Open Explorer Window from Command Prompt to Your Current Location

Contributed by davak January 17, 2005  
Tagged: Windows

You are 8 directories deep in the command prompt and you want to open an explorer window exactly where you are? Easy.

I had forgotten about this trick. I did it in front of one of my buddies who is a GUIs-suck-command-prompts-rock kinda guy, and he flipped. Maybe I can slowly convert him over to the real world.

So you have navigated deep into a complicated folder structure with your command prompt… like this for example:

C:\Documents and Settings\xxx\My Documents\old documents\1997\tax\backup

You decide, “Hey, I probably could do this easier with an explorer window.”
But, you think “Crap, I don’t want to click and click until I find this directory again.”

Either one of these commands will accomplish your needs…

start .
explorer .

Do notice the space and dot after the command. This is what points explorer to the correct directory. By entering either of these commands, the explorer window will open to your current folder in your command prompt.