PowerShell Quick Tip: Accessing the ProgramFiles(x86) Environment Variable

Accessing environment variables in PowerShell is easy, either:

dir env:

to view all of them, or:

dir env:ProgramFiles

to access a specific one. However, if you try that for the ProgramFiles(x86) environment variable you are greeted with the following error:

PS C:\\> dir env:ProgramFiles(x86) x86 : The term 'x86' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.

 

There are a few ways around this:

dir env:ProgramFiles\`(x86\`)

dir "env:ProgramFiles(x86)"

${Env:ProgramFiles(x86)}

\[Environment\]::GetEnvironmentVariable("ProgramFiles(x86)")