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In Command Prompt, I can switch from the C:\ drive to the D:\ drive with the following (rather simplistic) command:

D:

I can also switch between different directories in the same drive with the cd command. For instance, if I was in the root directory of the C:\ drive, I could go to C:\Folder\ with the following command:

cd C:\Folder\

However, if I wanted to go to D:\Folder\ from the same root directory, I would have to use two commands. Specifically:

D:
cd D:\Folder\

Both of the above commands can be simplified, of course, but they are required in their full expanded form to illustrate my point.

I can reverse the order of the commands as well, to achieve the same result:

cd D:\Folder\
D:

Simply typing cd D:\Folder\ from the C:\ drive does not work, you have to switch the drive manually as well.

This leads me to infer that Command Prompt is storing the current directory of all the drives at once, which wouldn't make sense. Why would command prompt take the time to shuffle around all the current directories for each respective drive, and by doing so making it more difficult for the user to navigate between drives? Additionally, if the same command (cd D:\Folder) is entered into PowerShell (again, from C:\), it has no problem at all!

I don't understand. Why does Command Prompt have this weird system for switching between drives, when PowerShell does the much more sensible thing of just letting the user go where the user wants to go without hindrance?

Brendan Lynn
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1 Answers1

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Cmd.exe is based on command.com which goes all the way back to the DOS days. It needs to adhere to certain rules which powershell does not. Oddly enough, MANY batch files are written to deal with or even take advantage of this syntax.

Simply typing cd D:\Folder\ from the C:\ drive does not work

You are 100% correct, no it does not work BUT there is a command line flag to make this command work.

Typing cd /? will produce this beauty.. Use the /D switch to change current drive in addition to changing current directory for a drive.

So cd /d D:\Folder\ from the C:\ drive will work. At this point in the game, powershell is a better way forward (IMHO) but knowing some cmd.exe will never hurt.

Señor CMasMas
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