Start-Process working in current dir but not with absolute path

Question

I am new to PowerShell and a bit confused right now.

Here are two examples which, in my view, are supposed to work the same way. But it seems I am wrong.

Example 1 :

$ Get-Location

Path
----
C:\Users\toto

$ cd .\Dev\nginx-1.22.1\
$ Start-Process .\nginx.exe
$ Get-Process -Name nginx

 NPM(K)    PM(M)      WS(M)     CPU(s)      Id  SI ProcessName
 ------    -----      -----     ------      --  -- -----------
 11     1,86       9,25       0,00    8824   5 nginx
 13     2,37       9,56       0,00   30068   5 nginx

So everything looks fine.

Example 2 :

$ Get-Location

Path
----
C:\Users\toto

$ Start-Process -FilePath C:\Users\toto\Dev\nginx-1.22.1\nginx.exe
$ Get-Process -Name nginx

Get-Process: Cannot find a process with the name "nginx". Verify the process name and call the cmdlet again.

So, basically, in the first example I first go to the .exe file location and launch it. In the second example, I use absolute path for the .exe file and it does not work. Is it normal ? I guess I miss something about the use of Start-Process or something. I would appreciate any help on this.

Answer 1

After reading the nginx documentation, it seems I have to be in the same location as the nginx.exe file for it to work properly when I launch it. So my problem was not related to powershell, but to nginx itself. Not very handy but it works!