Exploring Get-Process: Monitor What’s Running with PowerShell

Welcome back to Wahmans Powershell blog! In today’s post, we are diving into one of the fundamental cmdlets every PowerShell user should know: Get-Process.

According to Microsoft, Get-Process “gets the processes that are running on the local computer or a remote computer.” This makes it a powerful tool when monitoring system activity, troubleshooting performance issues, or simply checking if a specific application is running.

Basic Syntax

Get-Process

This simple command lists all the processes running on the local machine.

Example 1: List All Running Processes (Beginner)

If you’re just getting started, the most straightforward usage is simply executing:

Get-Process

This command displays a table with information such as process names, IDs, and memory usage.

Example 2: Filter by Process Name (Intermediate)

To see if a specific process like Notepad is running, you can filter it by name:

Get-Process -Name notepad

This will return only processes that match the name “notepad”, along with their details.

Example 3: Sort Processes by Memory Usage (Intermediate)

To analyze which processes are consuming the most memory, you can sort them:

Get-Process | Sort-Object -Property WorkingSet -Descending | Select-Object -First 10

This command lists the top 10 memory-intensive processes on your system.

Example 4: Get Processes From a Remote Computer (Advanced)

With the necessary permissions and PowerShell remoting enabled, you can get process data from a remote machine:

Invoke-Command -ComputerName "RemotePC" -ScriptBlock { Get-Process }

This is extremely useful in enterprise environments for remote diagnostics and monitoring.

Wrap Up

Get-Process is a powerful cmdlet that scales from simple everyday checks to more advanced monitoring tasks across networked systems. Understanding how to harness its flexibility can put you in full control over your system’s processes.

Happy scripting, and I will see you in the next post!