PowerShell

150px|right This books is to cover using PowerShell, a .NET-based object-oriented command shell designed to replace batch scripting, Visual Basic Script and other scripting technologies on Windows. Later PowerShell versions are also available on Linux. PowerShell is a modern Windows scripting technology based on .NET that features a full-blown programming language with access to .NET classes and with pipelines that are based on objects rather than character streams. It is a successor to scripting via cmd.exe and VBScript in Windows Script Host. Availability PowerShell 2.0 is part of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. PowerShell 5.1 was released along with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. PowerShell 7.5.4 is the most recent version, as of December 2025. You can try PowerShell online in Tio (Try it online), in Linux environment. Links: Installing Windows PowerShell, docs.microsoft.com Install PowerShell on Linux, docs.microsoft.com Tio PowerShell, tio.run Getting started To get started, you can learn about the list of available cmdlets and their aliases, and learn about how to get help on them. Press Windows + R, enter "powershell", and the PowerShell console starts, into which you can then enter the oneliner examples below. Examples for on getting help: help Outputs a help about the help system. help * Outputs list of items: aliases, cmdlets, help topics and other help items. help d Outputs list of aliases, cmdlets and help topics that start with d or that contain a word starting with d. help d* Outputs list of aliases, cmdlets and help topics that start with d. help dir Outputs help on the cmdlet that has alias "dir". help dir -full Outputs full help on the cmdlet that has alias dir. help Get-ChildItem Outputs help on the cmdlet. help about Outputs list of topics for help, that is, help items that start with "about". help about_Arithmetic_Operators Outputs help about the topic of arithmetic operators. help about*Ari* Outputs list of help topics that contain Ari as a substring. help *Arith* Outputs help about the topic of arithmetic operators as long as it is the only help item matching the pattern. More examples: $HOME Outputs the value of variable HOME. Variable Outputs the variables. gci env:os Outputs the environment variable os, which is not among the variables per default. $PSVersionTable.PSVersion Outputs PowerShell version. "Hello".GetType() Outputs the type of the value. Keywords: typeof. GetType() is a method of the string object. Enables reflection. (7).GetType(); 1.7.GetType(); (1, 2).GetType(); @{"Key" = "Value"}.GetType() Outputs more types of . "Hello".gettype() Function names are case-insensitive, just like cmdlet names. Get-ChildItem | Where {! $_.PSIsContainer} | Sort-Object -Property Length -Descending | Select-Object -Property Length,Name Outputs files in the current folder sorted by size in descending order, outputting file length and file name only. Is an example of an object pipeline successively modifying the stream of object. Note that Select-Object -Property Length,Name does not actually select objects but rather constructs new objects that have only the selected properties from the original objects. Get-ChildItem | Get-Member Outputs object members including properties and methods. Enables reflection. 4, 1.5 | Get-Member Outputs object members for the objects types in the list, System.Int32 and System.Double. [uint32]4 |Get-Member Casts the integer literal to UInt32 type before getting the object members. (Get-Content MyFile.txt).Length Outputs the line count of a file. Search terms: "wc -l", the Unix analogue. An abbreviation is "(gc _test.txt).Length". Get-Content myfile.txt | Measure-Object -Word Outputs the word count of a file. Links: Learn X in Y minutes Where X=powershell, learnxinyminutes.com Online documentation Online PowerShell documentation is available on a per-version basis. Links: Microsoft.PowerShell.Core reference, docs.microsoft.com Microsoft.PowerShell.Core reference for PowerShell 7.2, docs.microsoft.com Microsoft.PowerShell.Core reference for PowerShell 7.1, docs.microsoft.com Microsoft.PowerShell.Core reference for PowerShell 5.1, docs.microsoft.com Microsoft.PowerShell.Core reference for PowerShell 5.0, docs.microsoft.com Microsoft.PowerShell.Core reference for PowerShell 3.0, docs.microsoft.com Version Finding the version of PowerShell engine: $PSVersionTable Links: PowerTip: Check Version of PowerShell, devblogs.microsoft.com Arithmetic PowerShell supports arithmetic based on what .NET supports. Examples: (1 + 2) * 3 A simple integer calculation. (1 + 2) * 3 / 7 Floating point results are supported. $a = 3/2; $a + 1 Intermediate results can be stored in a variable. [Math]::Pow(2, 100); [bigint]::Pow(2, 100) Exponentiation is available via Math and bigint; Math turns to floats for large numbers. Other usual floating-point functions are available, such as Sin, Cos, Sqrt, etc. 0xFE -band -bnot 0xF Bitwise arithmetic is supported. Further operators are -bor, -bxor, -shl and -shr. Links about_Arithmetic_Operators, docs.microsoft.com Get-Alias Outputs current aliases. Alias: gal. Examples: gal Lists all aliases. gal g* Lists all aliases that start with g. Links: Get-Alias, docs.microsoft.com Get-Help Outputs help on a help item such as a cmdlet or topic. Its alias is help. Help for items can be downloaded using Update-Help cmdlet. Examples: Get-Help Outputs a help about the help system. Get-Help * Outputs list of items: aliases, cmdlets, help topics and other help items. Get-Help Get-ChildItem Gets help on Get-ChildItem cmdlet. Get-Help Get-ChildItem -full help dir -full As above, but relies on help being an alias for Get-Help and dir being an alias for Get-ChildItem. help * Outputs list of alisases, cmdlets, help topics and other help items. help d Outputs list of alisases, cmdlets and help topics that start with d or that contain a word starting with d. help dir Outputs help on the cmdlet that has alias "dir". help dir -full Outputs full help on the cmdlet that has alias dir. help Get-ChildItem Outputs help on the cmdlet. help about Outputs list of topics for help. help about_Arithmetic_Operators Outputs help about the topic of arithmetic operators. help about*Ari* Outputs list of help topics that contain Ari as a substring. help *Arith* Outputs help about the topic of arithmetic operators as long as it is the only help item matching the pattern. Links: Get-Help, msdn.microsoft.com Get-Help, ss64.com Select-String Finds string patterns in input, acting as a filter on lines; related to grep. Examples: "Cat", "Cat2", "Dog" | Select-String -Pattern "Cat" Links: Select-String, docs.microsoft.com Select-String, ss64.com Update-Help Downloads a help item or a set of help items to the computer. Requires administrator privileges. Examples: Update-Help Update-Help -Module Microsoft.PowerShell.Core Links: Update-Help, docs.microsoft.com Update-Help, ss64.com External links Installing Windows PowerShell, docs.microsoft.com PowerShell Documentation, docs.microsoft.com Microsoft.PowerShell.Core reference, docs.microsoft.com Windows PowerShell Survival Guide, social.technet.microsoft.com An A-Z Index of Windows PowerShell commands, ss64.com Windows PowerShell How-to guides and examples, ss64.com Learn X in Y minutes Where X=powershell, learnxinyminutes.com PowerShell, wikipedia.org PowerShell, wikiversity.org Powershell Cheat Sheet by James Hedges, gitlab.com Category:PowerShell, rosettacode.org - example scripts for many tasks Microsoft Windows Scripting languages 25%