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I've been using various linux distributions for quite some time now and become accustomed to using the "~" key to indicate "home" when typing in paths.

Today, working in Windows 7, I found myself doing the same thing in the "File Name" field of a "File Open" dialog. I realized that I could substitute %HOMEPATH%, but this seems too long for repeated use. It's certainly fine for scripting though (IMO).

Is there an equivalent to "~" in Windows? If not, is there a way to implement "~" as the %HOMEPATH% variable? I tried creating a System variable with "~" and the OS hasn't given me any trouble with this (as far as I can tell), but it doesn't seem to work.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

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3 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

no. (to all of your questions)

the way of the hackerish-crazy: use autohotkey to check any typed key for "~", check that the user really means "~" and then replace that with the full path of %USERPROFILE% / %HOMEPATH%. but in general: no.

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up vote 2 down vote

The only thing you can do is set the variable of ~ to your home directory:

set ~=%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%

Which if you echo out the value of the variable:

echo %~%

You will see your home directory...

But if you do this inside of the command prompt you wont be able to use it inside of Windows. If you goto control panel -> System -> Advanced System Settings (or just Advanced if on XP) click on Environment Variables and click New under System Variables and set the variable name to ~ and the Variable Value to %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH% and click ok. You should be able to "run" %~% and it will take you to your home directory. Unfourntally, you cannot access the variable without the percent signs.

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Ok, this makes the most sense. So I tried your suggestion and am not able to get it working (in Windows 7 -- haven't tried other Windows OS). I first tried this as a system variable and it simply outputs %~% as the literal "%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%". However, I can echo, or type into explorer %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH% and it works just fine. This is also true when using 'set' on command line. I've done some searching in Google, but haven't found anything so far. Thanks for the suggestion. – seedofc Oct 25 '09 at 18:08
It works fine for me, are you putting quotes when you are setting the Variable value? If yes, then you should take them out because with quotes Windows treats anything inside the quotes as a literal. – Nathan Adams Oct 25 '09 at 18:53
Hmm.. no quotes. – seedofc Oct 25 '09 at 19:05
remplace "%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%" with the real address eg. c:\users\<username>\ – Revolter Oct 25 '09 at 19:36
btw, it's %USERPROFILE% .. the equivalent to $HOME – akira Oct 26 '09 at 13:07
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up vote 0 down vote

Perhaps this works for you too:

  1. Open Explorer and browse to the directory/folder containing your user dir.
  2. Right click and select Send to desktop as shortcut.
  3. Go to your desktop and rename that shortcut to ~.
  4. Open Explorer again on a random directory and input ~ in the address bar.
  5. It should take you to your home directory.

Not really suited for command line usage though. An alias would work here though

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You may also try C:\>doskey ~=cd C:\Users\yourusername . Then simply type ~ . – mr-euro Oct 25 '09 at 17:46
Perhaps a hardlink to the directory: fsutil hardlink create dir dir – mr-euro Oct 25 '09 at 17:51
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