Question

In Powershell I am defining a new PSDrive called test. But when I type test: at the console it throws an error. If I type cd test: it works fine.

Shouldn’t I be able to navigate to the test drive just by typing test:?

PS> New-PSDrive -name test -psprovider FileSystem -root C:\test

WARNING: column "CurrentLocation" does not fit into the display and was removed.

Name           Used (GB)     Free (GB) Provider      Root
----           ---------     --------- --------      ----
test                            128.42 FileSystem    C:\test


PS> test:
The term 'test:' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:6
    + test: <<<<
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (test::String) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

Answer 1

You have to define a function called “test:” that calls Set-Location test: like so:

function test: {Set-Location test:}

To see that this is also how the other drive names are working enter the following commands:

cd function:
dir

You will see that the other drive aliases have been mapped to their proper command using a function. So C: is just a function name that calls Set-Location C:.

Btw, the cd command is just an alias for Set-Location.