What can I do with windows powershell part8

Windows PowerShell Drives and Namespaces

The following articles provide a brief introduction to working with Windows PowerShell drives and namespaces; these tasks include such things as adding and removing Windows PowerShell drives and navigating through Windows PowerShell namespaces. As is so often the case with Windows PowerShell, the code snippets found in these articles can either be included within a Windows PowerShell script or typed directly into the Windows PowerShell console.

Using the Get-Location Cmdlet

Checking Your Location in a Windows PowerShell Namespace

The Get-Location cmdlet simply lets you know where you are within the various Windows PowerShell drives. For example, this command:

Get-Location

Returns information similar to this:

Path
----
C:\Documents and Settings\kenmyer

If you’d like to know the current location in a different drive, just use the -psdrive parameter following the call to Get-Location. For example, this command leaves you in your current location, but tells you where you would be if you used Set-Location to switch to the HKCU drive:

Get-Location -psdrive hkcu

Get-Location Aliases
gl

Using the New-PSDrive Cmdlet

Creating a New Windows PowerShell Drive

The New-PSDrive cmdlet functions similar to the Subst command: it enables you to map a drive (in this case, of course, a Windows PowerShell drive letter) to a path. For example, this command creates a new Windows PowerShell drive (drive X) that’s mapped to the folder C:\Scripts:

New-PSDrive -name X -psprovider FileSystem -root c:\scripts

As you can see, New-PSDrive takes three parameters:

• -name, which is the name to be given the new drive. We called our drive X primarily because that’s easy to type, but you can give the drive any name you want (just stay away from blank spaces and any restricted characters).
  
• -psprovider, which simply indicates the type of drive being created. Because our new drive is part of the file system, we use the FileSystem parameter. For other types of drives (such as registry drives) you’ll need to use other providers. Fortunately, you can get a list of drive providers by calling the Get-PSDrive cmdlet.
  
• -root, which is, in this case, the folder that serves as the drive root. When we use the command Set-Location x, we’ll end up in C:\Scripts, the root of our new drive.
  

The upshot? Now you can switch to the C:\Scripts folder merely by typing this command:

Set-Location x:

If that wasn’t enough, keep in mind that you aren’t limited to creating new drives mapped to the file system; instead, you can map drives within any Windows PowerShell namespace. For example, this command maps Windows PowerShell drive Y to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion key in the registry:

New-PSDrive -name Y -psprovider Registry -root HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

To access that registry key from now on you merely need to type Set-Location y:
Mapped drives last only as long as your current Windows PowerShell session. If you exit PowerShell and then restart it, your mapped drive will no longer be available. To ensure that your new drive survives between Windows PowerShell sessions, create a PSConfiguration folder in your Windows PowerShell profile folder. For example:

C:\Documents and Settings\gstemp\My Documents\PSConfiguration

Note. How are you supposed to know your Windows PowerShell profile folder? Just type this command: Get-Variable profile | Format-List

In the PSConfiguration folder, create a file named Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 and add the following command to the file:

New-PSDrive -name X -psprovider FileSystem -root c:\scripts

The next time you start a Windows PowerShell session drive X will be available to you. (Think of the profile file as being a sort of autoexec.bat file for Windows PowerShell.)

New-PSDrive Aliases
ndr mount

Using the Get-PSDrive Cmdlet

Listing Your Windows PowerShell Drives

Windows PowerShell maps a number of “drives” that make it easy for you to navigate various namespaces on your computer; by default this includes not only the physical disk drives on your computer but also such things as the registry hives HKEY_CURRENT_USER (drive HKCU) and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (drive HKLM). To return a list of all the Windows PowerShell drives on your machine, simply use the Get-PSDrive cmdlet:

Get-PSDrive

In return, Windows PowerShell will return information similar to this:

Name       Provider      Root                                   CurrentLocation
----       --------      ----                                   ---------------
Alias      Alias
C          FileSystem    C:\                                 ...Settings\kenmyer
cert       Certificate   \
D          FileSystem    D:\
E          FileSystem    E:\
Env        Environment
Function   Function
HKCU       Registry      HKEY_CURRENT_USER
HKLM       Registry      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
Variable   Variable

Alternatively, you might want to pipe these results into the Format-List cmdlet; when you do that, you’ll get back additional information (such as the full provider name) for each drive. That command looks like this:

Get-PSDrive | Format-List

And the returned data will look like this:

Name            : Alias
Description     : Drive containing a view of the aliases stored in session state.
Provider        : Microsoft.Windows PowerShell.Core\Alias
Root            :
CurrentLocation :

Name            : C
Description     :
Provider        : Microsoft.Windows PowerShell.Core\FileSystem
Root            : C:\
CurrentLocation : Documents and Settings\kenmyer

You can also specify an individual drive name (or use wildcard characters) to return information about a single drive or set of drives. This command returns information for only drive C:

Get-PSDrive c

And this command returns information for the two registry drives (both of which have names starting with the letter H):

Get-PSDrive h*

Get-PSDrive Aliases
gdr

Using the Set-Location Cmdlet

Navigating through Windows PowerShell Namespaces

The Set-Location cmdlet is roughly equivalent to the cd command found in Cmd.exe: it enables you to specify a new working location in a namespace. For example, this command sets the working location to C:\Scripts:

Set-Location c:\scripts

So why did we use clumsy terminology like working location rather than simply saying that Set-Location enables you to set the current working folder? That’s because, in Windows PowerShell, you aren’t limited to navigating through the file system (for more information, see the Get-PSDrive cmdlet). For example, this command places you in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows portion of the registry:

Set-Location HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows

Incidentally, not only can you use the alias cd as a shortcut method for calling Set-Location, but you can also use the commands cd .. to move to the parent location and cd \ to move to the drive root.

Set-Location Aliases
sl cd pwd chdir

Using the Convert-Path Cmdlet

Translating a Windows PowerShell Path

The Convert-Path cmdlet converts a Windows PowerShell path to a system path. What does that mean, and does it even matter? Well, suppose you’ve created a new Windows PowerShell drive (drive X). That drive letter is valid only in Windows PowerShell; you can’t switch to Windows Explorer and access drive X. Convert-Path, however, can tell you the “real” path of drive X. In other words, if you run this command:

Convert-Path x:

You’ll get back information similar to this:

C:\Scripts

This is particularly useful with registry drives. Windows PowerShell has its own syntax for indicating registry paths; for example, to use the Set-Location cmdlet to switch to the registry you would use a command similar to this:

Set-Location hkcu:\software\microsoft\windows

That’s fine, but outside of Windows PowerShell a path like hkcu:\software\microsoft\windows is meaningless. If you need to reference that path outside of Windows PowerShell, then just ask Convert-Path to lend you a hand:

Convert-Path hkcu:\software\microsoft\windows

That command gives you the actual path within the registry:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\software\microsoft\windows

Convert-Path Aliases
cvpa

Using the Remove-PSDrive Cmdlet

Unmapping a Windows PowerShell Drive

Nothing lasts forever, which is as true for Windows PowerShell drives as it is for anything else. If you ever decide to get rid of a Windows PowerShell drive then simply call the Remove-PSDrive cmdlet, passing along the name of the drive to be removed. For example, this command removes drive Y:

Remove-PSDrive y

Remove-PSDrive Aliases
rdr