Cannot get to 'downloads' folder in Command prompt (admin)

AndreTen said:

guys, you are aware that you're typing all this an a thread with very simple question?

Sometimes the best parts of a question are the tangents that arise in the answers. That's why I still miss the threaded conversations of mewsgroups...

KeithM said:

As opposed to "State of the Art" batch?!?!?

Also, an ampersand does't require the -LiteralPath parameter, just quotation marks:

Code:

PS C:\...\Sandbox>gci i* -ad


    Directory: C:\Users\keith\Sandbox


Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
d-----          4/8/2022   7:52 AM                I&Ignore&For&Best&Practices
d-----         11/1/2020  11:09 AM                IE Search Suggestions
d-----          4/7/2021   3:51 AM                iniFun


PS C:\...\Sandbox>sl "I&Ignore&For&Best&Practices"
PS C:\...\I&Ignore&For&Best&Practices>
PS C:\...\I&Ignore&For&Best&Practices>

Perhaps your test path had $ or [ ] characters???

Of course, tab completion is easier. Typing sl i<tab><enter> gets you there as well.

If you're working at the console and require the -LiteralPath parameter, use the -lp alias instead

But all of this can be avoided if you pay attention to widely-accepted best practices:




There's a learning curve to any language, but once we're familiar with it, we tend to forget the frustration and confusion that accompanied our initial efforts.

☮☮☮ Peace ☮☮☮

As you can see for yourself, it simply doesn't work in PowerShell 5.1, and, even though I am aware that I can fix it by enclosing the ampersand sign in doublequotes, try and see what happens if the name also has a single quote (apostrophe) in it. Your argument re naming conventions is moot, when the reality is that it can't properly support NTFS names.

AndreTen said:

guys, you are aware that you're typing all this an a thread with very simple question?

Yuppers.

3nd said:

PS : i never use PowerShell , guess I'm old-school lol (+ powershell is lagging, on my PC at least, cmd is instant)

I only use it every once in a blue moon, mainly to avoid the extra time and effort that it would take to convert some certain commands/snippets. lol

Berton said:

Command Prompt, PowerShell????? Windows 11 has Terminal which opens PowerShell. Linux also has Terminal and if I recall my MacBook Pro OS X from 2010 it did too [don't know about the newer macOS].

I find that my Shift + right-click context menu options are more convenient to use instead. They can be found in the Tutorials section here on the forum (in my replies to the tutorial to open cmd here as admin and the tutorial to open PowerShell here as admin), my latest version of them uses copied shortcuts from the WinX menu so that it respects the user's customizations like colors and font selection, etc., and does so separately for each different option.
Open command window here as administrator - Add in Windows 10

hdmi said:

As you can see for yourself, it simply doesn't work in PowerShell 5.1, and, even though I am aware that I can fix it by enclosing the ampersand sign in doublequotes, try and see what happens if the name also has a single quote (apostrophe) in it. Your argument re naming conventions is moot, when the reality is that it can't properly support NTFS names.

• I never claimed it worked without quotation marks, so your error message is moot.
• How do you deal with spaces in mames without quotation marks?

And again, tab completion handles both your examples:

With the following directories:

Code:

PS C:\...\Sandbox>gci a* -ad


    Directory: C:\Users\keith\Sandbox


Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
d-----          4/8/2022   5:45 PM                a&b
d-----          4/8/2022   5:46 PM                a&b'c
d-r---         1/10/2022   3:13 AM                Add Comment to folder context mnu
d-----        12/30/2021  10:04 PM                Add Explorer Columns
d-----          4/8/2022   8:00 AM                Add Rating to folder

If I type sl a<tab><enter>, here's the result:

Code:

PS C:\...\Sandbox>sl '.\a&b\'
PS C:\...\a&b>

And if I type sl a<tab><tab><enter>, the single-quote-in-name is handled quite nicely:

Code:

PS C:\...\Sandbox>sl '.\a&b''c\'
PS C:\...\a&b'c>

Work smarter, not harder!

I'm so olld-school I majored in alchemy!

I just change the background colour from blue to black and all is good

KeithM said:

• I never claimed it worked without quotation marks, so your error message is moot.
• How do you deal with spaces in mames without quotation marks?

And again, tab completion handles both your examples:

With the following directories:

Code:

PS C:\...\Sandbox>gci a* -ad


    Directory: C:\Users\keith\Sandbox


Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
d-----          4/8/2022   5:45 PM                a&b
d-----          4/8/2022   5:46 PM                a&b'c
d-r---         1/10/2022   3:13 AM                Add Comment to folder context mnu
d-----        12/30/2021  10:04 PM                Add Explorer Columns
d-----          4/8/2022   8:00 AM                Add Rating to folder

If I type sl a<tab><enter>, here's the result:

Code:

PS C:\...\Sandbox>sl '.\a&b\'
PS C:\...\a&b>

And if I type sl a<tab><tab><enter>, the single-quote-in-name is handled quite nicely:

Code:

PS C:\...\Sandbox>sl '.\a&b''c\'
PS C:\...\a&b'c>

Work smarter, not harder!

I'm so olld-school I majored in alchemy!

Yeah, so if it doesn't work without the quotes and it also doesn't work WITH the quotes, but you're still right about what you said re tab completion (which, BTW, I'm very sure that you are...), then exactly how many times was it again that I'm supposed to hit my tab key in situations where there's like at least a couple hundred or so folders on that list you get when you use the gci command and the folder I want happens to be positioned someplace near the middle of this list? Or do you mean to tell me that I need to use the SendKeys method of VBScript or somesuch, just to be able to 'prove' to people that PowerShell is still─regardless of what anyone chooses to believe─so much better than the command prompt?