Windows PowerShell is Microsoft's task automation framework, consisting of a command-line shell and associated scripting language. PowerShell enables administrators to perform administrative tasks on both local and remote Windows systems.

For many people it is simply a replacement for the familiar Command Prompt and it is included with Windows 7.

The following information explains how you can list and create network shares using Powershell. I use the script to create shares on drives that are not mounted until after Windows has booted.

List all the shares on this computer :

Get-WmiObject Win32_Share

List all the shares on this computer sorted by type then name :

Get-WmiObject Win32_Share | sort type, name

List all the shares on another computer :

Get-WmiObject Win32_Share -computerName Name

where Name is the name of the computer!

Create a share :

$Shares = [wmiClass] 'Win32_share'

$Shares.create("E:\My Data", "My Data", 0)

If the share is created successfully then it will return 0 otherwise it will return a non-zero number.

The following function can be included in a Powershell script :

Function CreateShare($Foldername,$Sharename) {

#

# This function creates a network share

#

# $Foldername - The full path to the share

# $Sharename  - The share name



  write-host "########## $Sharename ##########"



  # Check if the path exists

  IF (!(TEST-PATH $Foldername)) {

   # Create folder 

   NEW-ITEM $Foldername -type Directory

   write-host "Created $Foldername"

  }

 

  # Create Share but check to make sure it isn’t already there

  If (!(GET-WMIOBJECT Win32_Share | Where-Object -FilterScript {$_.Name -eq $Sharename})) {

    # Create share

    $Shares = [wmiclass]"Win32_Share"

    $results = $Shares.Create($Foldername,$Sharename,0,0)

    if ($results.returnvalue=0) {

     # Share created ok

     write-host "Created $Sharename"

    } else {

     # Error creating share

     write-host "Failed to create $Sharename ERROR:" $results.returnvalue

    }

  } ELSE {

    # Share name already exists

    write-host "$Sharename already exists"  

  }



  write-host ""

}

You can then call the function as many times as you like at the end of the script :

CreateShare "E:\My Data\" "My Data"