WindowsPowerShell Rename Item

Question

When I attempt to rename a contracts folder to capitalize the contracts folder I'm receiving an error for renaming it. I've tried "rename-item contracts Contracts" as well. Anyone know if I can force the command or do i need to change my syntax?

PS C:\> rename-item -Path .\contracts\ -NewName .\Contracts\
rename-item : Cannot rename the specified target, because it represents a path or device name.
At line:1 char:1
+ rename-item -Path .\contracts\ -NewName .\Contracts\
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [Rename-Item], PSArgumentException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Argument,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RenameItemCommand

Answer 1

Rename-Item is (and filenames in general in Windows are) not case sensitive.

You need to rename it to a temp file and then rename to desired name.

Two steps, as below,

Rename-Item -Path ".\contracts" -NewName ".\contracts_temp" -PassThru | Rename-Item -NewName ".\Contracts"

Answer 2

You need to remove the trailing "\" from the path parameter.

rename-item .\contracts .\Contracts

or

rename-item -Path .\contracts -NewName .\Contracts

Answer 3

Abdullah Leghari's helpful answer provides an effective workaround, but it's worth stating that what you tried should work if you remove the trailing \ (and, optionally, the leading .\):

• A trailing \ (or /) in the -NewName argument rightfully results in the error message you saw, because the -NewName argument by definition accepts a name only, not a path (however, a leading .\ by itself is quietly tolerated, even though it arguably shouldn't be either, for consistency).

• However, in case-insensitive file systems (by default: Windows, macOS), it should be possible to rename a directory to a case variation of it, which currently only works with files.

  • See GitHub issue #14903.

In short:

Rename-Item -Path .\contracts\ -NewName Contracts

should work and, if the stated bug is fixed, will work in a future PowerShell (Core) version (but won't ever in Windows PowerShell, which will see no updates except critical bug fixes).