How to Find the Location of an Executable in PowerShell

To find the location of an executable in PowerShell, run Get-Command and read its Source property. It searches the folders in your PATH, just like running the program does:

(Get-Command -Name notepad).Source

Output:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\notepad.exe

Below I look up several programs at once, list every copy with -All and where.exe, and find where a running program lives. I used only the tools that ship with Windows.

Find the path of several programs

Pipe a list of names to Get-Command. -CommandType Application skips aliases and functions with the same name:

'notepad', 'ping', 'robocopy', 'powershell', 'winget' | ForEach-Object {
    '{0,-11} {1}' -f $_, (Get-Command -Name $_ -CommandType Application | Select-Object -First 1).Source
}

Output:

notepad     C:\WINDOWS\system32\notepad.exe
ping        C:\WINDOWS\system32\PING.EXE
robocopy    C:\WINDOWS\system32\Robocopy.exe
powershell  C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe
winget      C:\Users\alice\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\winget.exe

Programs from the Microsoft Store, like winget, run through small launchers in your WindowsApps folder. The real files sit in a protected folder under C:\Program Files\WindowsApps. Microsoft documents the cmdlet in the Get-Command reference.

Use gcm for short

gcm is the built-in alias, so (gcm notepad).Source gives the same result. The Path property works too for applications.

Find every copy with -All or where.exe

Get-Command returns the first match, which is the one that runs. Add -All to see the rest, or use where.exe:

"Get-Command -All:"
(Get-Command -Name notepad -All).Source
""
"where.exe:"
where.exe notepad

Output:

Get-Command -All:
C:\WINDOWS\system32\notepad.exe
C:\WINDOWS\notepad.exe
C:\Users\alice\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\notepad.exe

where.exe:
C:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe
C:\Windows\notepad.exe
C:\Users\alice\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\notepad.exe

Type where.exe in full, because plain where is an alias for Where-Object in PowerShell. The where command reference lists its options.

Find where a running program lives

For a program that’s already open, Get-Process has the path, even if it isn’t in PATH:

Get-Process -Name explorer | Select-Object -First 1 -ExpandProperty Path

Output:

C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE

Path can be empty for system processes unless you run PowerShell as administrator. Get-Process examples covers the cmdlet in more depth.

Find a program that isn’t in PATH

If Get-Command can’t find it, search the usual install folders. This can take a minute on a full drive:

Get-ChildItem -Path 'C:\Program Files', 'C:\Program Files (x86)' -Filter 'excel.exe' `
    -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | Select-Object -ExpandProperty FullName

-ErrorAction SilentlyContinue hides access errors from protected folders. Finding a file by name has faster search tips.

Frequently Asked Questions

You might also need these:

• Set and get environment variables
• Find a file by name
• Start a process
• Check the PowerShell version