Manage the Windows Registry with PowerShell

Using  Microsoft’s PowerShell to edit the Windows Registry could not be easier. We now have command line read and write access to the registry. Firstly we need to understand that we have access to the Registry through drive letters! There is a PowerShell provider that creates a PSDrive, PowerShell virtual drive, that allows us access to the HKLM and HKCU registry hives.

Get-PSDrive
cd HKLM:SOFTWARE

Ok being able to change your drive letter to the Registry is cool, but in the words of Shania Twain : “It don’t impress me much” . But wait… We can create keys and set their value:

New-Item HKLM:/SOFWARE/Novell/ZCM/ZenLgn -force

 …this creates new registry keys, -force creates the parent structure as well as the the zenlgn key. Now we will need so values as well, remember registry keys are containers for values. If we change through to the newly created key we can refer to the path as . and type the folowing:

Set-ItemProperty -Path . -Name DisablePassiveModeLogin -Type DWORD -Value 1 

The command line is back with added power