Providers Basics

PowerShell · Reference cheat sheet

📋 Overview

Providers expose hierarchical data stores as if they were drives: the filesystem, registry, environment variables, certificates, and more. You navigate them with familiar cmdlets like Set-Location and Get-ChildItem.

🔧 Core concepts

Get-PSProvider and Get-PSDrive list what is available.

💡 Examples

List providers and drives:

Get-PSProvider
Get-PSDrive

Environment drive:

Set-Location Env:
Get-ChildItem | Select-Object -First 10
Get-Content PATH
Set-Location $HOME

Filesystem navigation (same cmdlets):

Set-Location $HOME
Get-ChildItem
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path .\ps-practice -Force

Aliases drive:

Get-ChildItem Alias: | Where-Object Name -EQ "ls"

⚠️ Pitfalls

• Registry edits can break Windows — practice read-only first (Get-ChildItem HKCU:\...).
• Not every provider supports every cmdlet the same way.
• Paths like Env:\PATH differ from Bash $PATH syntax.
• Leaving yourself in Env: or HKCU: confuses later relative paths — cd $HOME when done.

🔗 Related

• getting_started.md
• aliases_basics.md
• get_help.md
• variables.md