List Active Listening Ports on Windows Systems

To view a list of listening ports in a Windows environment, you can use several methods, most commonly through the Command Prompt or PowerShell. Here's how you can do it:

Method 1: Using netstat (Command Prompt)

1. Open the Command Prompt by pressing Windows + R, typing cmd, and pressing Enter.

2. Type the following command to see a list of all listening ports:
   

netstat -ano | findstr LISTEN

• netstat displays network connections, routing tables, and interface statistics.
• The -a option shows all connections and listening ports.
• The -n option shows addresses and port numbers in numerical form.
• The -o option shows the process ID (PID) associated with each connection.
• This will display a list of listening ports along with the associated process IDs (PIDs). For example:

TCP    0.0.0.0:80             0.0.0.0:0              LISTENING       1234 TCP    [::]:443                [::]:0                 LISTENING      5678

Method 2: Using Get-NetTCPConnection (PowerShell)

1. Open PowerShell by pressing Windows + X and selecting Windows PowerShell.
2. Run the following command to list all listening TCP connections:

Get-NetTCPConnection -State Listen`

This will return a list of active TCP connections that are in the "LISTEN" state, along with their local addresses and port numbers.

Method 3: Using netstat with findstr in PowerShell

You can also use netstat directly in PowerShell in the same way as in Command Prompt:

1. Open PowerShell.
2. Run this command to filter out the listening ports:

netstat -ano | findstr LISTEN

Method 4: Using Resource Monitor (Graphical Interface)

1. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager.
2. Go to the Performance tab and click on Open Resource Monitor at the bottom.
3. In Resource Monitor, go to the Network tab.
4. In the Listening Ports section, you will see a list of processes that are listening on various ports.

These methods allow you to see which applications or services are actively listening for incoming connections on your system.