Command aliases in DOS?

Question

How can I make command aliases in DOS like I would with bash?

I found out about doskey in a forum thread, so I can do something like:

doskey ls=dir /b

...and now the command ls acts a little more like ls on Unix. (I type ls so often in DOS, it isn't even funny.)

But how do I get this to stick between sessions? It goes away the next time I open cmd.exe. (Is there something like .bash_profile?)

Answer 1

cygwin can be used in this case although this is not exactly an on-topic answer.

http://www.cygwin.com/ CygWin
Download: http://cygwin.com/setup.exe

To access it easily in windows, you can put c:\cygwin\bin in your path.

note that there are a few command that clashes with windows software which is not equivalent e.g. find(1) vs find.exe -- find(1) lists all files and subdirectories whereas find.exe functions like grep.

another option is to access

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun or HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun

check out

 cmd.exe /? 

for more details

Answer 2

It is rather easy setup permanent alias in command prompt for Windows using the @DOSKEY command and HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor Autorun option.

Quick step-by-step guide:

1. Create a new batch file, call it Alias.bat. Copy/paste the text below. TIP: I recommend creating a C:\Bin folder for all your command line tools.
2. Open the register HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor.
3. Add an String Value named Autorun and set the value to absolute path of the Alias.bat file.
4. Done.

This batch file will execute every time you open a command prompt.

Contents of Alias.bat

@ECHO OFF 
@DOSKEY ls=DIR $* 
@DOSKEY cp=COPY $* 
@DOSKEY xcp=XCOPY $*
@DOSKEY mv=MOVE $* 
@DOSKEY clear=CLS
@DOSKEY h=DOSKEY /HISTORY

HTH,

Answer 3

There is a registry entry at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Command Processor\AutoRun which allows you to run a command when you start a cmd prompt. This includes a batch file.

Answer 4

Also sort of off-topic - Use PowerShell instead of the DOS command line. The good news is that PowerShell has the equivalent of .bash_profile, and runs just like the DOS command line. It comes with a built-in alias generation feature. The bad news is that there is a bit of a learning curve if you want to do anything more complicated than simple DOS commands.

By the way, 'ls' is defined as an alias of 'dir', right out of the box.

Answer 5

Try putting them in autoexec.bat. I'm not sure, you'll have to try it. Put autoexec.bat itself in C:\

Answer 6

Put your aliases into a file called, perhaps, alias.cmd and add /K \path\to\alias.cmd to the shortcut that you use to start cmd.exe.

Reference