To restart a Windows service using PowerShell, open PowerShell as administrator and run Restart-Service with the service name: Restart-Service stops the service and starts it again in one step. It works the same in PowerShell 7 and Windows PowerShell 5.1, but remote restarts and services with dependents need a little more care. Find the service … Read more
To set a service to automatic using PowerShell, open PowerShell as administrator and run Set-Service with the service name and -StartupType Automatic: That one line works in PowerShell 7 and Windows PowerShell 5.1. Delayed start, checking the result and remote servers don’t work the same in both, and that’s where most scripts break. Find the … Read more
To create a local user in Windows with PowerShell, open PowerShell as administrator and run New-LocalUser with a name and a secure password: Then add the account to a group with Add-LocalGroupMember. Below I cover options, name rules, bulk creation from a CSV file, and the Access denied error. Create a local user account with … Read more
To throw an exception with a message in PowerShell, put your text after the throw keyword. It stops the script right there, and a try/catch block can read the text back from $_.Exception.Message: A plain string is enough most of the time. Below I’ll show what the error looks like in PowerShell 7 and Windows … Read more
To split a string and get the second element in PowerShell, split it with -split and read index [1], because arrays start at 0: The parentheses matter: they finish the split before PowerShell applies the index. Below I cover the .Split() method, extra spaces, special delimiters, missing values and whole files, with the spots where … Read more
Search the VS Code Marketplace for PowerShell and you get dozens of results, some of them abandoned years ago. We sorted out which ones still earn a spot in a scripting setup. Quick answer: the best PowerShell extensions for VS Code start with Microsoft’s PowerShell extension (ms-vscode.powershell), which already includes IntelliSense, PSScriptAnalyzer, formatting and the … Read more
To make a PowerShell array parameter, give the parameter an array type such as [string[]]. Callers can then pass several values separated by commas, or just one value: Output: With [string[]], a single value still arrives as an array with one item, so the same foreach loop handles both calls. I tested every example in … Read more
A PowerShell switch parameter is a parameter of type [switch] that’s on when you include it and off when you leave it out. It takes no value, like -Force or -Recurse: Output: Below I cover how to pass an explicit value, tell whether the caller used the switch, forward it to another function and name … Read more
To print a variable in PowerShell, type its name on a line by itself. PowerShell sends the value to the output, which is the same as calling Write-Output. Write-Host prints it too: Output: All three lines look the same on screen, but they don’t behave the same inside functions and scripts. That difference is the … Read more
To replace text in a string in PowerShell, use the .Replace() method or the -replace operator. Both return a new string with the changes: Output: They look interchangeable, but they aren’t. .Replace() matches exact text and cares about case. -replace uses regular expressions and ignores case. I ran every example in PowerShell 7.6 and Windows … Read more