cd Program Files error: positional parameter cannot be found - powershell

Question

PS C:\> cd Program Files
When I give this command, I don't know why, but it is not accepting Program Files. The same command is working perfectly fine in cmd.
This is the error it shows:
Set-Location : A positional parameter cannot be found that accepts argument 'Files'.
At line:1 char:1
+ cd Program Files
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (:) [Set-Location], ParameterBindingException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PositionalParameterNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SetLocationCommand

Answer 1

tl;dr
Since your directory name contains spaces, you must quote it, e.g.:
# Note: In PowerShell, 'cd' is an alias of 'Set-Location'
cd 'Program Files'
As stated in Maximilian Burszley's helpful answer, Program Files is parsed as two arguments, because spaces are used to separate command-line arguments.
Your attempt to use cd Program Files may be inspired by cmd.exe (the legacy Command Prompt), where this syntax indeed works; however, even there it conceptually violates the usual rules of argument parsing.
Therefore, you need to use a form of quoting in order to pass a value that contains spaces as a single argument.
You have several options to implement this quoting:
Use '...' around values that are literals, i.e., that should be used verbatim; a '...' string is called a verbatim (single-quoted) string.
Use "..." around values in which you want to embed variable references (e.g., $HOME) or subexpressions (e.g., $(Get-Date); that is, "..." strings perform string interpolation, and they're called expandable (double-quoted) strings.
Use ` to quote (escape) a single character; `, the so-called backtick, is PowerShell's general escape character.
Therefore, you could use any of the following:
cd 'Program Files'
cd "Program Files" # as there are no $-prefixed tokens, same as 'Program Files'
cd Program` Files # `-escape just the space char.
Also, you can use tab-completion to expand the (space-less) prefix of a space-containing path to its full form with quoting applied implicitly.
E.g., if you're in C:\ and you type:
cd Program<tab>
PowerShell automatically completes the command to:
cd '.\Program Files\'
Note how the Program Files (along with .\ to refer to the current dir. and a trailing \ to indicate a dir.) was automatically single-quoted.
Using wildcard expressions as arguments:
As noted, in PowerShell cd is a built-in alias of the Set-Location cmdlet.
Passing a path positionally - e.g. Set-Location 'C:\Program Files' - implicitly binds it to the -Path parameter; that is it, is equivalent to Set-Location -Path 'C:\Program Files'
-Path interprets its argument as a wildcard expression, so that you can do something like Set-Location C:\Win* in order to change to C:\Windows (assuming that the wildcard expression matches only one directory).
The tricky thing is that - unlike in cmd.exe - it isn't just * and ? that have special meaning in PowerShell wildcard expressions, but [ and ] as well (for character-set and character-range expressions such as [abc] and [a-c]), so that Set-Location Foo[1] will not work for changing to a directory literally named Foo[1].
In that case, you must use the -LiteralPath parameter -
Set-Location -LiteralPath Foo[1] - to ensure that the path is interpreted literally (verbatim).

Answer 2

cd C:\Program` Files\
` just escape the space in folder name.

Answer 3

The reason is invalid syntax. Each argument to a powershell command is separated by space, so what you're actually doing is something similar to:
Set-Location -Path Program -Arg2 Files
But Set-Location (aliased: cd) does not have any positional arguments for a second position, so it can't bind it to any parameters and use it in the command, hence the terminating error.
If you want a simpler cd alias, you could do something like this (in your $profile):
function ChangeDirectory {
param(
[Parameter(
Position = 0,
Mandatory,
ValueFromRemainingArguments
)]
[string[]] $Path
)
Set-Location -Path ($Path -join ' ')
}
Set-Alias -Name cd -Value ChangeDirectory
Do note, however, that if you're not specifying a relative path (.\), it will use the root path of your current drive (most likely, C:\). This can be tuned in the function to test for both locations (relative and drive-rooted), but logic for figuring out which one to use if they both exist would be tricky (or can always default to relative).

Answer 4

Use quotes (double or single) to go to the folder or path contains white spaces or special symbols.
Forexample:-
cd "C:\Users\LAPTOP0534\OneDrive - My Content (Active Directory)"
OR
cd 'OneDrive - My Content (Active Directory)\My Folder'
For your case it will be PS C:\> cd "Program Files"

Answer 5

Just run your command prompt as administrator .
See the picture attached.
It will run easily

Answer 6

This is because of the space between the sentences. Enter code here You complete the tab.
Replace PS F: > cd new folder with PS F: > cd "new folder" in the PowerShell. Or look at F: > cd './new folder'. I'm a beginner and you should try this.