Using PowerShell as the Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt

Overview

The Visual Studio Developer Command Prompt is a command window that loads up a bunch of useful environmental enhancements when it starts.  This let's you access things like sn.exe from your command window.  However, it loads up in cmd.exe and I prefer using PowerShell 'cos it's proper useful!  This article shows one way making PowerShell act like the Developer Command Prompt.

Adjust your PowerShell Profile

When PowerShell loads it looks for a profile file under your user profile and loads that if found.  By default, the profile file is:

\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1

Note that you can access your documents folder path from PowerShell like so:

$([environment]::getfolderpath("mydocuments")

If that file isn't there, create it, add the following code and save it:

	function Invoke-Environment {
	# Source: http://stackoverflow.com/a/4385011/2608
	# and https://github.com/nightroman/PowerShelf/blob/master/Invoke-Environment.ps1
	param
	(
	[Parameter(Mandatory=1)][string]$Command,
	[switch]$Output,
	[switch]$Force
	)
	$stream = if ($Output) { ($temp = [IO.Path]::GetTempFileName()) } else { 'nul' }
	$operator = if ($Force) {'&'} else {'&&'}
	foreach($_ in cmd /c " $Command > `"$stream`" 2>&1 $operator SET") {
	if ($_ -match '^([^=]+)=(.*)') {
	[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable($matches[1], $matches[2])
	}
	}
	if ($Output) {
	Get-Content -LiteralPath $temp
	Remove-Item -LiteralPath $temp
	}
	}
	# Configures the environment as per the VS Developer Command Prompt.
	function As-VSPrompt {
	# VS 2013
	Invoke-Environment '"%VS120COMNTOOLS%\vsvars32.bat"'
	}

view raw invoke-environment.ps1 hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Adjust the environment in the last line above according to your VS installation.

Load in PowerShell

Open up a new PowerShell window (existing windows will not have loaded the profile we've just saved).  Type sn and to show that you don't have access to sn.exe:

Then type As-VSPrompt and hit .  This will load up the Developer Command Prompt profile.  Type sn and again and you see sn.exe reporting for duty: