Question

When you use a .NET object from PowerShell, and it takes a filename, it always seems to be relative to C:\Windows\System32.

For example:

[IO.File]::WriteAllText('hello.txt', 'Hello World')

…will write C:\Windows\System32\hello.txt, rather than C:\Current\Directory\hello.txt

Why does PowerShell do this? Can this behaviour be changed? If it can’t be changed, how do I work around it?

I’ve tried Resolve-Path, but that only works with files that already exist, and it’s far too verbose to be doing all the time.

Answer 1

The reasons PowerShell doesn’t keep the .NET notion of current working directory in sync with PowerShell’s notion of the working dir are:

1. PowerShell working dirs can be in a provider that isn’t even file system
   based e.g. HKLM:\Software
2. A single PowerShell process can have
   multiple runspaces. Each runspace can be cd`d into a different file
   system location. However the .NET/process “working directory” is
   essentially a global for the process and wouldn’t work for a
   scenario where there can be multiple working dirs (one per runspace).