Windows Developer Power Tools

23.6 Opening a Shell Where You Need It with Command Prompt Here

Small things make a big difference, like being able to open a command prompt from an Explorer window via the context menu. It’s even better when you can open a command prompt that has your Visual Studio environment properly configured. What about launching a PowerShell command prompt with the same steps?

Making all this possible involves hacking the registry a bit. Thankfully, Mike Gunderloy and Scott Hanselman, both recognized leaders in the tool-geek category, have created .inf files to handle those registry changes for you. Gunderloy modified the original CMD Prompt Here PowerToy from Microsoft, creating a variant for Visual Studio 2003’s prompt. Hanselman ran with that change, creating first a version for Visual Studio 2005 and then a separate hack for PowerShell.

Command Prompts at a Glance
Tool	Visual Studio Command Prompt Here (2003 and 2005) PowerShell Command Prompt Here
Versions covered	None given
Home page	http://www.hanselman.com/blog/VisualStudioCommandPromptHereAndSearchUnknownFileExtensions.aspx http://www.hanselman.com/blog/IntroducingPowerShellPromptHere.aspx
Power Tools page	http://www.windevpowertools.com/tools/168
Summary	Open a command window with all the environment variables set for Visual Studio 2003 or 2005 (or start a PowerShell prompt) just by right-clicking
License type	Freeware
Online resources	Author’s ...