sábado, 29 de março de 2014

How to open a Command Prompt on a folder you are browsing with Windows Explorer GUI in Windows 7 ?

Finding a certain file in your Windows file system, using the graphical user interface (or GUI) through Windows Explorer is much easier, right ? 

Then usually, for advanced users, if you require a Command Prompt window, at that spot, you need to open a command prompt (ie. CMD) and get there again ... but, our good reasoning tells us that MS must have a short-cut, right ?

Running CMD.exe from the "run command" is quick, but you sometimes find that you are required to slowly change your folder path from the default CMD window to a different location on your computer, or even in network shares.

But there is the "eastern egg", that MS likes to hide from us, that is a super fast trick that will enable you to quickly open a CMD window to a specific location from the GUI by adding a  "Open Command Prompt Here" to the Explorer context menu. That way all you have to do is to open Windows Explorer, find the required folder and right-click the selected folder.  The context menu appearing is the "Open Command Prompt Here" option.

In older Windows operating systems you had to manually add the "Open Command Prompt Here" to the Explorer context menu.

But Windows Vista and Seven adds this very useful shortcut to the DEFAULT installation inside Windows Explorer context menu, that is, in kind of a hidden matter, for most.  ;-)

1) Open a Windows Explorer windows, browse to the required folder. Windows Explorer usually has two sides, the left (the directory list) and the right (the content of the directory you are selecting)

2) Right-click that folder in the "right pane" of the Windows Explorer window. Note that you do NOT have the "Open Command Prompt Here" option.

3) Release the right-click and now, hold the SHIFT key, before you right-click the folder, and Behold!  And he appears !

ATENTION:
This context menu "add-on" in only available when you right-click on the folder in the right pane, and not in the left pane.  So usually I navigate back one step to be able to use the CMD where I what to go.

Based on Daniel Petri solution - January 8, 2009

Cheers!