Introduction p. xv
Acknowledgments p. xx
Finding Your Way Around Windows PowerShell p. 1
Getting Started with Windows PowerShell p. 3
Installing Windows PowerShell p. 3
Installing .NET Framework 2.0 p. 4
Installing Windows PowerShell p. 7
Starting and Stopping PowerShell p. 8
Starting PowerShell p. 8
Exiting PowerShell p. 10
Startup Options p. 10
Finding Available Commands p. 11
Getting Help p. 14
Basic Housekeeping p. 17
Case Insensitivity p. 18
What You Get in PowerShell p. 19
Interactive Command Shell p. 19
Cmdlets p. 20
Scripting Language p. 21
Summary p. 23
The Need for Windows PowerShell p. 25
Limitations of CMD.exe p. 27
Batch Files p. 28
Inconsistency of Implementation p. 28
Inability to Answer Questions p. 29
Lack of Integration with GUI Tools p. 29
The GUI Emphasis in Windows p. 29
Previous Attempted Solutions p. 29
Windows Script Host p. 30
Windows Management Instrumentation p. 30
Summary p. 31
The Windows PowerShell Approach p. 33
A New Architecture p. 33
.NET Framework-Based Architecture p. 34
Object-Based Architecture p. 35
A New Cross-Tool Approach p. 38
GUI Shell (MMC Layered over PowerShell) p. 39
Command Line p. 39
Command Scripting p. 41
COM Scripting p. 43
File System Provider p. 47 Registry p. 47 Aliases p. 48 Variables p. 49 Active Directory p. 50 Certificates p. 51
Extensibility and Backward Compatibility p. 51
Aliases p. 51
Use Existing Utilities p. 53
Use Familiar Commands p. 55
Long Term Roadmap: Complete Coverage in 3 to 5 Years p. 55
COM Access p. 56
WMI Access p. 56
.NET Class Access p. 56
Object-Based Approach in PowerShell p. 56
Object-Based Pipelines p. 56
A Consistent Verb-Noun Naming Scheme p. 57
Coping with a Diverse World p. 58
Upgrade Path to C# p. 58
Working with Errors p. 58
Debugging in PowerShell p. 59
Additional PowerShell Features p. 59
Extended Wildcards p. 59
Automatic Variables p. 60
Summary p. 62
Using the Interactive Shell p. 63
Windows PowerShell's Two Command Line Parsing Approaches p. 63
Expression Mode Examples p. 65
Command Mode Examples p. 66
Mixing Expressions and Commands p. 69
Exploring a Windows System with Windows PowerShell p. 69
Finding Running Processes p. 69
Filtering Processes Using where-object p. 71
Filtering Processes Using Wildcards p. 72
Finding Out about Services p. 73
Finding Running Services p. 74
Finding Other Windows PowerShell Commands p. 75
Using Abbreviated Commands p. 76
Command Completion p. 76
Aliases p. 77
Sequences of Commands p. 78
Filtering Using where-object p. 79
Sorting p. 81
Grouping p. 83
Pros and Cons of Verbosity p. 85
Interactive p. 85
Stored Commands p. 87
Summary p. 87
Using Snapins, Startup Files, and Preferences p. 89
Startup p. 89
Snapins p. 90
Profiles p. 97
Profile.ps1 p. 98
Aliases p. 100
The export-alias Cmdlet p. 105
The get-alias Cmdlet p. 107
The import-alias Cmdlet p. 108
The new-alias Cmdlet p. 108
The set-alias Cmdlet p. 109
The Help Alias p. 111
Command Completion p. 112 Prompts p. 113 Preference Variables p. 115 Summary p. 116 Parameters p. 117 Using Parameters p. 118
Finding Parameters for a Cmdlet p. 121
Named Parameters p. 124
Wildcards in Parameter Values p. 125
Positional Parameters p. 127
Common Parameters p. 132
Using Variables as Parameters p. 133
Summary p. 135
Filtering and Formatting Output p. 137
Using the where-object Cmdlet p. 137
Simple Filtering p. 138
Using Multiple Tests p. 140
Using Parameters to where-object p. 142
The where-object Operators p. 144
Using the select-object Cmdlet p. 144
Expanding Properties p. 146
Selecting Unique Values p. 147
First and Last p. 148
Default Formatting p. 151
Using the format-table Cmdlet p. 155
Using the property Parameter p. 156
Using the autosize Parameter p. 157
Hiding Table Headers p. 158
Grouping Output p. 158
Specifying Labels and Column Widths p. 159
Using the format-list Cmdlet p. 161
Using the update-formatdata and update-typedata Cmdlets p. 162
Summary p. 163
Using Trusting Operations p. 165
Look Before You Leap p. 166
Using the remove-item Cmdlet p. 166
Using the whatif Parameter p. 175
Using the stop-process Cmdlet p. 175
Using the stop-service Cmdlet p. 178
Using the confirm Parameter p. 180
Using the verbose Parameter p. 181
Summary p. 182
Retrieving and Working with Data p. 183
Windows PowerShell Providers p. 183
Using the get-psdrive Cmdlet p. 184
Using the set-location Cmdlet p. 188
Using the passthru Parameter p. 190
Using the get-childitem Cmdlet p. 191
Using the get-location Cmdlet p. 194
Using the get-content Cmdlet p. 196
Using the measure-object Cmdlet p. 201
The new-item Cmdlet p. 203
The new-psdrive Cmdlet p. 204
Summary p. 205
Scripting with Windows PowerShell p. 207
Enabling Scripts on Your Machine p. 207
Using the read-host Cmdlet p. 212
Using the write-host Cmdlet p. 214
The Arithmetic Operators p. 218
Operator Precedence p. 219
The Comparison Operators p. 222
The Logical Operators p. 225
The Unary Operators p. 226
Using the set-variable and Related Cmdlets p. 227
The set-variable Cmdlet p. 228
The new-variable Cmdlet p. 229
The get-variable Cmdlet p. 230
The clear-variable Cmdlet p. 231
The remove-variable Cmdlet p. 232
Summary p. 234
Additional Windows PowerShell Language Constructs p. 235
Arrays p. 235
Creating Typed Arrays p. 239
Modifying the Structure of Arrays p. 241
Working from the End of Arrays p. 245
Concatenating Arrays p. 248
Associative Arrays p. 249
Conditional Expressions p. 250
The if Statement p. 251
The switch Statement p. 254
Looping Constructs p. 256
The for Loop p. 256
The while Loop p. 258
The do/while Loop p. 259
The foreach Statement p. 260
Summary p. 262
Processing Text p. 263
The .NET String Class p. 263
Working with String Methods p. 267
Casting Strings to Other Classes p. 287
URI p. 287 Datetime p. 288 XML p. 289 Regex p. 289 Summary p. 291 COM Automation p. 293
Using the new-object Cmdlet p. 293
Working with Specific Applications p. 294
Working with Internet Explorer p. 294
Working with Windows Script Host p. 299
Working with Excel p. 302
Accessing Data in an Access Database p. 303
Working with a Network Share p. 305
Using Synthetic Types p. 306
Summary p. 308
Working with .NET p. 309
Windows PowerShell and the .NET Framework p. 309
Creating .NET Objects p. 311
The new-object Cmdlet p. 311
Other Techniques to Create New Objects p. 317
Inspecting Properties and Methods p. 320
Using the get-member Cmdlet p. 320
Using .NET Reflection p. 324
Using the GetMembers() Method p. 324
Using the GetMember() Method p. 326
Using the GetMethods() Method p. 328
Using the GetMethod() Method p. 329
Using the GetProperties() Method p. 330
Using the GetProperty() Method p. 331
Using System.Type Members p. 333
Summary p. 334
Putting Windows PowerShell to Work p. 335
Using Windows PowerShell Tools for Discovery p. 337
Exploring System State p. 338
Using the get-location Cmdlet p. 338
Handling Errors p. 345
Namespaces p. 346
PowerShell Aliases p. 346
PowerShell Functions and Filters p. 349
PowerShell Variables p. 350
Exploring the Environment Variables p. 351
Exploring the Current Application Domain p. 353
Exploring Services p. 357
Using the get-service Cmdlet p. 358
Using the new-service Cmdlet p. 360
Using the restart-service Cmdlet p. 361
Using the set-service Cmdlet p. 362
Using the start-service Cmdlet p. 362
Using the stop-service Cmdlet p. 363
Using the suspend-service Cmdlet p. 364
Security p. 367
Minimizing the Default Risk p. 368
The Certificate Namespace p. 374
Signed Scripts p. 376
Creating a Certificate p. 376
The set-authenticodesignature Cmdlet p. 377
The get-authenticodesignature Cmdlet p. 379
Summary p. 379
Working with Errors and Exceptions p. 381
Errors in PowerShell p. 381
$Error p. 383
Using Error-Related variables p. 388
Using the $ErrorView variable p. 389
Using the $ErrorActionPreference variable p. 390
Trap Statement p. 392
Using Common Parameters p. 397
Using the ErrorAction Parameter p. 397
Using the ErrorVariable Parameter p. 399
The write-error Cmdlet p. 400
Summary p. 401
Debugging p. 403
Handling Syntax Errors p. 403
The set-PSDebug Cmdlet p. 408
The write-debug Cmdlet p. 413
Tracing p. 418
The trace-command Cmdlet p. 419
The set-tracesource Cmdlet p. 422
The get-tracesource Cmdlet p. 422
Summary p. 423
Working with the File System p. 425
Path Names in Windows PowerShell p. 426
Fully Qualified Path Names p. 427
Relative Path Names p. 430
Path Names and Running Commands p. 431
Simple Tasks with Folders and Files p. 434
Finding the drives on a system p. 434
Finding Folders and Files p. 434
Finding File Characteristics p. 436
Exploring Files Using the select-object Cmdlet p. 439
Finding Hidden Files p. 442
Redirection p. 445
Creating Custom Drives p. 447
Cmdlets for File Actions p. 449
Using the out-file Cmdlet p. 449
Using Cmdlets to Work with Paths p. 450
Summary p. 453
Working with the Registry p. 455
Introduction to the Registry p. 455
Exploring the Registry Using Windows PowerShell p. 458
Selecting a Hive p. 458
Navigating to a Desired Key p. 459
Changing the Registry p. 461
Summary p. 464
Working with Environment Variables p. 465
Environment Variables Overview p. 465
The Environment Command Shell Provider p. 468
Exploring Environment Variables p. 470
Modifying Environment Variables p. 471
Summary p. 473
Language Reference p. 475
Working with Logs p. 477
Event Log Basics p. 477
The get-eventlog Cmdlet p. 480
Summary p. 494
Working with WMI p. 495
Introducing Windows Management Instrumentation p. 496
Managed Resources p. 496
WMI Infrastructure p. 497
CIM Object Manager p. 498
The CIM Repository p. 499
WMI Consumers p. 499
WMI Tools p. 499
Using the get-wmiobject Cmdlet p. 502
Finding WMI Classes and Members p. 506
Exploring a Windows System p. 509
Characterizing the CPU p. 509
Finding Memory p. 510
Exploring Services p. 512
Exploring Remote Machines p. 513
Summary p. 514
