Changing default startup directory for command prompt in Windows 7

Question

How do I change default startup directory for command prompt in Windows 7   I usually do the following to start command prompt from C       WIN-R  Run Prompt    cmd  K cd C     I want to do the following to start command prompt from C       WIN-R  Run Prompt    cmd

User · Answer

Open regedit and browse to this path  HKEY CURRENT USER Software Microsoft Command Processor   Create new string vale named Autorun  Set its value to cd  d C     Run cmd again  Voila

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I think the easiest way is to make a cmd shortcut  then change the shortcut s  Start in  directory to the one you want to start with

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changing shortcut under Windows System on 8 1 worked for me - another thing I found is that  Start In   WORKS when Advanced -  Run as admin is UNCHECKED  however  if CHECKED  it does not work

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Make a shortcut pointing to cmd exe somwhere  e g  desktop  then right-click on the copy and select  properties   Navigate to the  Shortcut  menu and change the  Start in   directory

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My default dir was system32 when starting CMD   I then created a batch file in that directory to change dir to the one I was after   This caused me to always call that bat when starting CMD every time  So I made a reg file  amp  put this inside   Windows Registry Editor Version 5 00   HKEY CURRENT USER Software Microsoft Command Processor   Autorun   cd C   Users  Me  SomeFolder     After saving it  I opened the file  clicked ok to merge with registry  and since then every time I open CMD  I get my dir

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In the new Windows Terminal  you can click Settings and edit the line  startingDirectory  to achieve something similar   Please note  however  that this changes the default startup directory only in Windows Terminal  and not for the command prompt globally

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One easy way to do it   bonus   Start cmd with administrator rights  the default directory for the prompt will be C  WINDOWS system32   I created a bat file in that directory  notes bat  Opened it with notepad and wrote the following lines  Each line is followed with a comment which should not be added to the bat file    echo off  prompt  S CYourNamel F S G S     This is a comment  do not include it in the bat file - above line will make the prompt look like   YourName   gt      cd C  Your favorite directory    This is a comment  do not include it in the bat file - above line will navigate you to your desired directory      Saved the file and that was it   Now when You open cmd with admin rights  just write  notes or notes bat and it will execute the notes bat file with desired changes

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Edit  It actually seems that editing the file shortcut breaks the  Win x  c key shortcut   Moral of the story  only change system files you know how to fix  Eventually after a Windows update it repaired itself    What I ended up doing is creating a new customized Command Prompt shortcut in the start folder and pinned to the taskbar that I launch instead of cmd exe    As other answers point out  changing the registry Autorun cmd start location is a bad idea because it silently will break other programs that shell out for tasks  like Visual Studio Code   You should just change whatever shortcut you use to open cmd to have a Start In entry   If you use Win x  c to launch cmd  you can edit the Start In for     LOCALAPPDATA  Microsoft Windows WinX Group3 02 - Command Prompt lnk

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While adding a AutoRun entry to HKEY CURRENT USER Software Microsoft Command Processor like Shinnok s answer is the way to go it can also really mess things up  you really should try to detect a simple cmd exe startup vs a script program using cmd exe as a child process   IF  I x  COMSPEC    x CMDCMDLINE   cd  D c

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The following solution worked well for me   Navigate to the command prompt shortcut in the start menu   C  Users  your username  AppData Roaming Microsoft Windows Start Menu Programs Accessories Command Prompt  Right click on the shortcut file to open the properties dialog   Inside the  Start in   textbox you should see  HOMEDRIVE  HOMEPATH    If you want the prompt to start in C   just replace the variables with  C     without quotes    update  It appears that Microsoft has changed this behavior recently and so now an additional step is required   After performing the steps above copy the modified shortcut  Command Prompt  and rename it to  cmd    Then when typing  cmd  in the start menu it should once again work

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Bit late but ignore the registry mods  Simply change the shortcut target to   cmd  k  command    i e   cmd  k  cd myStartUpFolder    Voila

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regedit worked great   HKEY CURRENT USER SOFTWARE MICROSOFT Command Processor  all you have to do is change the AutoRun key value  which is already set to wherever you are currently getting dumped into to a new value in the format of    cd  d  lt drive path gt   for c    that would be cd  d c   for junk  that would be cd d  c  junk   its very simple  even a novice thats never used regedit should be able to figure it out   if not  go to the c  prompt and just type in regedit  then follow the path to the key

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This doesn t work for me   I ve tried this both under Win7 64bit and Vista 32   I m using the below commandline to add this capability   reg add  HKEY CURRENT USER Software Microsoft Command Processor   v AutoRun  t REG SZ  d  IF x  COMSPEC    x CMDCMDLINE   cd  D c

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Easiest way to do this   Click  Start  and type  cmd  or  command prompt   Select Top most search application named exactly same  cmd  or  command prompt   Right Click on it and select  Send To    Desktop   On Your Desktop New  cmd  Shortcut will appear Right Click on that icon and choose  properties  Popup will appear  In  Shortcut  Tab Type the new location in  Start In  option  e g D  xyz  Drag that icon and add pin it in  Task Bar

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Keep the opening of the command prompt clean   Avoid editing the registry key and adding an Autorun  it may come back to bite you  Create a simple batch file and save it in the C  Windows or C  Windows System32 folder    I call mine   bat  exclamation mark    It has the following commands    echo off c  cd   cls whoami  It goes to the folder where I need to work  clears the screen and tells me what security context I m in

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type   cmd exe  k cd c     in a text file and save as cmd bat Clicking this file does the trick  You can pin it to the start menu as well    To start in a partitioned drive  e g  D   use  cmd exe  k d

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HKEY CURRENT USER Software Microsoft Command Processor  string  Autorun value  cd  d   dp0  all bat files will run from the bat file location

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start in directory  command  cmd  K cd C  WorkSpace   but if WorkSpace happens to be on different than C drive  console will be launched in default folder and then you still need to put D  to change drive To avoid this use cd with -d parameter  cmd  K cd -d D  WorkSpace   create a shortcut and your fixed

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hi if you want cmd to automatically open when the machine starts up you can place the cmd exe executable in the startup folder just search for startup and place a shortcut of cmd exe there

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Use Windows Terminal and configure a starting directory  Partial settings json           Make changes here to the cmd exe profile       quot guid quot    quot  0caa0dad-35be-5f56-a8ff-afceeeaa6101  quot        quot name quot    quot Command Prompt quot        quot commandline quot    quot cmd exe quot        quot hidden quot   false       quot startingDirectory quot    quot C   DEV quot

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On windows 7     Do a search for  cmd  on your Windows computer   right-click cmd and left click  Pin to start menu   Alternatively  right-click cmd - click copy and then paste to your desktop   right-click the cmd in your start menu or on your desktop  depending on choice 2 above  - left click properties inside the  start in  text box paste the location of your default start directory  Press Apply and OK     Every time you click on the cmd in your start menu or your desktop shortcut  the CMD will open in your default location

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On Windows Start Menu  right click on Command Prompt   Click on  Properties     Command Prompt Properties  dialog box opens   Edit the field  Start in   to a location where you want to start the command prompt   Example  Chand  HOMEDRIVE  HOMEPATH  to D  PersonalPrograms   Next time when you start command prompt the start up directory will be D  PersonalPrograms

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go to regedit   go to search and type regedit  expand  HKEY CURRENT USER  node under HKEY CURRENT USER node expand  software  node under software node expand  microsoft  node under microsoft node click on  Command Processor  path looks like this    HKEY CURRENT USER Software Microsoft Command Processor    it looks something like this     if you do not see  Autorun  String Value Right Click - New - Expandable String Value  and rename it to Autorun double click on  Autorun   10 enter this value path format   CD d C  yourfoldername yoursubfoldername

[windows-7] Changing default startup directory for command prompt in Windows 7

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