{"id":1033,"date":"2021-12-31T16:18:55","date_gmt":"2021-12-31T15:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vroamam.com\/wordpress\/?p=1033"},"modified":"2021-12-31T18:10:49","modified_gmt":"2021-12-31T17:10:49","slug":"psdrives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vroamam.com\/wordpress\/blog\/psdrives\/","title":{"rendered":"PSDrives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PSDrives are the presentation of a connected datastore by a PSProvider. They are repesented by a name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Provider<\/th>Drive(s)<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Alias<\/td>Alias:<\/td><\/tr>
Certificate<\/td>Cert:<\/td><\/tr>
Environment<\/td>Env:<\/td><\/tr>
FileSystem<\/td>C: (*)<\/td><\/tr>
Function<\/td>Function:<\/td><\/tr>
Registry<\/td>HKLM: HKCU:<\/td><\/tr>
Variable<\/td>Variable:<\/td><\/tr>
WSMan<\/td>WSMan:<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>
Default PSProviders with their Name<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

First of all lets see what PS Drives we have available<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get-PSDrive<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Screen capture showing the otput of Get-PSDrive<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The capture above shows the PSDrives on my machine and you can see all the defaults listed, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • Alias<\/li>
  • FileSystem<\/li>
  • Certificate<\/li>
  • Registry<\/li>
  • Variable<\/li>
  • Function<\/li>
  • WSMan.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    FileSystem<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Let’s start with the file system, this is the most commonly used and probably the most familiar. As you can see below the file system name (in windows) is equal to its drive letter, you can address any drive on the system in PowerShell this way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"
    Screen capture showing the output of Get-PSProvider<\/code> but only selecting the Filesystem provider<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Names and Aliases<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Note how all of the Filesystem drive names are linked to their drive letter (at least in Windows). Now you can use all your old cmd.exe commands in here just as with a traditional file system, things like cd<\/code> or dir<\/code> all work<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"\"
    Screen capture showing the use of cd<\/code> and dir<\/code> commands in a PowerShell session<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    what is less obvious here is that these are actually Aliases to PowerShell cmdlets<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    • Change directory – cd \\<\/code> = Set-Location C:\\<\/code><\/li>
    • List Directory – dir<\/code> = Get-ChildItem<\/code><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

      you can see all the aliases with the cmdlet Get-Alias<\/code> but to prove the point here let’s try and find the CD command. You should by now have a good guess that get-alias cd<\/code> will provide what you need:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      \"\"
      Screen capture showing the output of Get-Alias cd<\/code><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

      Using the PSDrive<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

      So now we can access the drive using PowerShell cmdlets lets manipulate a file:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

      New-Item C:\\FirstNewFile.txt\nAdd-Content C:\\FirstNewFile.txt \"This is the first addition\"\n\ncat C:\\FirstNewFile.txt <\/pre>\n\n\n\n
      This creates a new file, adds a line of text to the file and then outputs the contents of the file to standard out (STDOUT). Note that  we use the Linux command cat<\/code> to output the file contents but what are we really doing here? Yes of course we are using an alias, and we can see which one by using the get-alias command Get-Alias cat<\/code>  which exposes the actual PS cmdlet as Get-Content<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
       Screen capture showing output of Get-Alias cat<\/code><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      We can further manipulate the data in the file. We can add additional text by using more add-content<\/code> cmdlets<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Screen capture showing use of add-content<\/code> cmdlet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Screen capture showing output of Get-Content<\/code> cmdlet demonstrating the second Add-Content<\/code> had worked<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      We can replace the data<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      set-content C:\\FirstNewFile.txt \"This is the replacement text\"<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Screen capture showing the use of Set-Content<\/code> to overwrite\\replace the contents of FirstNewFile.txt <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      And finally lets remove the file we created using Remove-Item<\/code><\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Remove-Item C:\\FirstNewfile.txt<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Screen captuire showing the rmeoval of the file FirstNeweFile.txt using the cmdlet Remove-Item<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      In conclusion then, we can create items, list items, add content to items, replace content in items and remove items. So far we have done this using files, but the whole point of this section is that PSProviders present their connected data stores as drives so we can repeat this exercise on things such as the registry using the same or similar file manipulation cmdlets<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Manipulating the Registry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
      Lets consider how we can look at and manipulate the registry. I have created a dummy registry Key called vroamam at <\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Computer\\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\vroamam <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Screen Capture showing demo key and values in the windows registry (regedit)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      How would you list this key using PowerShell to see what values it held? Remember that we use the same cmdlets as we did for the file system so to list the contents of a folder\/diretcory we used Get-Content … we do the same here but with the path to the key instead of the folder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Get-ChildItem HKLM:\\SOFTWARE\\vroamam<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Screen capture sbhowing output of Get-ChildItem for  HKLM:\\SOFTWARE\\vroamam <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      Just as we did with the file system content we can replace the content of the Property this time though we have to use a different cmdlet Set-ItemProperty<\/code> and we provide it with a path to the item, the item name and a value<\/p>\n\n\n\n
       set-itemproperty -Path HKLM:\\SOFTWARE\\vroamam\\PowerShellDemo -Name \"Demo String\" -Value \"Replaced Value\"<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Screen capture showing use of Set-ItemProperty with before and after listings using Get-ChildItem <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      Usign the cmdlets you can create new items, set new item property values and rmeove items. Just the same way as we did with the file system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Environment<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
      And finally, to prove the point, you can do the same with other data stores such as environment variables.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      Get-ChildItem Env:*<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Screen capture showing a list of environment varaiables from Get-ChildItem Env:*<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      If you want to see the value of a single variable<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      get-Item env:computername<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
      To set a new value or replace an existing value<\/p>\n\n\n\n
      set-content -Path PowerShellDemo -Value 'Initial Value'\nset-content -Path PowerShellDemo -Value 'Replaced Value'<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
      \"\"
      Screen capture showing the output and operation of Set-Location, Set-Content and Get-Item cmdlets <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
      Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
      Hopefully you can see that you can manipulate a variety of system data stores using PowerShell Providers and PowerShell Drives using a simple file system approach. Up Next – Using WMI and CIM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
      PSDrives are the presentation of a connected datastore by a PSProvider. They are repesented by a name. Provider Drive(s) Alias Alias: Certificate Cert: Environment Env: FileSystem C: (*) Function Function: Registry HKLM: HKCU: Variable Variable: WSMan WSMan: Default PSProviders with their Name First of all lets see what PS Drives we have available Get-PSDrive The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"0","ocean_second_sidebar":"0","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"0","ocean_custom_header_template":"0","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"0","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"0","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"off","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[114,3],"tags":[81,11],"class_list":["post-1033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-powershell","category-training","tag-powershell","tag-training","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vroamam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vroamam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vroamam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vroamam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vroamam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1033"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/vroamam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1059,"href":"https:\/\/vroamam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1033\/revisions\/1059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vroamam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vroamam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vroamam.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}