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