I've aliased "start" to "Invoke-Item" so I can use it similar to how I did in cmd.exe (to launch a doc in word or a folder in explorer).

Unfortunately, it seems as if powershell isn't properly escaping special characters. For example,

PS C:\Users\jaraco\Music\james\Laid [UK Expanded]> start .
Invoke-Item : Cannot find path '.' because it does not exist.
At line:1 char:6
+ start <<<< .




Note that '.' does in fact exist... and is the CWD.