To delete files older than 30 days with PowerShell, list the files with Get-ChildItem, keep the ones whose LastWriteTime is before a cutoff date, and pipe them to Remove-Item. Run it with -WhatIf first: Output: In a real script, set the cutoff with (Get-Date).AddDays(-30). I used a fixed date and a sample folder so the … Read more
To find files modified after a date in PowerShell, pipe Get-ChildItem -File -Recurse to Where-Object and compare LastWriteTime with the date: Output: LastWriteTime is the “Date modified” column in File Explorer. I used a sample folder with fixed dates, and I ran every example in PowerShell 7.6 and Windows PowerShell 5.1, with the same results. … Read more
To list hidden files in PowerShell, run Get-ChildItem with the -Hidden switch. It returns only the items that have the Hidden attribute: Use -Force instead to see hidden and normal items together. Below I show both, how to read the Mode column, how to get hidden files only, search subfolders and unhide a file. For … Read more
To fix “running scripts is disabled on this system” in PowerShell, set the execution policy to RemoteSigned for your account. It doesn’t need admin rights: The error means the effective policy is Restricted, which is the default on Windows client PCs. Below I reproduce it, check every policy scope, and show fixes from a single … Read more
To get the type of an object or variable in PowerShell, call its GetType() method. .Name gives the short name and .FullName the full .NET name: Output: To test for a type instead of reading it, use the -is operator, covered below. I ran every example in PowerShell 7.6 and Windows PowerShell 5.1, with the … Read more
To round a number to 2 decimal places in PowerShell, use [Math]::Round($number, 2). To display it with exactly two decimals, use the format operator, ‘{0:N2}’ -f $number, or .ToString(‘0.00′): Output: They look the same here, but they don’t return the same kind of value, and they don’t always round the same way. I ran every … Read more
To filter files with Get-ChildItem, pass a wildcard pattern to -Filter. Add -Recurse to search subfolders too: Output: -Filter is the fastest option because the file system does the matching. Below I compare it with -Include and -Exclude, show a gotcha that returns nothing, and filter by date and size. All of it runs in … Read more
To kill a process by name in PowerShell, run Stop-Process -Name followed by the process name, without .exe. It stops every running process with that name: For the tests in this guide, I started a few hidden ping.exe processes, so nothing real was harmed. Here the command stops two of them: Output: I ran every … Read more
To find a folder by name in PowerShell, run Get-ChildItem with -Directory, -Recurse and the folder name in -Filter. The match ignores case: Output: I searched a sample Projects folder so the output stays the same. Every example ran in PowerShell 7.6 and Windows PowerShell 5.1 with the same results. Find folders by partial name … Read more
To enable BitLocker with PowerShell, open PowerShell as administrator, add a recovery password, back it up, then run Enable-BitLocker with a TPM protector: Encryption then runs in the background. Below I cover the checks to do first, every protector type, data drives, backing up the recovery key and tracking progress. I ran the read-only checks … Read more