Hi, im new to powershell. i have a question about cmdlets

So i’ve seen many scripts that people write, and just by looking i can tell that people have extra cmdlets that i don’t have. even when i searched something like “converting .txt to .docx”, i see a command that doesn’t even exist on my side. Is there a place i can get them from?

thanks.

Hi Pat,
Welcome to PowerShell!
The default set of PowerShell cmdlets that come built-in is but a slice of what is available. Cmdlets usually get to you via modules, which can be obtained from any number of places, probably the most common being the PowerShell Gallery, Github and Chocolatey. Usually someone would tell you if a script they were using a non-standard cmdlet and where to get it. If they don’t however, it is usually just a google search away.

Good Luck

Liam

You aren’t using powershell core 6 for osx or linux are you? A lot of modules aren’t ported yet (even ‘Test-Connection’). Also windows 7 doesn’t have as many modules as windows 10, and powershell 2 doesn’t have as many modules as powershell 5.

The cmdlets you have available within a particular instance of PowerShell depend on a number of things:

  • PowerShell version in conjunction with the version of Windows on which its running
  • Which Windows features you’ve enabled on the machine
  • Which Remote Server Administration Tools you’ve loaded on the machine
  • Modules downloaded from PowerShell gallery or other code repository
  • Third party modules e.g. VMware
  • Modules you’ve written yourself

Which version of PowerShell and Windows are you running? Also what tasks are you trying to accomplish - use that as a basis as to the cmdlets you need to install