Working with providers

Each provider shares a common set of commands, such as Set-Location, Get-Item, and New-Item.

The full list of commands that you can use when interacting with a provider can be seen by running the following snippet:

$params = @{
    Name = @(
        '*-Item*'
        '*-ChildItem'
        '*-Content'
        '*-Acl'
        '*-Location'
    )
    Module = @(
        'Microsoft.PowerShell.Management'
        'Microsoft.PowerShell.Security'
    )
}
Get-Command @params

Each group of commands (such as the *-Content commands) is used when a provider supports a certain behavior. This is indicated by the .NET type it inherits, and the interfaces it implements.

For example, a provider that supports navigation allows the use of Get-Item, Get-ChildItem, Set-Location, and so on. This is possible because the FileSystemProvider inherits from a NavigationCmdletProvider type:

PS>...