Do these commands need PowerShell 7 installed?

No. Everything in the list runs on Windows PowerShell 5.1, which ships built-in with Windows Server 2019, 2022 and 2025. PowerShell 7 works too, but nothing here requires it.

How do I list only running services?

Use Get-Service piped through a status filter: Get-Service | Where-Object Status -eq Running. Add Format-Table for a compact view, or filter by name pattern like Get-Service MSSQL* for one application's services.

How can I check CPU and RAM usage from PowerShell?

Get-Counter with the Processor and Available MBytes counters gives live samples, and Get-Process sorted by WorkingSet64 shows which processes hold the memory. Together they answer "why is the server slow?" in under a minute.

Can I run these commands against a remote server?

Yes. Enable PowerShell remoting on the target with Enable-PSRemoting, then use Invoke-Command for one-off commands or Enter-PSSession for an interactive session, including against a whole list of servers at once.

25 PowerShell Commands for Windows VPS Admins

25 copy-paste PowerShell commands for daily Windows VPS admin: services, processes, files, networking, users, disk, remote management, and Windows Updates.

In short

These 25 PowerShell commands cover most daily admin work on a Raff Windows VPS: services, processes, files, networking, firewall rules, local users, disks, remote management and Windows Updates. Every command runs in Windows PowerShell 5.1, which is built into Windows Server 2019, 2022 and 2025, so nothing needs PowerShell 7. Copy, paste and adjust the names. To search the same commands by category, use the PowerShell command library.

How to follow along

Open PowerShell as Administrator on your Raff Windows VPS:

RDP into the VPS (see Connect to a Raff Windows VPS via RDP)
Right-click Start and choose Windows PowerShell (Admin), or Terminal (Admin) where Windows Terminal is installed. The keyboard shortcut is Win + X, then A.

Most commands below need admin rights, so run the whole session as Administrator.

Service management

1. List all services + status

Powershell

Get-Service | Select-Object Name, DisplayName, Status, StartType | Format-Table -AutoSize

Filter to a name pattern (e.g. all SQL services):

Powershell

Get-Service -Name 'MSSQL*'

Microsoft Learn: Get-Service

2. Restart a service

Powershell

Restart-Service -Name 'W3SVC' -Force

-Force skips the dependent-service prompt. For IIS specifically, iisreset is also a valid one-liner.

3. Change service startup type

Powershell

# Set to Automatic (starts on boot)
Set-Service -Name 'MSSQLSERVER' -StartupType Automatic

# Disable a service
Set-Service -Name 'Spooler' -StartupType Disabled

Microsoft Learn: Set-Service

Process management

4. List running processes

Powershell

# All processes, sorted by RAM use
Get-Process | Sort-Object WorkingSet64 -Descending | Select-Object -First 20 Name, Id, CPU, @{N='MB';E={[math]::Round($_.WorkingSet64/1MB,1)}}

Filter by name:

Powershell

Get-Process -Name 'sqlservr*'

5. Kill a process

Powershell

# By name
Stop-Process -Name 'notepad' -Force

# By PID (safer when multiple processes share a name)
Stop-Process -Id 4452 -Force

-Force skips the user confirmation prompt. Use it sparingly: a forced stop skips the program's own cleanup.

File and folder operations

6. List directory contents recursively

Powershell

# Files only, recursive, with size in MB
Get-ChildItem -Path 'C:\inetpub' -File -Recurse | 
    Select-Object FullName, @{N='MB';E={[math]::Round($_.Length/1MB,2)}}, LastWriteTime | 
    Sort-Object MB -Descending |
    Select-Object -First 20

Find files larger than 100 MB (great for "what's eating my disk?"):

Powershell

Get-ChildItem -Path 'C:\' -File -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | 
    Where-Object Length -gt 100MB | 
    Select-Object FullName, @{N='MB';E={[math]::Round($_.Length/1MB,1)}}

7. Copy with retry + logging (Robocopy wrapper)

Copy-Item is fine for one-off; for backups, use Robocopy via PowerShell:

Powershell

# Mirror a folder, retry 3x on errors, log to file
robocopy 'C:\Source' 'D:\Backup' /MIR /R:3 /W:5 /LOG:'C:\Logs\backup.log' /NP

Robocopy isn't a PowerShell cmdlet but it's the standard tool for serious file ops on Windows. PowerShell scripts wrap it for backup automation.

8. Calculate folder size

Powershell

(Get-ChildItem -Path 'C:\inetpub' -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | 
    Measure-Object -Property Length -Sum).Sum / 1GB

Returns size in GB. Wrap in [math]::Round(..., 2) for clean output.

Don’t have a server yet?

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System information

9. Get OS + hardware overview

Powershell

Get-ComputerInfo | Select-Object CsName, OsName, OsVersion, OsBuildNumber, 
    OsHardwareAbstractionLayer, CsTotalPhysicalMemory, CsNumberOfLogicalProcessors

Microsoft Learn: Get-ComputerInfo

10. List installed Windows updates

Powershell

Get-HotFix | Sort-Object InstalledOn -Descending | 
    Select-Object -First 20 HotFixID, Description, InstalledOn, InstalledBy

11. Read the Event Log

Powershell

# Last 50 errors from the System log
Get-EventLog -LogName System -EntryType Error -Newest 50 | 
    Format-Table TimeGenerated, Source, EventID, Message -AutoSize -Wrap

On current Windows Server versions, prefer Get-WinEvent, which also works in PowerShell 7, where Get-EventLog was removed:

Powershell

# Last 50 errors using the new event log API
Get-WinEvent -FilterHashtable @{LogName='System'; Level=2} -MaxEvents 50 |
    Format-Table TimeCreated, Id, ProviderName, Message -AutoSize -Wrap

Networking

12. List IP addresses

Powershell

Get-NetIPAddress | Where-Object AddressFamily -eq 'IPv4' | 
    Select-Object InterfaceAlias, IPAddress, PrefixLength, AddressState

13. Test if a remote port is open

Powershell

Test-NetConnection -ComputerName 'google.com' -Port 443

The PowerShell equivalent of nc -zv: it resolves the name and confirms the TCP port answers. Microsoft Learn: Test-NetConnection

14. List Windows Firewall rules

Powershell

# All inbound allow rules
Get-NetFirewallRule -Direction Inbound -Action Allow -Enabled True | 
    Sort-Object DisplayName |
    Select-Object DisplayName, Profile, @{N='Port';E={(Get-NetFirewallPortFilter -AssociatedNetFirewallRule $_).LocalPort}}

15. Add a firewall rule

Powershell

# Allow inbound TCP 8080
New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName 'Custom App TCP 8080' `
    -Direction Inbound -Protocol TCP -LocalPort 8080 `
    -Action Allow -Profile Any

Restrict by source IP for tighter security:

Powershell

New-NetFirewallRule -DisplayName 'SQL from Office' `
    -Direction Inbound -Protocol TCP -LocalPort 1433 `
    -RemoteAddress '203.0.113.10/32' `
    -Action Allow

Microsoft Learn: New-NetFirewallRule

User and group management

16. List local users

Powershell

Get-LocalUser | Format-Table Name, Enabled, LastLogon, Description -AutoSize

17. Create a local user

Powershell

$password = Read-Host 'Password' -AsSecureString
New-LocalUser -Name 'jane.doe' -Password $password -FullName 'Jane Doe' -Description 'Accountant'

18. Add a user to a group

Powershell

# Grant RDP access
Add-LocalGroupMember -Group 'Remote Desktop Users' -Member 'jane.doe'

# Grant local admin (use sparingly!)
Add-LocalGroupMember -Group 'Administrators' -Member 'jane.doe'

Microsoft Learn: Add-LocalGroupMember

Disk and storage

19. Show disk and volume usage

Powershell

# Volumes with free space
Get-Volume | Where-Object DriveLetter | 
    Select-Object DriveLetter, FileSystemLabel, 
        @{N='SizeGB';E={[math]::Round($_.Size/1GB,1)}},
        @{N='FreeGB';E={[math]::Round($_.SizeRemaining/1GB,1)}},
        @{N='UsedPct';E={[math]::Round((1-$_.SizeRemaining/$_.Size)*100,1)}}

20. Show physical disks

Powershell

Get-PhysicalDisk | Format-Table FriendlyName, MediaType, Size, HealthStatus

Shows each disk Windows sees, with its size and health status.

Remote management

21. Enable PowerShell remoting (server side)

Powershell

# On the server you want to manage remotely
Enable-PSRemoting -Force

Microsoft Learn: Enable-PSRemoting

22. Run a command on a remote server

Powershell

# Run on a single remote machine
Invoke-Command -ComputerName 'SERVER02' -ScriptBlock { Get-Service W3SVC }

# Run on a fleet
Invoke-Command -ComputerName 'SRV01','SRV02','SRV03' -ScriptBlock { 
    Get-CimInstance Win32_OperatingSystem | Select-Object PSComputerName, Caption, BuildNumber 
}

23. Open an interactive remote PowerShell session

Powershell

Enter-PSSession -ComputerName 'SERVER02' -Credential (Get-Credential)
# Now you're 'inside' SERVER02: every command runs there. Type 'exit' to leave.

Performance

24. Live performance counters

Powershell

# CPU + memory snapshot every 2 seconds, 10 samples
Get-Counter -Counter '\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time', 
                     '\Memory\Available MBytes' `
    -SampleInterval 2 -MaxSamples 10

Useful counters for Windows Server admin:

Counter	What it shows
`\Processor(_Total)\% Processor Time`	Overall CPU %
`\Memory\Available MBytes`	Free RAM
`\PhysicalDisk(_Total)\Avg. Disk Queue Length`	Disk queue (stays high when the disk is the bottleneck)
`\Network Interface(*)\Bytes Total/sec`	Network throughput per NIC
`\Process(*)\Working Set`	RAM per process

25. Install + run Windows Updates from PowerShell

The built-in Windows Update UI works, but for headless / Server Core / scripted patching:

Powershell

# One-time: install the PSWindowsUpdate module from PowerShell Gallery
Install-Module -Name PSWindowsUpdate -Force -Scope AllUsers

# Check what's available
Get-WindowsUpdate

# Install everything (will reboot if needed)
Get-WindowsUpdate -Install -AcceptAll -AutoReboot

# Install only security updates
Get-WindowsUpdate -Install -AcceptAll -Category 'Security Updates' -AutoReboot

PSWindowsUpdate is community-maintained but widely used. Source: PSWindowsUpdate on the PowerShell Gallery.

Bonus: discoverability

When you forget a command name, PowerShell's discovery tools help:

Powershell

# Find cmdlets by keyword (no need to know exact name)
Get-Command *firewall*

# See full help for any cmdlet (requires Update-Help once)
Get-Help Get-Service -Full

# See examples only
Get-Help Get-Service -Examples

# Update help files (do once after install)
Update-Help -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

What's next

PowerShell command library: the same 25 commands, searchable by category
Connect to a Raff Windows VPS via RDP: get to the PowerShell prompt
PowerShell remoting on Windows Server 2025: set up commands 21 to 23 securely with WinRM
Install SQL Server 2025 on a Windows Server VPS: uses several of these PowerShell commands
Host ASP.NET Core on IIS with the .NET 10 Hosting Bundle: IIS and app pool management with PowerShell

Sources

Microsoft Learn: PowerShell documentation
Microsoft Learn: Get-Service
Microsoft Learn: New-NetFirewallRule
Microsoft Learn: Test-NetConnection
Microsoft Learn: Enable-PSRemoting
PowerShell Gallery: PSWindowsUpdate module
Date last verified: 2026-11-13

25 PowerShell Commands Every Windows VPS Admin Needs

In short

How to follow along

Service management

1. List all services + status

2. Restart a service

3. Change service startup type

Process management

4. List running processes

5. Kill a process

File and folder operations

6. List directory contents recursively

7. Copy with retry + logging (Robocopy wrapper)

8. Calculate folder size

System information

9. Get OS + hardware overview

10. List installed Windows updates

11. Read the Event Log

Networking

12. List IP addresses

13. Test if a remote port is open

14. List Windows Firewall rules

15. Add a firewall rule

User and group management

16. List local users

17. Create a local user

18. Add a user to a group

Disk and storage

19. Show disk and volume usage

20. Show physical disks

Remote management

21. Enable PowerShell remoting (server side)

22. Run a command on a remote server

23. Open an interactive remote PowerShell session

Performance

24. Live performance counters

25. Install + run Windows Updates from PowerShell

Bonus: discoverability

What's next

Sources

Frequently asked questions

Your Windows Server, live in ~55 seconds

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