How can I find out the actual path to an EXE or BAT file?

Question

If I have a long and involved PATH and I type the name of some command, how do I find out where the EXE or BAT file actually lives. I thought TRUENAME did this but it's gone from XP and I'm not sure it did exactly what I want.

So I want to be able to type

WHEREIS "Obscure Tool.exe"

and I get:

C:\Program Files\Obscure Tools Limited\Obscure Tool\Obscure Tool.exe

when the folder C:\Program Files\Obscure Tools Limited\Obscure Tool\ is on my path. What is WHEREIS called, or can it be done with a batch file?

Answer 1

Using powershell you can use the Get-Command tool.exe

Answer 2

If you have GnuWin32 it's as simple as:

which ObscureTool.exe

Even better, if you're invoking it by name only (without an extension, as in "ObscureTool"), it'll still find the right thing. This might be an issue if you have two "executable" files: "ObscureTool.exe" and "ObscureTool.bat". In this case, WHICH will find the one that occurs first in the path. In this case, you'd merely say"

which ObscureTool

Answer 3

It all depends from what command interpreter one is running, and there isn't an external utility that is going to do this properly in all cases. This is for a very imporant reason:

Different command interpreters look for commands in different ways.

Only a command built in to each individual command interpreter will truly know what will be invoked by a particular command name.

• For JP Software's TCC, simply use its built-in which command. This understands TCC's aliases, executable extensions, and path search algorithm.

  [c:\]which mspaint dir
  mspaint is an external : C:\Windows\system32\mspaint.exe
  dir is an internal command
  [c:\]

• For the Korn shell, ksh, as available in the SFUA utility toolkit (which run in the Subsystem for UNIX-based Applications that comes right there in the box with Windows 7 Ultimate edition and Windows Server 2008 R2) use its built-in whence command. This understands the Korn shell's aliases, functions, built-in commands, and so forth.

  $ whence -v ls
  ls is a tracked alias for /bin/ls
  $

• For the Bourne-Again shell, bash, as available for Services for Unix Applications as well as in Cygwin, use its built-in type command. This understands the Boune-Again shell's aliases, functions, built-in commands, and so forth.

  $ type '['
  [ is a shell builtin
  $

• For Microsoft's command interpreter, cmd, you're out of luck. There's no built-in command for doing this; and although one can employ external commands that will replicate the path search algorithm, those commands will not necessarily (or even usually) recognize aliases and built-in commands. For examples: Here is the GnuWin32 which command failing to recognize dir (in contrast with TCC's built-in which command above):

  C:\>which dir
  which: no dir in (.;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem)
  C:\>

  And here is the where command mentioned by grawity below failing in exactly the same fashion:

  C:\>where dir
  INFO: Could not find files for the given pattern(s).
  C:\>

Answer 4

You could use 'dir', the directory listing tool:

dir "c:\Obscure Tool.exe" /s/b

The /s means search subdirectories, and since you are starting in the root folder (C:) it will search all the folders on that drive.
The /b makes it display the result in "bare" format with no heading information or summary (ie. you will just get the path and filename).