How to make an alias for the Windows command line?

If you are working on Linux, you probably already know that making command line aliases is very easy to your bash console with alias command. How about windows? This article will show you how to make easy windows command line aliases using simple Batch scripts.

Getting familiar with Path

Like on Linux we have the Path environmental variable on windows command line. Path environmental variable gives an indication to your environment on where to look for a given command.

You can change path variable while you are on the command line or on Windows PowerShell. For usual command line, you can use the following:

path=%path%;c:\AddMeToPath

Or for PowerShell:

$env:Path += ";c:\AddMeToPath"

Now whatever executable command under c:\AddMeToPath will be available under this command line.

If you would like to add the directory to your Path permanently, you can do this easily with following command:

setx /M PATH "%path%;c:\AddMeToPath"

Note that the above command requires you to be in an elevated console (i.e. a console that run as administrator)

You can also do this graphically by going to Advanced System Settings and finding Environmental Variables on the Advanced tab and appending the directory to Path variable.

Creating Aliases with Batch

First create a directory where you want your command aliases will stay such as c:\Aliases

Now go to this directory and create a new batch file hello-world.bat as following:

@echo off
echo "Hello World!"

Now let’s try this alias without changing the Path permanently:

Enjoy your many aliases!