Review the built-in providers in PowerShell

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The generic commands that you use to work with providers offer a superset of every feature that a provider might support. For example, the Get-ChildItem command includes the -Credential parameter. However, only providers that support the Credentials capability can use it. If you try to use the -Credential parameter with a provider that doesn't support it, you receive an error message. You also receive an error message whenever you use a common parameter that the provider doesn't support.

Running the Get-PSProvider cmdlet lists the capabilities of each provider that loads into PowerShell. The capabilities of each provider differ because each provider connects to a different underlying technology.

Some important capabilities include:

• ShouldProcess for providers that can support the -WhatIf and -Confirm parameters.
• Filter for providers that support filtering.
• Include for providers that can include items in the data store based on the name. Supports using wildcards.
• Exclude for providers that can exclude items in the data store based on the name. Supports using wildcards.
• ExpandWildcards for providers that support wildcards in their paths.
• Credentials for providers that support alternative credentials.
• Transactions for providers that support transacted operations. In Windows PowerShell 5.1, the Registry provider supports transactions via the -UseTransaction parameter. This parameter and the related transaction cmdlets were removed in PowerShell 7.

You should always review the capabilities of a provider before you work with it. This helps you avoid unexpected errors when you try to use unsupported capabilities.