What is the alternative for ~ (user's home directory) on Windows command prompt?

Question

I\'m trying to use the command prompt to move some files, I am used to the linux terminal where I use ~ to specify the my home directory I\'ve looked everywhere

Answer 1

You can %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH% for the drive + \docs settings\username or \users\username.

Answer 2

I just tried set ~=%userprofile% and that works too if you want to keep using the same habit

You can then use %~% instead.

Answer 3

If you want a shorter version of Jay's you could try

    set usr=%userprofile%
    cd %usr%

Or you could even use %u% if you wanted to. It saves some keystrokes anyway.

Answer 4

You can also do cd ......\ as many times as there are folders that takes you to home directory. For example, if you are in cd:\windows\syatem32, then cd ....\ takes you to the home, that is c:\

Answer 5

You're going to be disappointed: %userprofile%

You can use other terminals, though. Powershell, which I believe you can get on XP and later (and comes preinstalled with Win7), allows you to use ~ for home directory.

Answer 6

You can use %systemdrive%%homepath% environment variable to accomplish this.

The two command variables when concatenated gives you the desired user's home directory path as below:

1. Running echo %systemdrive% on command prompt gives:

   C:
   

2. Running echo %homepath% on command prompt gives:

   \Users\<CurrentUserName>
   

When used together it becomes:

C:\Users\<CurrentUserName>