CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windowspowershellcmdconfigurationpowershell-cmdlet
rmercier
rmercier

Reputation: 175

Finding PowerShell Cmdlets equivalent to GUI actions

I would like to know where I could find good resources/documentation on configuring a new Windows10 installation using Powershell scripts. I know bash but I'm completely new to Powershell.

When I search google, all I can find about automatically configuring Windows relates to Windows Deployment Services. But I don't have and don't want a Windows Server and simply running a few scripts after each installation is sufficient for me.

I found a few scripts that solve some of the things I want to do:

https://github.com/FlatlanderWoman/winCleaner

https://github.com/hahndorf/Set-Privacy

But for everything else, when I look into the TechNet Library I find it very hard to find anything useful. And when I do find something, it looks outdated: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh852115.aspx

The problem is: I known the GUI-way of configuring everything I want, but I don't know how to find the corresponding commandlets to do the same with Powershell.

Is there some kind of event listener I could use to find the Cmdlets? Or does anyone have some resources/documentation to recommend? Is the TechNet Library really the established way to find these commands?

Thank you.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 459

Answers (1)

Deadly-Bagel
Deadly-Bagel

Reputation: 1620

Unfortunately PowerShell was only really implemented in Windows 7 (yes I know it was available for XP but not preinstalled) and even then it was kind of like an addon rather than part of the core OS. Windows 8 and 10 have further improved functionality but still for the most part do not use it for their own settings and functions as most home users would have no use for it.

However there is nearly always a way to do whatever you need to, I have a script that configures servers from scratch, renaming the server, installing requisite software and features, copying files, configuring VSS, right down to putting the Computer icon on the desktop. You just have to make a list of everything you want to do, then Google each one.

For example: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=powershell+put+computer+on+desktop - at time of writing the first result is a TechNet script pointing at a registry key. Tidy as necessary, whack into your build script and move on to the next item.

As of yet there's nothing I've found I've been unable to do with PowerShell, but the vast majority of it has not been directly with cmdlets. There's a lot of registry tweaking and command line stuff like msiexec or schtasks, some COM objects and an awkward Type I had to create and use to set the DNS suffix.

Overall I think it's still easier to do all this in PowerShell than any other scripting language and it's more flexible than premade tools, not because it has so much functionality built-in but because it can access .NET and COM which gives you broad access to all the half-baked stuff MS have wedged in over the years.

Upvotes: 1

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