Is there an equivalent of 'which' on the Windows command line?

Question

As I sometimes have path problems, where one of my own cmd scripts is hidden (shadowed) by another program (earlier on the path), I would like to be able to find the full pa

Answer 1

In PowerShell, it is gcm, which gives formatted information about other commands. If you want to retrieve only path to executable, use .Source.

For instance: gcm git or (gcm git).Source

Tidbits:

• Available for Windows XP.
• Available since PowerShell 1.0.
• gcm is an alias of Get-Command cmdlet.
• Without any parameters, it lists down all the available commands offered by the host shell.
• You can create a custom alias with Set-Alias which gcm and use it like: (which git).Source.
• Official docs: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176842.aspx

Answer 2

Here is a function which I made to find executable similar to the Unix command 'WHICH`

app_path_func.cmd:

@ECHO OFF
CLS

FOR /F "skip=2 tokens=1,2* USEBACKQ" %%N IN (`reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\%~1" /t REG_SZ  /v "Path"`) DO (
 IF /I "%%N" == "Path" (
  SET wherepath=%%P%~1
  GoTo Found
 )
)

FOR /F "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %%F IN (`where.exe %~1`) DO (
 SET wherepath=%%F
 GoTo Found
)

FOR /F "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %%F IN (`where.exe /R "%PROGRAMFILES%" %~1`) DO (
 SET wherepath=%%F
 GoTo Found
)

FOR /F "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %%F IN (`where.exe /R "%PROGRAMFILES(x86)%" %~1`) DO (
 SET wherepath=%%F
 GoTo Found
)

FOR /F "tokens=* USEBACKQ" %%F IN (`where.exe /R "%WINDIR%" %~1`) DO (
 SET wherepath=%%F
 GoTo Found
)

:Found
SET %2=%wherepath%
:End

Test:

@ECHO OFF
CLS

CALL "app_path_func.cmd" WINWORD.EXE PROGPATH
ECHO %PROGPATH%

PAUSE

Result:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\
Press any key to continue . . .

https://www.freesoftwareservers.com/display/FREES/Find+Executable+via+Batch+-+Microsoft+Office+Example+-+WINWORD+-+Find+Microsoft+Office+Path

Answer 3

I have a function in my PowerShell profile named 'which'

function which {
    get-command $args[0]| format-list
}

Here's what the output looks like:

PS C:\Users\fez> which python


Name            : python.exe
CommandType     : Application
Definition      : C:\Python27\python.exe
Extension       : .exe
Path            : C:\Python27\python.exe
FileVersionInfo : File:             C:\Python27\python.exe
                  InternalName:
                  OriginalFilename:
                  FileVersion:
                  FileDescription:
                  Product:
                  ProductVersion:
                  Debug:            False
                  Patched:          False
                  PreRelease:       False
                  PrivateBuild:     False
                  SpecialBuild:     False
                  Language:

Answer 4

Go get unxutils from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/unxutils/

gold on windows platforms, puts all the nice unix utilities on a standard windows DOS. Been using it for years.

It has a 'which' included. Note that it's case sensitive though.

NB: to install it explode the zip somewhere and add ...\UnxUtils\usr\local\wbin\ to your system path env variable.

Answer 5

If you have PowerShell installed (which I recommend), you can use the following command as a rough equivalent (substitute programName for your executable's name):

($Env:Path).Split(";") | Get-ChildItem -filter programName*

More is here: My Manwich! PowerShell Which

Answer 6

Under PowerShell, Get-Command will find executables anywhere in $Env:PATH.

Get-Command eventvwr

CommandType   Name          Definition
-----------   ----          ----------
Application   eventvwr.exe  c:\windows\system32\eventvwr.exe
Application   eventvwr.msc  c:\windows\system32\eventvwr.msc

It also finds PowerShell cmdlets, functions, aliases, files with custom executables extensions via $Env:PATHEXT, etc. defined for the current shell (quite akin to Bash's type -a foo) - making it a better go-to than other tools like where.exe, which.exe, etc which are unaware of these PowerShell commands.

Finding executables using only part of the name

gcm *disk*

CommandType     Name                             Version    Source
-----------     ----                             -------    ------
Alias           Disable-PhysicalDiskIndication   2.0.0.0    Storage
Alias           Enable-PhysicalDiskIndication    2.0.0.0    Storage
Function        Add-PhysicalDisk                 2.0.0.0    Storage
Function        Add-VirtualDiskToMaskingSet      2.0.0.0    Storage
Function        Clear-Disk                       2.0.0.0    Storage
Cmdlet          Get-PmemDisk                     1.0.0.0    PersistentMemory
Cmdlet          New-PmemDisk                     1.0.0.0    PersistentMemory
Cmdlet          Remove-PmemDisk                  1.0.0.0    PersistentMemory
Application     diskmgmt.msc                     0.0.0.0    C:\WINDOWS\system32\diskmgmt.msc
Application     diskpart.exe                     10.0.17... C:\WINDOWS\system32\diskpart.exe
Application     diskperf.exe                     10.0.17... C:\WINDOWS\system32\diskperf.exe
Application     diskraid.exe                     10.0.17... C:\WINDOWS\system32\diskraid.exe
...

Finding custom executables

To find other non-windows executables (python, ruby, perl, etc), file extensions for those executables need to be added to the PATHEXT environmental variable (defaults to .COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC;.CPL) to identify files with these extensions in the PATH as executable. As Get-Command also honours this variable, it can be extended to list custom executables. e.g.

$Env:PATHEXT="$Env:PATHEXT;.dll;.ps1;.psm1;.py"     # temporary assignment, only for this shell's process

gcm user32,kernel32,*WASM*,*http*py

CommandType     Name                        Version    Source
-----------     ----                        -------    ------
ExternalScript  Invoke-WASMProfiler.ps1                C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Invoke-WASMProfiler.ps1
Application     http-server.py              0.0.0.0    C:\Users\ME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\http-server.py
Application     kernel32.dll                10.0.17... C:\WINDOWS\system32\kernel32.dll
Application     user32.dll                  10.0.17... C:\WINDOWS\system32\user32.dll

You can quickly set up an alias with sal which gcm (short form of set-alias which get-command).

More information and examples can be found under the online help for Get-Command.