What is the equivalent of the bin directory for Windows?

Is there an equivalent to bin for Windows? If so, how can I access it from the command prompt?

Solution 1:

There's nothing actually special about /bin on Unix/Linux at all. It's just the location where executable files (including scripts, which aren't actually binary files) are placed by convention, and it is included in the PATH environment variable by default for all users. As Ryan says, the \Windows\System32 directory on Windows is also in PATH for all Windows users (and, even if it isn't, Windows' program loader will search there anyhow).

You can easily create your own equivalent of /bin on Windows. To make it system-wide, place it somewhere like the root of the file system (as in C:\bin) or under an already-restricted location like \Windows\System32\bin), and add it to the PATH environment variable for all users. For a per-user location, create the directory in your own profile (%USERPROFILE%\bin) and add it to your account's PATH environment variable. Windows combines the per-user and system-wide PATH environment variables, so anything in the machine PATH variable is also added to any user's PATH, but not the other way around.

Of course, you'll have to add files / scripts / shortcuts / symlinks to your bin directory yourself. Windows installers don't expect such a thing, and won't put files there automatically the way that Linux installers will usually do.

Solution 2:

The bin directory in Unix-like systems contains the programs of the system and the installed ones, but in Windows, system programs are located in C:\Windows\System32 and installed ones are likely located in C:\Program Files.

Solution 3:

If you're referring to bin, like in Unix/Linux, not quite. Windows doesn't use the FHS as shared by different Unix variants. Though Windows does keep stuff all over the place, just like Unix does.

The closest thing to /bin might be c:\windows\system32

cd c:\windows\system32

Solution 4:

As others have said, it's not clear exactly you mean by "equivalent", but many of the commands commonly used on the command line are either built into cmd.exe (dir, copy, type, mkdir, etc) even when the Unix equivalent would be in /bin, and others (findstr, net, mountvol, shutdown, tasklist, etc) are mostly located in (typically) C:\Windows\System32 (32-bit versions on 64-bit systems in c:\Windows\SysWOW64).

A list of commands can be shown with the help command, this includes some that are built-in to cmd.exe and some that are external programs.