Opening Windows Settings Dialogs (Fast) (Part 2)

by Nov 15, 2021

Previously, we introduced the moniker “ms-settings:” that is supported by Start-Process and can be used to open various windows settings dialogs. For example, to open your personal registration info page, run this:

 
PS> Start-Process ms-settings:yourinfo
 

Whenever you need to open a specific dialog regularly, for example checking for updates, you can now get there directly:

 
PS> Start-Process ms-settings:windowsupdate-action
 

However, you need to remember rather cryptic commands. You can’t define new command aliases either because these lines are no commands but commands plus arguments.

What you can do, though, is create simple functions. That’s always your bet when you need easy-to-remember shortcuts for commands PLUS arguments:

function update { Start-Process ms-settings:windowsupdate-action }

Once you run this line, you can now use the new “update” command to quickly check for Windows updates. If you want to keep these functions, either export them to a module, or place the function code into one of your profile (autostart) scripts. The path to your default profile script can be found in $profile. You may have to create the file if it does not yet exist, and enable script execution if you haven’t done so yet.


Twitter This Tip! ReTweet this Tip!