Resources for IT Professionals

A Task-Based Guide to Windows PowerShell Cmdlets

Cmdlets are the heart-and-soul of Windows PowerShell, Microsoft’s latest command shell/scripting language. This series provides a task-based introduction to Windows PowerShell cmdlets: Rather than focusing on the individual cmdlets themselves, the emphasis is on the tasks you can carry out using those cmdlets. These tasks include everything from reading and writing text files to managing event logs to sorting and filtering data.

As is so often the case with Windows PowerShell, the code snippets found in these articles can either be included within a Windows PowerShell script or typed directly into the Windows PowerShell console.

Dates and Times

These tasks include such things as retrieving the current date and time, and performing date arithmetic.

Files and Folders

These tasks include such things as creating, renaming, copying, and deleting files and folders.

Help and Information

These tasks include such things as listing Windows PowerShell version information and using the Get-Member cmdlet to retrieve property and method information for an object.

Saving and Importing Data

These tasks include such things as reading and writing to text files as well as saving data in HTML or XML format.

Scripting Techniques

These techniques include such things as sorting data, filtering data, and prompting a user to enter information.

Security and Security Descriptors

These tasks include such things as configuring the Windows PowerShell script execution policy and retrieving the digital signature or security descriptor from a file or folder.

System Administration Tasks

These tasks include such things as starting and stopping services, retrieving data using WMI, and managing event logs and event log events.

Windows PowerShell Aliases

These tasks include such things as retrieving and remapping existing aliases as well as creating new aliases.

Windows PowerShell Drives and Namespaces

These tasks include such things as retrieving and remapping existing aliases as well as creating new aliases.

Windows PowerShell Sessions

These tasks include such things as retrieving the Windows PowerShell history and re-invoking a command contained within that history.

Scripts and Applications

These tasks include such things as running scripts and/or applications as well as measuring how long it takes a Windows PowerShell task to complete.

Related Resources

Scripting with Windows PowerShell Home Page