TOPIC
    about_Locations

SHORT DESCRIPTION
    Describes how to access items from the working location in Windows
    PowerShell.


LONG DESCRIPTION
    The current working location is the default location to which commands 
    point. In other words, this is the location that Windows PowerShell uses
    if you do not supply an explicit path to the item or location that is 
    affected by the command. In most cases, the current working location is
    a drive accessed through the Windows PowerShell FileSystem provider and,
    in some cases, a directory on that drive. For example, you might set your 
    current working location to the following location:


        C:\Program Files\Windows PowerShell

 
    As a result, all commands are processed from this location unless 
    another path is explicitly provided.


    Windows PowerShell maintains the current working location for each drive 
    even when the drive is not the current drive. This allows you to access
    items from the current working location by referring only to the drive of
    another location. For example, suppose that your current working location
    is C:\Windows. Now, suppose you use the following command to change your 
    current working location to the HKLM: drive:


        Set-Location HKLM:


    Although your current location is now the registry drive, you can still 
    access items in the C:\Windows directory simply by using the C: drive, 
    as shown in the following example:


        Get-ChildItem C:


    Windows PowerShell remembers that your current working location for that
    drive is the Windows directory, so it retrieves items from that directory.
    The results would be the same if you ran the following command:


        Get-ChildItem C:\Windows


    In Windows PowerShell, you can use the Get-Location command to determine
    the current working location, and you can use the Set-Location command to
    set the current working location. For example, the following command sets 
    the current working location to the Windows directory of the C: drive:


        Set-Location c:\windows


    After you set the current working location, you can still access items 
    from other drives simply by including the drive name (followed by a 
    colon) in the command, as shown in the following example:


        Get-ChildItem HKLM :\software


    The example command retrieves a list of items in the Software container
    of the HKEY Local Machine hive in the registry.


    Windows PowerShell also allows you to use special characters to represent
    the current working location and its parent location. To represent the 
    current working location, use a single period. To represent the parent of
    the current working location, use two periods. For example, the following 
    specifies the System subdirectory in the current working location:


        Get-ChildItem .\system


    If the current working location is C:\Windows, this command 
    returns a list of all the items in C:\Windows\System. However, if you 
    use two periods, the parent directory of the current working 
    directory is used, as shown in the following example:


        Get-ChildItem ..\"program files"


    In this case, Windows PowerShell treats the two periods as the C: drive,
    so the command retrieves all the items in the C:\Program Files directory.


    A path beginning with a slash identifies a path from the root of the 
    current drive. For example, if your current working location is 
    C:\Program Files\Windows PowerShell, the root of your drive is C. 
    Therefore, the following command lists all items in the C:\Windows 
    directory:


        Get-ChildItem \windows


    If you do not specify a path beginning with a drive name, slash, or 
    period when supplying the name of a container or item, the 
    container or item is assumed to be located in the current working 
    location. For example, if your current working location is C:\Windows, 
    the following command returns all the items in the C:\Windows\System 
    directory:


        Get-ChildItem system


    If you specify a file name rather than a directory name, Windows
    PowerShell returns details about that file (assuming that file is located
    in the current working location).


SEE ALSO
    Set-Location
    about_Providers
    about_Path_Syntax
