can use this command to download Mozilla Firefox with the command prompt:

explorer.exe http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/6.0.2/win32/en-US/Firefox%20Setup%206.0.2.exe

This also launches Internet Explorer, but only with a basic feature set. This should work even if Internet Explorer is broken (in most cases).

You can also use the FTP command. Type the following into the command prompt commands:

1. Type FTP - Which opens the FTP client
2. Type open ftp.mozilla.org - Which connects to Mozilla-FTP
3. Just login as Anonymous and use an empty password.
4. Type cd /pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/4.0.1/win32/en-US/ -To change the directory
5. Type recv "Firefox Setup 4.0.1.exe" - To download the Firefox installer. The file is located in the current folder of the command prompt. (usually your Profile folder)
6. Type bye to close the FTP client
7. Type exit to close the command prompt.

Answer 5

There is no Wget alternative really. You can use Wget for Windows and assign the path in your environment variables to get it working how you want.

Answer 6

Native cURL for Windows is available here. There are many flavors available- with SSL support, without SSL support. You don't need the extra baggage of Cygwin and the likes, just one small EXE file.

Answer 7

I'd just use Cygwin and install the wanted libraries... I have always done that...

In the past, I searched for alternatives, yes. But Cygwin is just the best tool for the job.

Answer 8

I've created my own. Check it out at https://github.com/acarrilho/global (at the bottom of the page).

Download the source and, using cmd.exe, navigate to the requester folder. From there, just type http to see all the settings available. As an example:

http -u "http://www.example.com" -oc

Answer 9

This is not for windows vista but it is for windows 11. Open command prompt and type this command:
curl parrot.live

Now watch the parrot dance and move around in circles!