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Discovering PowerShell: The Power of the Get Command

What’s the PowerShell command for…?” This happens to all of us. We’re working on a task and hit that speedbump where we either have forgotten or just don’t know the command to do that thing. This is where it’s very easy to turn to Google or Bing and and start searching. There is an easier way!

Really the issue with search engine results is that they may be incomplete, for a different version of PowerShell, or you just can’t find the answer. Whether it’s not using the right keywords, date constrictions, or whatever, the better way is right in front of you.

You have a PowerShell window open right? That’s why you are looking for commands right? Try this:

Get-Command

That’s nice, but on my machine ( with a few modules installed, granted) I get over 6,500 commands that way!
That’s not helpful without some limiting parameters. I do assume that you have an idea about what you are trying to accomplish. This is where the -noun and -verb parameters come in handy.

Let’s take a random example to walk through: What is the command to determine what services are running on a computer?
Our plain English request has verbs and nouns and PowerShell commands have verbs and nouns.
With a little knowledge of PowerShell structure, it’s pretty easy to work through.

Quick refresh: PowerShell commands (cmdlets) are structured in a “Verb-Noun” syntax.
Of all the verbs in the English language, there are (at this writing) 100 approved verbs. You can see the list at Approved Verbs for PowerShell Commands. 

That’s a lot but we can narrow those down pretty quickly by remembering a few things – Common verbs are things like Add, Clear, Close, Copy, Enter, Exit, Find, Get, Hide etc. We recognize ‘Get’ from other things like  GET-COMMAND! ‘Find’ also looks attractive in this case, so let’s have a quick look at that.

PS> Get-command -verb find

CommandType     Name                                               Version    Source
-----------     ----                                               -------    ------
Function        Find-Certificate                                   2.5.0.0    xCertificate
Function        Find-Command                                       2.2.5      PowerShellGet
Function        Find-Command                                       1.0.0.1    PowerShellGet
Function        Find-DSCResource                                   2.2.5      PowerShellGet
Function        Find-DscResource                                   1.0.0.1    PowerShellGet
Function        Find-IpamFreeAddress                               2.0.0.0    IpamServer
Function        Find-IpamFreeRange                                 2.0.0.0    IpamServer
Function        Find-IpamFreeSubnet                                2.0.0.0    IpamServer
Function        Find-Module                                        2.2.5      PowerShellGet
Function        Find-Module                                        1.0.0.1    PowerShellGet
Function        Find-NetIPsecRule                                  2.0.0.0    NetSecurity
Function        Find-NetRoute                                      1.0.0.0    NetTCPIP
Function        Find-RoleCapability                                2.2.5      PowerShellGet
Function        Find-RoleCapability                                1.0.0.1    PowerShellGet
Function        Find-Script                                        2.2.5      PowerShellGet
Function        Find-Script                                        1.0.0.1    PowerShellGet
Cmdlet          Find-Package                                       1.4.7      PackageManagement
Cmdlet          Find-PackageProvider                               1.4.7      PackageManagement

Ok that’s better but none of those seem to have anything to do with services. Let’s come at it from the ‘service’ side. You can list all the command with a certain noun or noun part using the -noun parameter.

PS> get-command -noun service

CommandType     Name                                     Version    Source
-----------     ----                                     -------    ------
Cmdlet          Get-Service                              7.0.0.0    Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet          New-Service                              7.0.0.0    Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet          Remove-Service                           7.0.0.0    Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet          Restart-Service                          7.0.0.0    Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet          Resume-Service                           7.0.0.0    Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet          Set-Service                              7.0.0.0    Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet          Start-Service                            7.0.0.0    Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet          Stop-Service                             7.0.0.0    Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Cmdlet          Suspend-Service                          7.0.0.0    Microsoft.PowerShell.Management

Aha! That first one Get-Service looks good! Let’s try that one.

PS> Get-Service

Status   Name               DisplayName
------   ----               -----------
Running  AarSvc_11d5ae      Agent Activation Runtime_11d5ae
Running  AdobeARMservice    Adobe Acrobat Update Service
Running  AdobeUpdateService AdobeUpdateService
Running  AGMService         Adobe Genuine Monitor Service
Running  AGSService         Adobe Genuine Software Integrity Serv…

Bingo! Of course I abbreviated that list. There are 299 services on this machine right now. Perhaps we should filter that down a bit. Parameters are a good way to do just that. You can find the parameters using the Get-Help cmdlet.

PS> get-help get-service

NAME
    Get-Service

SYNTAX
    Get-Service [[-Name] <string[]>] [-DependentServices] [-RequiredServices]
    [-Include <string[]>] [-Exclude <string[]>] [<CommonParameters>]

    Get-Service -DisplayName <string[]> [-DependentServices]
    [-RequiredServices] [-Include <string[]>] [-Exclude <string[]>]
    [<CommonParameters>]

    Get-Service [-DependentServices] [-RequiredServices] [-Include
    <string[]>] [-Exclude <string[]>] [-InputObject <ServiceController[]>]
    [<CommonParameters>]


ALIASES
    gsv

Let’s say that the service we are interested in is something to do with printers. We can use wildcards in the -DisplayName parameter to narrow this down

PS > Get-Service -DisplayName *print*

Status   Name               DisplayName
------   ----               -----------
Running  DLPWD              Dell Printer Status Watcher
Running  DLSDB              Dell Printer Status Database
Stopped  PrintNotify        Printer Extensions and Notifications
Stopped  PrintWorkflowUser… PrintWorkflow_11d5ae
Running  Spooler            Print Spooler

Of course you can use the PowerShell pipeline to do Where-Object filtering, start/stop/restart the services discovered, but all of that is another story for another time!

 

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