Find Open Ports in Windows XP

So you need to find out what ports are currently being used in Windows XP and don't know where to start? Here is a quick way to find out what ports are open or exposed:

 

Start -> Run -> type: "cmd" {enter}
At the command prompt type: "netstat -a" {enter}

Netstat will display a list of all listening ports, and for established connections it will show who's on the other end.

Here is a full list of the available netstat options:

Displays protocol statistics and current TCP/IP network connections.

 

NETSTAT [-a] [-b] [-e] [-n] [-o] [-p proto] [-r] [-s] [-v] [interval]

 

  -a            Displays all connections and listening ports.

  -b            Displays the executable involved in creating each connection or

                listening port. In some cases well-known executables host

                multiple independent components, and in these cases the

                sequence of components involved in creating the connection

                or listening port is displayed. In this case the executable

                name is in [] at the bottom, on top is the component it called,

                and so forth until TCP/IP was reached. Note that this option

                can be time-consuming and will fail unless you have sufficient

                permissions.

  -e            Displays Ethernet statistics. This may be combined with the -s

                option.

  -n            Displays addresses and port numbers in numerical form.

  -o            Displays the owning process ID associated with each connection.

  -p proto      Shows connections for the protocol specified by proto; proto

                may be any of: TCP, UDP, TCPv6, or UDPv6.  If used with the -s

                option to display per-protocol statistics, proto may be any of:

                IP, IPv6, ICMP, ICMPv6, TCP, TCPv6, UDP, or UDPv6.

  -r            Displays the routing table.

  -s            Displays per-protocol statistics.  By default, statistics are

                shown for IP, IPv6, ICMP, ICMPv6, TCP, TCPv6, UDP, and UDPv6;

                the -p option may be used to specify a subset of the default.

  -v            When used in conjunction with -b, will display sequence of

                components involved in creating the connection or listening

                port for all executables.

  interval      Redisplays selected statistics, pausing interval seconds

                between each display.  Press CTRL+C to stop redisplaying

                statistics.  If omitted, netstat will print the current

                configuration information once.

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