Get-ItemProperty

Get-ItemProperty
    [-Path] <String[]>
    [[-Name] <String[]>]
    [-Filter <String>]
    [-Include <String[]>]
    [-Exclude <String[]>]
    [-Credential <PSCredential>]
    [-UseTransaction]
    [<CommonParameters>]

Get-ItemProperty
    [[-Name] <String[]>]
    -LiteralPath <String[]>
    [-Filter <String>]
    [-Include <String[]>]
    [-Exclude <String[]>]
    [-Credential <PSCredential>]
    [-UseTransaction]
    [<CommonParameters>]

The Get-ItemProperty cmdlet gets the properties of the specified items. For example, you can use this cmdlet to get the value of the LastAccessTime property of a file object. You can also use this cmdlet to view registry entries and their values.

This command gets information about the "C:\Windows" directory.

Get-ItemProperty C:\Windows

This command gets the properties of the "C:\Test\Weather.xls" file. The result is piped to the Format-List cmdlet to display the output as a list.

Get-ItemProperty C:\Test\Weather.xls | Format-List

This command displays the value name and data of each of the registry entries contained in the "CurrentVersion" registry subkey. Note that the command requires that there is a PowerShell drive named HKLM: that is mapped to the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" hive of the registry. A drive with that name and mapping is available in PowerShell by default. Alternatively, the path to this registry subkey can be specified by using the following alternative path that begins with the provider name followed by two colons:

"Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion".

Get-ItemProperty -Path HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion

This command gets the value name and data of the "ProgramFilesDir" registry entry in the "CurrentVersion" registry subkey. The command uses the Path parameter to specify the subkey and the Name parameter to specify the value name of the entry.

The command uses a back tick or grave accent (`), the PowerShell continuation character, to continue the command on the second line.

Get-ItemProperty -Path HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion -Name "ProgramFilesDir"

This command gets the value names and data of the registry entries in the "PowerShellEngine" registry key. The results are shown in the following sample output.

Get-ItemProperty -Path HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\PowerShellEngine

ApplicationBase         : C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\
ConsoleHostAssemblyName : Microsoft.PowerShell.ConsoleHost, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35, ProcessorArchitecture=msil
PowerShellVersion       : 2.0
RuntimeVersion          : v2.0.50727
CTPVersion              : 5
PSCompatibleVersion     : 1.0,2.0

This example shows how to format the output of a Get-ItemProperty command in a list to make it easy to see the registry values and data and to make it easy to interpret the results.

The first command uses the Get-ItemProperty cmdlet to get the registry entries in the Microsoft.PowerShell subkey. This subkey stores options for the default shell for PowerShell. The results are shown in the following sample output.

The output shows that there are two registry entries, "Path" and "ExecutionPolicy". When a registry key contains fewer than five entries, by default it is displayed in a table, but it is often easier to view in a list.

The second command uses the same Get-ItemProperty command. However, this time, the command uses a pipeline operator (|) to send the results of the command to the Format-List cmdlet. The Format-List command uses the Property parameter with a value of '*' (all) to display all of the properties of the objects in a list. The results are shown in the following sample output.

The resulting display shows the "Path" and "ExecutionPolicy" registry entries, along with several less familiar properties of the registry key object. The other properties, prefixed with PS, are properties of PowerShell custom objects, such as the objects that represent the registry keys.

Get-ItemProperty -Path HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell

Path                                                        ExecutionPolicy
----                                                        ---------------
C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe   RemoteSigned

Get-ItemProperty -Path HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Microsoft.PowerShell | Format-List -Property *

PSPath          : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds\Micro
soft.PowerShell
PSParentPath    : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\ShellIds
PSChildName     : Microsoft.PowerShell
PSDrive         : HKLM
PSProvider      : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry
Path            : C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe
ExecutionPolicy : RemoteSigned

This cmdlet supports the common parameters: -Debug, -ErrorAction, -ErrorVariable, -InformationAction, -InformationVariable, -OutBuffer, -OutVariable, -PipelineVariable, -ProgressAction, -Verbose, -WarningAction, and -WarningVariable. For more information, see about_CommonParameters.

You can pipe a string that contains a path to Get-ItemProperty.

Get-ItemProperty returns an object for each item property that it gets. The object type depends on the object that is retrieved. For example, in a file system drive, it might return a file or folder.

The Get-ItemProperty cmdlet is designed to work with the data exposed by any provider. To list the providers available in your session, type "Get-PSProvider". For more information, see about_Providers.