PowerShell Genie

Combine service filters in PowerShell

Exercise 2 min read Windows PowerShell 5.1 and PowerShell 7

Documentation: Microsoft Learn

Write a pipeline, run it against the sample data, and check your result.

Target

Return services that are both Running and Manual, sorted by Name. Both conditions must hold.

Expected result

BITS, W32Time, wuauserv

Try the task

Show a worked solution
Reveal one approach
1PS> Get-Service | Where-Object Status -eq 'Running' | Where-Object StartType -eq 'Manual' | Sort-Object Name

Try it in the lab

Write your pipeline below and run it against the fictional sample data, then check your result against the expected answer.

Interactive simulation · fictional data

PowerShell skills

Service objects · Filtering · Sorting

Build the answer in three decisions

Read the pipeline from left to right. Each stage receives objects from the stage before it.

Collect

Get-Service

Start with 7 fictional service objects. Keep them as objects so later stages can inspect their properties.

Shape

Where-Object Status -eq 'Running' | Where-Object StartType -eq 'Manual'

Apply the condition or ordering required by the task. Apply a Status filter and a StartType filter, then sort the remaining objects.

Verify

Check order and returned names

The fixture should return BITS, W32Time, wuauserv. Order matters for this exercise.

Reason through the pipeline

The source stage returns 7 service objects. Then the pipeline applies Where-Object Status -eq 'Running', Where-Object StartType -eq 'Manual', Sort-Object Name without converting the objects to display text. That keeps the Name property available for the checker and for any later pipeline stage.

Why common attempts fail

Do not hard-code the expected names; express the filter against an object property so the pipeline still makes sense when the fixture changes. Do not select the first rows before sorting when the task asks for a highest, lowest, first, or reverse-ordered result.

What the checker accepts

The evaluator runs the supported subset against the same fictional fixture. It expects BITS, W32Time, wuauserv. The returned order is part of the answer. Equivalent supported syntax is accepted.

Verify another attempt

First run Get-Service by itself and inspect the fixture. Then add one stage at a time and compare how many objects remain. This isolates the stage that changes the result and makes the final pipeline easier to explain and debug.

Primary documentation

PowerShell pipeline behavior

Next exercise
Genie guideCombine service filters in PowerShell

Write a pipeline, run it against the sample data, and check your result.