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PowerShell Quick Reference

v3.03 by Dimitri Koens -

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Quick Start

Get-Process

# displays a list of running processes

Get-Process

Select-Object

Name,

Company

# selects several columns

Get-Process

Select-Object

Name,

Company

Format-Table

-AutoSize

# uses minimal column width

Get-Process

Select-Object

Name,

Company

Format-List

# displays a list instead of a table

Get-Process

Sort-Object

–Descending

# sorts on process id instead of name

Get-Process

Where-Object

{ $_.vm

–gt

150MB

}

# selects processes where virtual memory is greater than 150MB

Get-Process

Select-Object

Name,

@{Name=”Virtual

Memory”; Expression={$_.vm}}

# changes the name of a column

Get-Process

Select-Object

Name,VM,WS,@{Label="TotalMemory";Expression={$_.vm

$_.ws}}

# introduces a calculated column

Get-Process

Select-Object

Name,VM,WS,@{Label="Total Memory in

MB";Expression={[int](($_.vm

$_.ws)/1MB)}}

# calculated column and rounded to integer

Built-in Help functionality

Get-Help

Get-Command

-CommandType

Cmdlet

# display all native PowerShell cmdlets

Get-Help

Get-Process

–full

Get-Process

Get-Member

# display the properties and methods of the output

Get-Help

Get-Process

–examples

# view the example commands

Get-Help

about*

# lists all the about-articles, use the full article name to view its

# The following two examples help you to protect you from ... you!

contents, e.g. about_scripts

Get-Process

PowerShell

Stop-Process

–whatif

# displays the command without

actually executing it

Get-Command

# display all commands

Get-Process

PowerShell

Stop-Process

–confirm

# asks for confirmation

Get-Command

*process*

# display all commands containing the word “process”

Aliases (and functions denoted by *)

All default cmdlets with “-Object” as a noun are aliased to their verb without “-Object”, e.g. Sort is an alias of Sort-Object, Select is an alias of Select-Object

Get-Alias

Group-Object

Definition

# display all possible aliases per command

Command

Alias

Command

Alias

Command

Alias

Clear-Host

cls, clear

Get-Help

help *, man

Rename-Item

rni, ren

Copy-Item

copy, cpi, cp

Get-Member

Select-String

sls (Psv3+)

ForEach-Object

foreach, %

Get-Process

gps, ps

Set-Location

sl, cd, chdir

Format-List

Get-WmiObject

gwmi

Start-Sleep

sleep

Format-Table

Move-Item

mi, move, mv

Stop-Process

spps, kill

Get-ChildItem

gci, dir, ls

Out-Host

Where-Object

where, ?

Get-Command

gcm

Powershell_ise.exe

ise (PSv2+)

Write-Output

echo, write

Get-Content

gc, type, cat

Remove-Item

ri, del, erase, rmdir, rd, rm

New alias expected in Windows 2015: Set-Alias Ping Test-Connection. Select-String has an alias in PSv3: sls. Shouldn’t this have been ‘grep’? ;)

Operators (most of them), Get-Help about _Operators

Operator

Meaning

Operator

Meaning

+, -, *, /, %

add, subtract, multiply, divide, remainder

=, +=, -=, *=, /=, %=

assign/change/append one or more values to variables

-eq, -ne

Equal, not equal: 5 –eq 5

-match, -notmatch, -cmatch

regular expression match: “Rick” -match "[DMNR]ick"

-gt, -ge

greater than, greater than or equals: 6 –gt 5

-contains, -notcontains

Array contains specific value: “red”, “blue” –contains “blue”

-lt, -le

less than, less than or equals: 5 –lt 6

-and, -or, -xor, -not, !

Logical operators

-like, -notlike, -clike

wildcard comparison: "Samantha" -like "sam*"

-f

Formatting: $a=2987654; “free space: {0:N0} bytes” -f $a

Punctuation Marks

( expression )

{ code block }

[ item in array ]

“string with automatic variable expansion”

` backtick is the escape character, mostly found on the key combined with tilde-sign ~

‘string without automatic variable expansion‘

Keyboard shortcuts

Ctrl , Ctrl : jump one word left or right

Tab: command completion

F7: display history popup, Alt-F7: clears command buffer

Esc: clear the command line

F8: lookup last command that starts with current input. Try

| More: <Ctrl-C> quit, <q> quit, <space> scroll page,

this: Get-Process; <enter>; Get<F8>

<enter> scroll one line

Use arrow up and down to browse previous commands

Home, End: jump to start or end of current command line

Within ISE: F5 = Run, F8 = Run Selection

Security

The .ps1 extension

Execution Policy (Set- and Get-ExecutionPolicy)

To prevent command hijacking

Associated with Notepad. When a user receives a

Restricted (default), AllSigned, RemoteSigned, Unrestricted (not

You can only run commands from the current

PowerShell script through e-mail and doubleclicks it

recommended)

location by specifying the path to the script.

then the script just opens in notepad instead of

Example: .\script.ps1 instead of script.ps1.

Remote scripts: not on local fixed disks, like CD’s/DVD’s, drive mappings to

executing (like the i-love-you virus did).

network shares, attachements in e-mail and chat-programs.

Variables

# Current object in the pipeline

$Host

# Displays the PowerShell version

$Home

# Full path to the user’s home directory

# storing value 1 in variable $i

$PSHome

# Full path to the installation directory

$i++

# incrementing $i with 1, resulting in 2

Working with files

Get-Process

Out-File

p.txt

–append

Get-Process

Export-CSV

p.csv

Get-Process

Export-CliXML

p.xml

Import-CSV

p.csv

# displays using Format-List because there are more than four columns and object type is not recognized

Import-CliXML

p.xml

# displays using Format-Table because object type is recognized (try to add: | Get-Member)

Compare-Object (Import-Clixml

p.xml) (Get-Process)

-Property

name

# compare processes stored in XML with current situation

Dir

–Recurse

Where

{ $_.length

–gt

100MB

}

Group

Length

Where

{ $_.count

–gt

}

# displays large files with exact same size, might be duplicate

This document is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivsCC BY-NC-ND license.

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