My Essential PowerShell Discovery Cmdlets
When I’m doing daily work in the shell, there are a number of cmdlets and associated arguments that I find myself typing often to discover new things and re-discover things that I’ve previously encountered. Maybe getting these written out with explanations and examples will help some of you while you learn PowerShell, however I do believe that these are useful regardless of your level of experience. You really never stop learning (and definitely never stop forgetting). There will always be situations where you need to go back to the basics, so to speak.
Get-Help
If there’s one cmdlet that you should memorize the name of, it’s Get-Help. It’s your key to understanding any single cmdlet and many of the advanced PowerShell concepts (provided that a useful and up-to-date help file is available). If you’ve never read help files in the console window before, start by opening an admin shell and running Update-Help -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue. I specify the SilentlyContinue behavior on errors because if there are cmdlets that do not have available sources for help files, PowerShell will throw an error and continue updating those help files that it does have a source for. I’d rather not clutter the shell with those errors. Even Microsoft lets some cmdlets go without available help files!
Now that your help files are up to date, you can try out Get-Help with some of the cmdlets that I’ll be explaining further on in this post. It will display the help file for that cmdlet in the console.
(ADMINISTRATOR) Matt@MBOBKE-DT : E:\Git\mcbobke.github.io [≡ discoverypost]
> Get-Help -Name "Get-Member"
NAME
Get-Member
SYNOPSIS
Gets the properties and methods of objects.
SYNTAX
Get-Member [[-Name] <String[]>] [-Force] [-InputObject <PSObject>] [-MemberType {AliasProperty | CodeProperty | Property | NoteProperty |
ScriptProperty | Properties | PropertySet | Method | CodeMethod | ScriptMethod | Methods | ParameterizedProperty | MemberSet | Event | Dynamic |
All}] [-Static] [-View {Extended | Adapted | Base | All}] [<CommonParameters>]
DESCRIPTION
The Get-Member cmdlet gets the members, the properties and methods, of objects.
...
-Full
The -Full switch for Get-Help is my first choice for cmdlets that I’ve 1) never used before or 2) haven’t used in a considerable amount of time. This returns the entirety of the help file for a single cmdlet which is then scrollable with Page Up/Page Down, Up/Down arrows, and the mouse wheel if you’re in a GUI environment. It’s very convenient to avoid the need to alt-tab into a web browser, especially on laptops.
-Examples
The -Examples switch for Get-Help is useful for skipping directly to any examples of cmdlet usage that are provided by the author. I tend to use this with cmdlets that I have used before but need a quick refresher on syntax. One in particular is Get-ADComputer from the ActiveDirectory module, I can never remember the syntax for the -Filter parameter off the top of my head.
(ADMINISTRATOR) Matt@MBOBKE-DT : E:\Git\mcbobke.github.io [≡ discoverypost]
> Get-Help -Name 'Get-ADComputer' -Examples
NAME
Get-ADComputer
SYNOPSIS
Gets one or more Active Directory computers.
...
-------------------------- EXAMPLE 2 --------------------------
C:\PS>Get-ADComputer -Filter 'Name -like "Fabrikam*"' -Properties IPv4Address | FT Name,DNSHostName,IPv4Address -A
name dnshostname ipv4address
---- ----------- -----------
FABRIKAM-SRV1 FABRIKAM-SRV1.Fabrikam.com 10.194.99.181
FABRIKAM-SRV2 FABRIKAM-SRV2.Fabrikam.com 10.194.100.37
Description
-----------
Get all the computers with a name starting by a particular string and showing the name, dns hostname and IPv4 address.
...
-Online
The -Online switch for Get-Help displays the online (web-based) version of the help information in your computer’s default Internet browser. This is great for quickly firing up a new tab in a running browser session that navigates directly to the help information for the cmdlet in question, which can be a better experience than reading help directly in the PowerShell Console at times. However, this only works if that online help exists in the first place.
Microsoft gives some information about this in their own help information for Get-Help itself (found by running Get-Help Get-Help -Parameter 'Online'):
(ADMINISTRATOR) Matt@MBOBKE-DT : E:\Git\mcbobke.github.io [≡ discoverypost]
> Get-Help -Name 'Get-Help' -Parameter 'Online'
-Online [<SwitchParameter>]
Displays the online version of a help topic in the default Internet browser. This parameter is valid only for
cmdlet, function, workflow and script help topics. You cannot use the Online parameter in Get-Help commands in a
remote session.
For information about supporting this feature in help topics that you write, see about_Comment_Based_Help
(http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=144309), and Supporting Online Help
(http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=242132), and How to Write Cmdlet
Helphttp://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=123415 (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=123415) in the Microsoft
Developer Network MSDN library.
Required? true
Position? named
Default value False
Accept pipeline input? False
Accept wildcard characters? false
Unfortunately, the link to the Supporting Online Help article is dead as of Windows 10 version 1903, but it can be found here: Supporting Online Help
Get-Command
Get-Command is my next-most-often-run PowerShell discovery cmdlet. If I’m drawing a blank on the full name of a cmdlet but I know that I remember at least a small portion of the name, I’m usually able to find it with this cmdlet and then do any further discovery necessary - such as Get-Help! Get-Command gets any and all cmdlets, aliases, functions, workflows, filters, scripts, and applications installed on your computer. These can be filtered using its parameters.
For example, you can see every single cmdlet starting with Get- by running the following:
(ADMINISTRATOR) Matt@MBOBKE-DT : E:\Git\mcbobke.github.io [≡ discoverypost]
> Get-Command -Name 'Get-*'
CommandType Name Version Source
----------- ---- ------- ------
Alias Get-ADUserSnapshot 0.0.81 PSSharedGoods
Alias Get-AG2ApiLis 3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell
Alias Get-AppPackage 2.0.1.0 Appx
Alias Get-AppPackageDefaultVolume 2.0.1.0 Appx
Alias Get-AppPackageLastError 2.0.1.0 Appx
Alias Get-AppPackageLog 2.0.1.0 Appx
Alias Get-AppPackageManifest 2.0.1.0 Appx
Alias Get-AppPackageVolume 2.0.1.0 Appx
Alias Get-AppProvisionedPackage 3.0 Dism
...
The wildcard * character is supported by many of the parameters as shown in this example.
-Verb and -Noun
-Name is a good place to start with Get-Command but sometimes a more finely-tuned search is desired, and that’s where -Verb and -Noun come in. The PowerShell command naming convention specifies a ‘Verb-Noun’ syntax which is what each parameter will match on respectively.
A recent personal anecdote for this would be work that I’ve been doing with the AWSPowerShell module. AWS EC2 has a laundry list of available cmdlets in the AWSPowerShell module that all have nouns starting with EC2. I was working on gathering some data about existing EC2 Instances and wanted to know what cmdlets were available that had Get as their verb, that were also related to EC2.
(ADMINISTRATOR) Matt@MBOBKE-DT : E:\Git\mcbobke.github.io [≡ discoverypost]
> Get-Command -Verb 'Get' -Noun 'EC2*'
CommandType Name Version Source
----------- ---- ------- ------
Alias Get-EC2AccountAttributes 3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell
Alias Get-EC2ExportTasks 3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell
Alias Get-EC2FlowLogs 3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell
Alias Get-EC2Hosts 3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell
Alias Get-EC2ReservedInstancesModifications 3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell
Alias Get-EC2VpcPeeringConnections 3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell
Cmdlet Get-EC2AccountAttribute 3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell
Cmdlet Get-EC2Address 3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell
Cmdlet Get-EC2AggregateIdFormat 3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell
Cmdlet Get-EC2AvailabilityZone 3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell
Cmdlet Get-EC2BundleTask 3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell
Cmdlet Get-EC2ByoipCidr 3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell
...
The inclusion of the wildcard filters the list down to only cmdlets whose nouns start with ‘EC2’. This allowed me to easily find what I needed.
-Module
Say you just installed a new module and you’d like to know what cmdlets are provided to you as a user from that single module. Try the -Module parameter:
(ADMINISTRATOR) Matt@MBOBKE-DT : E:\Git\mcbobke.github.io [≡ discoverypost]
> Get-Command -Module 'PSSpeedTest'
CommandType Name Version Source
----------- ---- ------- ------
Function Get-SpeedTestConfig 2.0.1 PSSpeedTest
Function Install-SpeedTestServer 2.0.1 PSSpeedTest
Function Invoke-SpeedTest 2.0.1 PSSpeedTest
Function Remove-SpeedTestServer 2.0.1 PSSpeedTest
Function Set-SpeedTestConfig 2.0.1 PSSpeedTest
Seeing a complete list of all cmdlets available in a module gives you a good idea of what you can accomplish with it.
Get-Module
Get-Module informs you of every module that has been imported in the current PowerShell session. The import may have been done explicitly with Import-Module or automatically by using a cmdlet from a module that had not yet been imported.
(ADMINISTRATOR) Matt@MBOBKE-DT : E:\Git\mcbobke.github.io [≡ discoverypost]
> Get-Module
ModuleType Version Name ExportedCommands
---------- ------- ---- ----------------
Script 0.0 chocolateyProfile {TabExpansion, Update-SessionEnvironment, refreshenv}
Binary 1.0.0.0 Microsoft.PowerShell.LocalAccounts {Add-LocalGroupMember, Disable-LocalUser, Enable-LocalUser...
Manifest 3.1.0.0 Microsoft.PowerShell.Management {Add-Computer, Add-Content, Checkpoint-Computer, Clear-Con...
Manifest 3.1.0.0 Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility {Add-Member, Add-Type, Clear-Variable, Compare-Object...}
Script 1.0.0 posh-git {Add-PoshGitToProfile, Expand-GitCommand, Format-GitBranch...
Script 2.0.0 PSReadline {Get-PSReadLineKeyHandler, Get-PSReadLineOption, Remove-PS...
Script 2.0.1 PSSpeedTest {Get-SpeedTestConfig, Install-SpeedTestServer, Invoke-Spee...
I don’t find myself using Get-Module in this way very often because I don’t usually care what has been imported up to this point, but this can be useful for debugging purposes such as ensuring that the expected version of any given module has been loaded.
Adding in the -ListAvailable switch parameter tells Get-Module to search for all modules that are installed at directory paths listed in the PSModulePath environment variable. Try seeing what your PSModulePath variable contains:
(ADMINISTRATOR) Matt@MBOBKE-DT : E:\Git\mcbobke.github.io [≡ discoverypost]
> $Env:PSModulePath
C:\Users\Matt\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules;C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules;C:\WINDOWS\system32\Windows
PowerShell\v1.0\Modules;C:\Program Files\Intel\
Now see every installed module in these directories:
(ADMINISTRATOR) Matt@MBOBKE-DT : E:\Git\mcbobke.github.io [≡ discoverypost]
> Get-Module -ListAvailable
Directory: C:\Users\Matt\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules
ModuleType Version Name ExportedCommands
---------- ------- ---- ----------------
Binary 3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell {Clear-AWSHistory, Set-AWSHistoryConfiguration, Initialize...
Script 2.0.9 BuildHelpers {Add-TestResultToAppveyor, Export-Metadata, Find-NugetPack...
Script 2.0.8 BuildHelpers {Add-TestResultToAppveyor, Export-Metadata, Find-NugetPack...
Script 1.2.0 BuildHelpers {Add-TestResultToAppveyor, Export-Metadata, Find-NugetPack...
Script 1.1.4 BuildHelpers {Add-TestResultToAppveyor, Export-Metadata, Find-NugetPack...
Script 1.0.0.1 ChocolateyGet Compare-SemVer
Script 0.0.2 Connectimo {Connect-WinAzure, Connect-WinAzureAD, Connect-WinConnecti...
Script 6.2.1 ImportExcel {Add-ConditionalFormatting, Add-ExcelChart, Add-ExcelDataV...
Script 6.0.0 ImportExcel {Add-ConditionalFormatting, Add-ExcelChart, Add-ExcelDataV...
Script 5.1.1 ImportExcel {ColorCompletion, Send-SQLDataToExcel, Join-Worksheet, Exp...
Script 4.0.13 ImportExcel {Import-UPS, ConvertFrom-ExcelSheet, Test-Number, Get-Rang...
Script 5.5.2 InvokeBuild {Invoke-Build, Build-Checkpoint, Build-Parallel}
...
This will not only show every module that is installed that PowerShell knows about, it also shows every version installed in the event that you have multiple versions of a single module.
Get-InstalledModule
Get-InstalledModule is specific to the module PowerShellGet, which is really a package manager for PowerShell itself. It allows you to install community and non-default Microsoft PowerShell modules from sources such as The PowerShell Gallery.
PowerShellGet comes included with:
- Windows 10
- Windows Server 2016 or newer
- Windows Management Framework (WMF) 5.0 or newer
- PowerShell 6 (otherwise known as PowerShell Core)
Get-InstalledModule will display every module that was installed on your computer by PowerShellGet.
(ADMINISTRATOR) Matt@MBOBKE-DT : E:\Git\mcbobke.github.io [≡ discoverypost]
> Get-InstalledModule
Version Name Repository Description
------- ---- ---------- -----------
1.4.2 PackageManagement PSGallery PackageManagement (a.k.a. OneGet) is a new way to discover and install software packages from around the web....
1.0.0-beta3 posh-git PSGallery Provides prompt with Git status summary information and tab completion for Git commands, parameters, remotes and branch names.
2.1.5 PowerShellGet PSGallery PowerShell module with commands for discovering, installing, updating and publishing the PowerShell artifacts like Modules, DSC Resources, Role Capabilities and Scripts.
2.0.1 PSSpeedTest PSGallery A module for testing network bandwidth over the internet as well as private networks.
3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell PSGallery The AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell lets developers and administrators manage their AWS services from the Windows PowerShell scripting environment.
2.0.9 BuildHelpers PSGallery Helper functions for PowerShell CI/CD scenarios.
1.0.0.1 ChocolateyGet PSGallery An PowerShell OneGet provider that discovers packages from https://www.chocolatey.org.
0.0.2 Connectimo PSGallery Simple connectivity project
6.2.1 ImportExcel PSGallery PowerShell module to import/export Excel spreadsheets, without Excel....
5.5.2 InvokeBuild PSGallery Build and test automation in PowerShell
4.8.1 Pester PSGallery Pester provides a framework for running BDD style Tests to execute and validate PowerShell commands inside of PowerShell and offers a powerful set of Mocking Functions that allow tests to m...
1.1.3 Plaster PSGallery Plaster scaffolds PowerShell projects and files.
0.2.3 PSDepend PSGallery PowerShell Dependency Handler
1.0.2 PSDeploy PSGallery Module to simplify PowerShell based deployments
1.16.1 PSScriptAnalyzer PSGallery PSScriptAnalyzer provides script analysis and checks for potential code defects in the scripts by applying a group of built-in or customized rules on the scripts being analyzed.
0.0.81 PSSharedGoods PSGallery Module covering functions that are shared within multiple projects
0.85 PSWriteColor PSGallery Write-Color is a wrapper around Write-Host allowing you to create nice looking scripts, with colorized output. It provides easy manipulation of colors, logging output to file (log) and nice...
0.0.45 PSWriteHTML PSGallery Module that allows creating HTML content/reports in easy way.
Running Get-InstalledModule with no parameters will only show you the most recent version of each installed module. If you’d like to see all installed versions, you will need to manipulate the output via the pipeline. The -AllVersions parameter does not work with wildcards, so each individual module name must be piped back to Get-InstalledModule.
(ADMINISTRATOR) Matt@MBOBKE-DT : E:\Git\mcbobke.github.io [≡ discoverypost]
> Get-InstalledModule | Select-Object -ExpandProperty 'Name' | ForEach-Object -Process {Get-InstalledModule -Name $_ -AllVersions}
Version Name Repository Description
------- ---- ---------- -----------
1.3.2 PackageManagement PSGallery PackageManagement (a.k.a. OneGet) is a new way to discover and install software packages from around the web....
1.4 PackageManagement PSGallery PackageManagement (a.k.a. OneGet) is a new way to discover and install software packages from around the web....
1.4.2 PackageManagement PSGallery PackageManagement (a.k.a. OneGet) is a new way to discover and install software packages from around the web....
0.7.3 posh-git PSGallery Provides prompt with Git status summary information and tab completion for Git commands, parameters, remotes and branch names.
1.0.0-beta3 posh-git PSGallery Provides prompt with Git status summary information and tab completion for Git commands, parameters, remotes and branch names.
2.1.3 PowerShellGet PSGallery PowerShell module with commands for discovering, installing, updating and publishing the PowerShell artifacts like Modules, DSC Resources, Role Capabilities and Scripts.
2.1.4 PowerShellGet PSGallery PowerShell module with commands for discovering, installing, updating and publishing the PowerShell artifacts like Modules, DSC Resources, Role Capabilities and Scripts.
2.1.5 PowerShellGet PSGallery PowerShell module with commands for discovering, installing, updating and publishing the PowerShell artifacts like Modules, DSC Resources, Role Capabilities and Scripts.
2.0.1 PSSpeedTest PSGallery A module for testing network bandwidth over the internet as well as private networks.
3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell PSGallery The AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell lets developers and administrators manage their AWS services from the Windows PowerShell scripting environment.
1.1.4 BuildHelpers PSGallery Helper functions for PowerShell CI/CD scenarios.
...
Find-Module
Find-Module searches all known PowerShell module repositories for a desired module, most often for a name that you specify via the -Name parameter. This parameter supports wildcards.
(ADMINISTRATOR) Matt@MBOBKE-DT : E:\Git\mcbobke.github.io [≡ discoverypost]
> Find-Module -Name '*AWS*'
Version Name Repository Description
------- ---- ---------- -----------
3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell PSGallery The AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell lets developers and administrators manage their AWS services from the Windows PowerShell scripting environment.
3.3.542.0 AWSPowerShell.NetCore PSGallery The AWS Tools for PowerShell Core lets developers and administrators manage their AWS services from the PowerShell Core scripting environment.
1.2.0.0 AWSLambdaPSCore PSGallery The AWS Lambda Tools for Powershell can be used to create and deploy AWS Lambda functions written in PowerShell.
0.9.1.326 ACMESharp.Providers.AWS PSGallery AWS Provider extension library for ACMESharp Client.
0.5.0.0 AwsDscToolkit PSGallery Registers an AWS EC2 instance as a DSC Node in Azure Automation
1.2.58 AWSWindowsHelpers PSGallery Helper functions for working with Windows Instances on AWS
...
You can then pipe the results to Install-Module to install all discovered modules, but be careful with this since it could be a very large amount.
Get-Member
All of the previous cmdlets that I’ve discussed have had to do with discovering cmdlets within modules, information about those cmdlets, and modules themselves. What about the objects that are returned by many of the cmdlets that you use? What properties and methods are available with those objects?
Suppose you have a string that you stored in a variable after using Get-Content to get the contents of a text file. You may not know that there are many non-obvious properties and methods available from that string that can be used to get information from it as well as manipulate it. Or, you may be trying to remember what the name of that one particular property or method is.
This is where Get-Member comes in. Throw that variable on the pipeline and pipe it to Get-Member!
(ADMINISTRATOR) Matt@MBOBKE-DT : E:\Git\mcbobke.github.io [≡ discoverypost]
> $text = Get-Content .\text.txt
(ADMINISTRATOR) Matt@MBOBKE-DT : E:\Git\mcbobke.github.io [≡ discoverypost]
> $text | Get-Member
TypeName: System.String
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------
Clone Method System.Object Clone(), System.Object ICloneable.Clone()
CompareTo Method int CompareTo(System.Object value), int CompareTo(string strB), int IComparable.CompareTo(System.Object obj), int IComparable[string].CompareTo(string other)
Contains Method bool Contains(string value)
CopyTo Method void CopyTo(int sourceIndex, char[] destination, int destinationIndex, int count)
EndsWith Method bool EndsWith(string value), bool EndsWith(string value, System.StringComparison comparisonType), bool EndsWith(string value, bool ignoreCase, cultureinfo culture)
Equals Method bool Equals(System.Object obj), bool Equals(string value), bool Equals(string value, System.StringComparison comparisonType), bool IEquatable[string].Equals(string other)
GetEnumerator Method System.CharEnumerator GetEnumerator(), System.Collections.IEnumerator IEnumerable.GetEnumerator(), System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerator[char] IEnumerable[char].GetEnumerator()
GetHashCode Method int GetHashCode()
GetType Method type GetType()
...
These properties and methods can be accessed by using dot notation:
$text.Clone()
$text.GetType()
Summary
PowerShell is huge and it’s easy to find yourself in a situation where you’re digging around for that one piece of information that will carry you on to the next step. These cmdlets and parameters that I’ve detailed only truly scratch the surface of what PowerShell provides for you in terms of discovery. In fact, much of the information you may ever need can be had right in the console itself using these cmdlets and others like them, no web browser required. I encourage you to look at the other parameters that are available to these cmdlets and discover more tools that you can use to discover other tools (yes, you read that correctly!).
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