Creating a New Windows PowerShell Alias

So you say that you like Windows PowerShell, but you have problems remembering some of the cmdlet names? Well, then why not create an alias for those cmdlets, an alias that you can remember? For example, maybe you’d prefer to type show instead of Get-ChildItem. If that’s the case, then you can use the New-Alias cmdlet to map the term show to Get-ChildItem. All you have to do is call New-Alias followed by the alias name (show) and the cmdlet the alias is being mapped to (Get-ChildItem). You know, something like this:

New-Alias show Get-ChildItem

Now, what do you suppose will happen the next time you type show in the Windows PowerShell console? You got it:

By default, aliases are not saved between Windows PowerShell sessions: each time you restart Windows PowerShell you’ll need to recreate the alias. To ensure that your new aliases survive between Windows PowerShell sessions, create a PSConfiguration folder in your Windows PowerShell profile folder. For example:

C:\Documents and Settings\gstemp\My Documents\PSConfiguration

Get-Variable profile | Format-List

In the PSConfiguration folder, create a file named Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 and add the following command to the file:

Set-Alias show Get-ChildItem

That should do the trick.

Related Links

• More Cmdlets