Powershell by example
User management
Network management and connectivity
Install and connect via SSH to Windows server
Service management
Customising your Powershell profile
Getting help on a command
Practical example: search for Windows updates pending install
User management
To create a local user in Powershell, let’s use the New-LocalUser command:
PS > New-LocalUser -Name 'george' `
-Description 'Local admin.' `
-Password (ConvertTo-SecureString -String 'somestring' `
-AsPlainText -Force)
Name Enabled Description
---- ------- -----------
george True Local admin.
To add the new user to the local Administrators group, we can use Add-LocalGroupMember; -WhatIf does not run the command, it shows what would be done:
PS > Add-LocalGroupMember -Group "Administrators" -Member "george" -WhatIf
What if: Performing the operation "Add member WIN2022-1\george" on target "Administrators".
Network management and connectivity
To set a static IP address, let’s get the current IP address and network interface index InterfaceIndex:
PS > Get-NetIPAddress
IPAddress : 192.168.1.101
InterfaceIndex : 6
InterfaceAlias : Ethernet
AddressFamily : IPv4
Type : Unicast
PrefixLength : 24
PrefixOrigin : Dhcp
SuffixOrigin : Dhcp
AddressState : Preferred
ValidLifetime : 23:15:54
PreferredLifetime : 23:15:54
SkipAsSource : False
PolicyStore : ActiveStore
We can then set a local IP to the InterfaceIndex from the previous command:
PS > New-NetIPAddress -IPAddress 192.168.1.110 `
-PrefixLength 24 -DefaultGateway 192.168.1.1 `
-InterfaceIndex 6
IPAddress : 192.168.1.110
InterfaceIndex : 6
InterfaceAlias : Ethernet
AddressFamily : IPv4
Type : Unicast
PrefixLength : 24
PrefixOrigin : Manual
SuffixOrigin : Manual
AddressState : Tentative
ValidLifetime : Infinite ([TimeSpan]::MaxValue)
PreferredLifetime : Infinite ([TimeSpan]::MaxValue)
SkipAsSource : False
PolicyStore : ActiveStore
IPAddress : 192.168.1.110
InterfaceIndex : 6
InterfaceAlias : Ethernet
AddressFamily : IPv4
Type : Unicast
PrefixLength : 24
PrefixOrigin : Manual
SuffixOrigin : Manual
AddressState : Invalid
ValidLifetime : Infinite ([TimeSpan]::MaxValue)
PreferredLifetime : Infinite ([TimeSpan]::MaxValue)
SkipAsSource : False
PolicyStore : PersistentStore
Let’s set the DNS server to the gateway IP:
PS > Set-DnsClientServerAddress -InterfaceIndex 6 -ServerAddresses ('192.168.1.1')
Let’s use Test-NetConnection to ping a web server; this tests name resolution via DNS:
PS > Test-NetConnection -ComputerName www.google.com
ComputerName : www.google.com
RemoteAddress : 172.217.169.68
InterfaceAlias : Ethernet
SourceAddress : 192.168.1.110
PingSucceeded : True
PingReplyDetails (RTT) : 45 ms
Install and connect via SSH to Windows server
To connect to the server via SSH, we will need to install the OpenSSH.Server package first.
We can see that it is not yet installed:
PS > Get-WindowsCapability -Online | Where-Object Name -like 'OpenSSH*'
Name : OpenSSH.Client~~~~0.0.1.0
State : Installed
Name : OpenSSH.Server~~~~0.0.1.0
State : NotPresent
We will install it:
PS > Add-WindowsCapability -Online -Name OpenSSH.Server~~~~0.0.1.0
Path :
Online : True
RestartNeeded : False
We will then start and activate the Windows service:
PS > Start-Service sshd
PS > Set-Service -Name sshd -StartupType 'Automatic'
To connect from a linux machine, via the console, we will use the Windows user name/password and the Windows server IP address:
george@dom:~$ ssh george@192.168.1.110
george@192.168.1.110's password:
We are now connected to the Windows server via ssh, cmd.exe was started:
Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.20348.587]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
george@WIN2022-1 C:\Users\george>
To launch Powershell, on the remote Windows machine, we can pass the option (-o RemoteCommand).
We also pass the -t parameter, so that tab completion works in the console:
george@dom:~$ ssh george@192.168.1.110 -t -o RemoteCommand="powershell.exe"
george@192.168.1.110's password:
Windows PowerShell
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Install the latest PowerShell for new features and improvements! https://aka.ms/PSWindows
PS C:\Users\george>
Service management
To get a list of Windows services:
PS C:\Users\george> Get-Service | Format-Table -AutoSize
Status Name DisplayName
------ ---- -----------
Stopped AJRouter AllJoyn Router Service
Stopped ALG Application Layer Gateway Service
Stopped AppIDSvc Application Identity
Running Appinfo Application Information
Stopped AppMgmt Application Management
Stopped AppReadiness App Readiness
To list services that are currently running, we use Where-Object filter to search for items where the status is Running.
We also use Format-Table to autosize the columns, otherwise output will be truncated with ellipses.
PS > Get-Service | Where-Object {$_.Status -eq "Running"}|Format-Table -AutoSize
Status Name DisplayName
------ ---- -----------
Running Appinfo Application Information
Running BFE Base Filtering Engine
Running BrokerInfrastructure Background Tasks Infrastructure Service
Running camsvc Capability Access Manager Service
Running cbdhsvc_281f3 Clipboard User Service_281f3
Running CDPSvc Connected Devices Platform Service
Running CDPUserSvc_281f3 Connected Devices Platform User Service_281f3
Running CoreMessagingRegistrar CoreMessaging
To find more information about a service, we can specify its name:
PS > Get-Service "sshd"
Status Name DisplayName
------ ---- -----------
Running sshd OpenSSH SSH Server
To stop a service, we use Stop-Service:
PS > Stop-Service "sshd"
PS > Get-Service "sshd"
Status Name DisplayName
------ ---- -----------
Stopped sshd OpenSSH SSH Server
To start it again:
PS > Start-Service "sshd"
PS > Get-Service "sshd"
Status Name DisplayName
------ ---- -----------
Running sshd OpenSSH SSH Server
Customising your Powershell profile
We can customise Powershell to run certain commands at initialisation.
This is useful if you want to change to the home directory automatically, to set variables.
We can use $PROFILE to show our current profile location:
PS C:\Users\george> $PROFILE
C:\Users\george\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1
We edit the file Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 and we can for example, clear the screen of any messages and change to the user’s home folder ~.
$global:FormatEnumerationLimit=-1
Clear-Host
Set-Location ~
FormatEnumerationLimit will not truncate elements in the list, for example PSCompatibleVersions will show all its elements:
PS C:\Users\george> $PSVersionTable
Name Value
---- -----
PSVersion 5.1.20348.558
PSEdition Desktop
PSCompatibleVersions {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 5.1.20348.558}
BuildVersion 10.0.20348.558
CLRVersion 4.0.30319.42000
WSManStackVersion 3.0
PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.3
SerializationVersion 1.1.0.1
Getting help on a command
If we want to get more information on a Powershell command, we can use Get-Help < command >:
PS > Get-Help Add-LocalGroupMember
NAME
Add-LocalGroupMember
SYNOPSIS
Adds members to a local group.
Practical example: search for Windows updates pending install
$session = New-Object -com "Microsoft.Update.Session"
$searcher = $session.CreateUpdateSearcher()
$results = $searcher.search("IsInstalled=0")
We can then show only the title of the updates:
PS > $results.Updates|Select-Object -ExpandProperty "Title"
2022-02 Cumulative Update Preview for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for Microsoft server operating system version 21H2 for x64 (KB5010475)
2025-01 Cumulative Update for .NET Framework 3.5, 4.8 and 4.8.1 for Microsoft server operating system version 21H2 for x64 (KB5050187)
Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool x64 - v5.132 (KB890830)
Security Intelligence Update for Microsoft Defender Antivirus - KB2267602 (Version 1.423.276.0) - Current Channel (Broad)
2025-02 Cumulative Update for Microsoft server operating system version 21H2 for x64-based Systems (KB5051979)