This article will give you a feel for what PowerShell can do. There are lots of examples on the net, so you can probably perform many tasks by taking someone else’s examples and modifying them.
PowerShell has lots of command. Open up PowerShell and type the following at the prompt to get a list of them.
get-command
Try a few of the “get-” commands to display information.
get-service get-process
You can pipe commands together. In this example, we spool the list of processes out to a file.
get-process | out-file c:\test.txt
You can See the methods and properties of a command using the get-member (gm) command.
get-service | get-member get-service | gm
You can alter the output using format-table (ft) command, adding properties displayed by “get-member”. Use “-auto” option to make the output more compact.
get-service | format-table Name, Status, DisplayName, CanStop -auto get-service | ft Name, Status, DisplayName, CanStop -auto
You can limit the output using where-object (?).
get-service | where-object{$_.Name -eq "Spooler"}
get-service | ?{$_.Name -eq "Spooler"}
You can pipe many commands together to get the result you want. Here we list some specific information about a service called “Spooler”.
get-service | where-object{$_.Name -eq "Spooler"} | format-table Name, Status, DisplayName, CanStop -auto
When you know how to identify and object, you can call one of its methods. For example, find the service called “Spooler” and call the “Stop” and”Start” methods using foreach-object (%) command.
# Check status
get-service | where-object{$_.Name -eq "Spooler"} | format-table Name, Status, DisplayName, CanStop -auto
# Stop service
get-service | where-object{$_.Name -eq "Spooler"} | Foreach-object{$_.Stop()}
# Check status
get-service | where-object{$_.Name -eq "Spooler"} | format-table Name, Status, DisplayName, CanStop -auto
# Start service
get-service | where-object{$_.Name -eq "Spooler"} | %{$_.Start()}
# Check status
get-service | where-object{$_.Name -eq "Spooler"} | format-table Name, Status, DisplayName, CanStop -auto
The psdrive command is really useful. You can list all the drives.
psdrive
Notice the registry is listed as a drive too. You can check the contents of the registry from PowerShell. You can use UNIX or Dos type commands for navigation.
dir hkcu:\software\oracle\virtualbox ls hkcu:\software\oracle\virtualbox
You can interact directly with SQL Server from PowerShell if you import the relevant module.
import-module sqlps ls sqlserver:\sql\myserver\default
You can use PowerShell variables so you don’t have to keep repeating paths etc.
$db = "sqlserver:\sql\its-n-sfarm-01\default" cd $db\databases ls
If you right-click on the database in Management Studio, you can pick the “Start PowerShell” menu option and you will be taken directly to that database in PowerShell. We can check the tables in the database.
cd tables ls
As we’ve seen before, we can alter the output of the ls/dir command.
ls | gm ls | ft name, rowcount -auto
We can get the scripts for the tables and push them to a file.
ls | %{$_.script()} | out-file c:\tables-script.sql
For more information see: