How can I run PowerShell commands without enclosing arguments in quotes?

Question

When I try to run a program with a command line option from the PowerShell prompt, PowerShell ends up mangling the option. Why does this happen? Is there any way to stop it besides enclosing the option in quotes?

For example, from the PowerShell prompt:

PS Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::\\\\mach\share> .\myprog.exe -file=input.txt

myprog.exe ends up getting two arguments:

1. -file=input
2. .txt

I need to run it like:

.\myprog.exe "-file=input.txt"

or

.\myprog.exe '-file=input.txt'

to force it to be one argument. No other shell does this.

Answer 1

This is related to the first character of the parameter, ie the -

For example file=input.txt , /file=input.txt and --file=input.txt will probably all work, but not -file=input.txt.

Quite a lot of programs would accept /file=input.txt inplace of -file=input.txt which may allow a workaround.