#PSTip Select non-administrative shared folders using Win32_Share WMI class

Note: This tip required PowerShell 3.0 or above

The Win32_Share WMI class can be used to enumerate all shares on the local or remote system. In this tip, Get-CimInstance will be utilized to only return the non-administrative shared folders. This is possible because of the Type property that is available on each shared folder. The Type property indicates whether a share is an administrative or a normal share. The table includes all eight available type numbers that the Win32_Share class can return:

To get only non-administrative disk shares run the following command:

Get-CimInstance –Class Win32_Share –ComputerName server01 | Where-Object {$_.Type –eq 0}

Alternatively the –Query parameter can also be used to query this class:

Get-CimInstance -Query "select * from Win32_Share where type=0" –ComputerName localhost

The Get-CimInstance cmdlet is available in PowerShell 3.0 and later. The code posted in this tip can also be used in combination with the Get-WmiObject cmdlet to get similar results while maintaining compatibility with PowerShell 1.0/2.0.

For more information in regards to the Win32_Share class please see the following MSDN article:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa394435(v=vs.85).aspx