{"id":619,"date":"2014-09-27T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-27T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2014\/09\/27\/weekend-scripter-why-does-powershell-hide-stuff\/"},"modified":"2014-09-27T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-27T00:01:00","slug":"weekend-scripter-why-does-powershell-hide-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/weekend-scripter-why-does-powershell-hide-stuff\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Scripter: Why Does PowerShell Hide Stuff?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/b>: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about how Windows PowerShell decides what to display.<\/span>\nMicrosoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. This morning I received an email from a friend with whom I used to work a long time ago. (He was one of the reviewers on the WMI book I wrote in the VBScript days.) Here is his email:\n\"Hey, Hey, Mr. Ed! How are you and the Scripting Wife? Hope you are well! I enjoy seeing your Facebook posts about your antics with your personal trainer. I have a quick Windows PowerShell question for you that has been nagging me for a while. I have a simple script that runs via Group Policy at computer startup:<\/p>\n

$computername = gc env:computername<\/p>\n

$applications= Get-WmiObject Win32_ComputerSystem<\/p>\n

$applications | out-file “\\serversharecomputerWin32_ComputerSystem$computername.txt”\nThe output of this script contains only a few of the many properties of the Win32_ComputerSystem class. Specifically, they are Domain<\/b>, Manufacturer<\/b>, Model<\/b>, Name<\/b>, PrimaryOwnerName<\/b>, and TotalPhysicalMemory<\/b>.\nBut the Win32_ComputerSystem has lots more properties than that. When I type the following command, the *.csv file contains all of the properties:  <\/p>\n

$applications | export-csv “\\serversharecomputerComputerSystem$computername.csv”\nHow does Out-File<\/b> have the audacity to pick and choose which properties to write to the file, and how does it chose them? Is there a way to tell it to write all of the properties without having to hand pick them?\n~Dave\n\"Hey, Here is my reply…\nHi Dave,\nIt’s great to hear from you. Out-File<\/b> is simply redirecting a standard output stream. With many of the WMI classes, such as Win32_ComputerSystem, we have a Format*xml file that we created to select the main properties of interest from the WMI class. The file is called DotNetTypes.format.ps1xml and it is located in the $pshome<\/b> directory (which normally resolves to C:WindowsSystem32WindowsPowerShellv1.0). You can create your own Format*xml file and choose additional properties, but that is hard core.\nYour variable, $applications<\/b>, will hold the deserialized Win32_ComputerSystem object and permit you to call methods and access all of the properties.\nBut when you send it to the output formatter, it will use the format from the Format*xml file.This is the same as typing <\/span>gwmi win32_computersystem<\/b> at the Windows PowerShell console. Only the main properties display.<\/span>\nYou can get around this by using Select-Object<\/b> (or Format-List<\/b>\/Table<\/b>) to choose *<\/b>. This will retrieve all of the properties that are available from the Win32_ComputerSystem WMI class. Here is an example of how you might approach this:<\/p>\n

gwmi win32_computersystem
$c = gwmi win32_computersystem
$c
$c | select *\nNow you can redirect or use Out-File<\/b> to send the returned information to a text file:<\/p>\n

$c | select * >> c:fsoc.txt<\/p>\n

$c | select * | Out-File c:fsoc.txt\nBy default, te reason you get the complete information is that Export-CSV<\/b> is creating a deserialized object represented as a CSV file. You can even reconstitute the object by using Import-CSV<\/b>. This is a different output stream.\nTo select specific properties going to Export-CSV<\/b>, you can again use the Select<\/b> object—but this time, only select the specific properties:<\/p>\n

$c | select Domain, Name, Manufacturer, Model | Export-Csv c:fsoc.csv\nHope all is well with you, and that this information helps clarify what you have been seeing. Stay in touch.\nI invite you to follow me on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com<\/a>, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.\nEd Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy<\/b> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about how Windows PowerShell decides what to display. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. This morning I received an email from a friend with whom I used to work a long time ago. (He was one of the reviewers on the WMI book I wrote in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[479,3,4,61,45],"class_list":["post-619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-output","tag-scripting-guy","tag-scripting-techniques","tag-weekend-scripter","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about how Windows PowerShell decides what to display. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. This morning I received an email from a friend with whom I used to work a long time ago. (He was one of the reviewers on the WMI book I wrote in the […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}