This tip was contributed by Ed Wilson a.k.a. The Scripting Guy at Microsoft:
PowerTip: Use Windows PowerShell to count the number of unique processes
Question: You want to know how many processes on a system are unique. How can you easily find this information?
Answer: Use the Get-Process cmdlet to get the list of processes. Pipeline the resulting objects to the Sort-Object cmdlet and then to the Get-Unique cmdlet. Pipeline the entire results to the Measure-Object cmdlet. This technique appears here:
get-process | Sort-Object name | Get-Unique | measure
Ed Wilson is the bestselling author of eight books about Windows Scripting, including Windows PowerShell 3.0 Step by Step, and Windows PowerShell 3.0 First Steps. He writes a daily blog about Windows PowerShell called Hey, Scripting Guy! that is hosted on the Microsoft TechNet Script Center; for more PowerTips check out the Hey, Scripting Guy! blog.
The above tip was previously published in an issue of WServerNews, a weekly newsletter from TechGenix that focuses on the administration, management and security of the Windows Server platform in particular and cloud solutions in general. Subscribe to WServerNews today by going to http://www.wservernews.com/subscribe.htm and join almost 100,000 other IT professionals around the world who read our newsletter!
Mitch Tulloch is a twelve-time recipient of the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award and a widely recognized expert on Windows Server and cloud computing technologies. Mitch is also Senior Editor of WServerNews. For more information about him see http://www.mtit.com.