Is it possible to open a Windows Explorer window from PowerShell?

Powershell Problem Overview

I'm sure this must be possible, but I can't find out how to do it.

Any clues?

Powershell Solutions

Solution 1 - Powershell

Use:

ii .

which is short for

Invoke-Item .

It is one of the most common things I type at the PowerShell command line.

Solution 2 - Powershell

You have a few options:

Powershell looks for executables in your path, just as cmd.exe does. So you can just type explorer on the powershell prompt. Using this method, you can also pass cmd-line arguments (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314853)
The Invoke-Item cmdlet provides a way to run an executable file or to open a file (or set of files) from within Windows PowerShell. Alias: ii
use system.diagnostics.process

Examples:

PS C:\> explorer
PS C:\> explorer .
PS C:\> explorer /n
PS C:\> Invoke-Item c:\path\
PS C:\> ii c:\path\
PS C:\> Invoke-Item c:\windows\explorer.exe
PS C:\> ii c:\windows\explorer.exe
PS C:\> [diagnostics.process]::start("explorer.exe")

Solution 3 - Powershell

Use any of these:

start .
explorer .
start explorer .
ii .
invoke-item .

You may apply any of these commands in PowerShell.

Just in case you want to open the explorer from the command prompt, the last two commands don't work, and the first three work fine.

Solution 4 - Powershell

Just use the Invoke-Item cmdlet. For example, if you want to open a explorer window on the current directory you can do:

Invoke-Item .

Solution 5 - Powershell

explorer .

Solution 6 - Powershell

I came across this question looking for a way to open an Explorer window from PowerShell and also select a file. I'm adding this answer in case others come across it for the same reason.

To launch Explorer and select a file, use Invoke-Expression:

Invoke-Expression "explorer '/select,$filePath'"

There are probably other ways to do this, but this worked for me.

Solution 7 - Powershell

$startinfo = new-object System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo 
$startinfo.FileName = "explorer.exe"
$startinfo.WorkingDirectory = 'D:\foldername'

[System.Diagnostics.Process]::Start($startinfo)

Hope this helps

Solution 8 - Powershell

start explorer.exe

Simple single line command

Solution 9 - Powershell

This is the only thing that fit my unique constraints of wanting the folder to open as a Quizo Tab in any existing Explorer window.

$objShell = New-Object -ComObject "Shell.Application"
$objShell.Explore("path")

Solution 10 - Powershell

I wanted to write this as a comment but I do not have 50 reputation.

All of the answers in this thread are essentially to use Invoke-Item or to use explorer.exe directly; however, this isn't completely synonymous with "open containing folder", so in terms of opening an Explorer window as the question states, if we wanted to apply the answer to a particular file the question still hasn't really been answered.

e.g.,

Invoke-Item C:\Users\Foo\bar.txt
explorer.exe C:\Users\Foo\bar.html

^ those two commands would result in Notepad.exe or Firefox.exe being invoked on the two files respectively, not an explorer.exe window on C:\Users\Foo\ (the containing directory).

Whereas if one was issuing this command from powershell, this would be no big deal (less typing anyway), if one is scripting and needs to "open containing folder" on a variable, it becomes a matter of string matching to extract the directory from the full path to the file.

Is there no simple command "Open-Containing-Folder" such that a variable could be substituted?