How can I use the Windows command line to change the extensions of thousands of files to *****.jpg?
NOTE: not for Windows
Using ren-1.0 the correct form is:
"ren *.*" "#2.jpg"
From man ren
The replacement pattern is another filename with embedded wildcard indexes, each of which consists of the character # followed by a digit from 1 to 9. In the new name of a matching file, the wildcard indexes are replaced by the actual characters that matched the referenced wildcards in the original filename.
and
Note that the shell normally expands the wildcards * and ?, which in the case of ren is undesirable. Thus, in most cases it is necessary to enclose the search pattern in quotes.