PromptExplore

Before all the shiny visual styles found in an operating system and applications, most commands had to be issued through the Command Prompt. This is still a powerful tool which is commonly used for advanced operations where an interface does more harm. As such, PromptExplore comes as a simple means of letting you run the Command Prompt directly from an Explorer window.

The application comes in a lightweight package which can easily be carried around on a thumb drive to enable this feature on more computers besides your own. Just be sure to run the application with administrator privileges so it’s able to write the appropriate registry entries to enable the Command Prompt in the context menu.

A compact main window shows up on launch, with an appropriate description of what you’re about to enable, and the specific trigger button. It is not relevant where exactly the application is launched, because it enables it for all Explorer windows. Your choice is remembered, and running the application again lets you disable the Command Prompt from the context menu.

However, the application’s practicality is rather questionable because Windows already comes with an option to launch the Command Prompt from any location. This is simply done by holding down the Shift key when accessing the context menu. What’s more, none of the two options launch an elevated instance of the tool.

You only need to run the application one time to enable its feature. In case you need to quickly, and frequently trigger this, it’s possible to assign a hotkey command from the shortcut’s Properties panel, but there’s a change it doesn’t work, since the application mostly requires administrator privileges.

All things considered, we can say that PromptExplore is mostly a one-time operation to enable the Command Prompt in any Explorer context menu. Sadly, there’s a high chance it fails to deliver this on modern Windows iterations, which are already fitted with the possibility to launch the Command Prompt this way.