Using Aliases to Launch Windows Components

by Feb 25, 2014

PowerShell is not just an automation language but also an alternate user interface. If you do not like the graphical interface, educate PowerShell to open the tools you need via easy alias names.

For example, to open the device manager, you could use its original name:

If you do not want to remember this name, use an alias:

As you can see, to open the device manager, all you now need is enter "DeviceManager". You can also just enter "Device" and press TAB to use auto-completion.

Aliases will vanish when PowerShell closes, so to keep your aliases, add the Set-Alias command(s) to your profile script. The path can be found in $profile. You may have to create this file (and its parent folders) first if it does not yet exist. Test-Path can check if it is already present or not.

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