Unusual Windows Run commands

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I did not know these – Windows Run commands you probably never knew.

NOTE: Number 3 did not open “Computer” on my Win7 Ultimate x-64 system.

Joe

--Joe

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Number 3 opens my main user account on Window 7 64 bit.
2 dots in the run box opened “C:Users” folder.

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All seemed to work on my setup.

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The next to last post summarized my observation; most of these are retreads of old, tried, and true DOS commands.

BTW, if you have a Windows Explorer window open, you can use its address bar as an always open Run box.

Along the same lines, here are a few other shortcuts, usable in either the address bar of the Windows Explorer or its cousin, the Run box.

%APPDATA% – Opens your Application Data directory; e. g., C:Documents and SettingsDavidApplication Data.

%windir% or %SystemRoot%- Opens your Windows directory; e. g., C:WINDOWS.

%TMP% or %TEMP% – Opens your User Temp Directory; e. g., C:Documents and SettingsDavidLocal SettingsTemp

%CommonProgramFiles% – Opens the Common Program Files directory; e. g., C:Program FilesCommon Files

%ALLUSERSPROFILE% – Opens the Common (Shared) User Profile directory; e. g., C:Documents and SettingsAll Users

%MSDevDir% – Opens the main (common, shared) Visual Studio program directory, if you have Microsoft Visual Studio 6 installed; e. g., C:Program FilesMicrosoft Visual StudioCommonMSDev98

In general, you can open any single directory named in an environment string by surrounding its name with percent characters. By “single directory,” I mean that you cannot use the PATH environment string in this way, because it contains a list of directories.

These magic strings have many other uses, too, including the following.

[*]Desktop shortcuts[*]Batch file commands (in either .BAT or .CMD files[*]In commands entered at a command prompt, including both the program call, itself, and its arguments, if any

I use them almost daily.

David A. Gray

Designing for the Ages, One Challenge at a Time

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And don’t forget the Windows key – I use it to open Explorer (Winkey + E), and to access the system page (Winkey + Pause).

There are many other direct accesses that can be made with winkey, network, printing etc.

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