Question

PowerShell runs programs such as IpConfig and WhoAmI just as cmd would. However, I am stumped trying to run MpCmdRun.exe

Clear-Host
Set-Location "C:\Program Files\Windows Defender"
Get-ChildItem
mpcmdrun.exe

Result

Error:

mpcmdrun.exe : The term ‘mpcmdrun.exe’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable
program.

Answer 1

You are doing mpcmdrun.exe. You have to do .\mpcmdrun.exe as the current folder . is not in PATH in Powershell unlike in cmd.

PS:

I wonder if you read the entire message that Powershell would have spit out when you did as you said:

Suggestion [3,General]: The command MpCmdRun.exe was not found, but
does exist in the current location. Windows PowerShell does not load
commands from the current location by default. If you trust this
command, instead type “.\MpCmdRun.exe”. See “get-help
about_Command_Precedence” for more details.

PPS:

The other commands ran because they were in PATH.