Question

this will sound like a bad joke, but apparently geniuses from MS arent capable of making uber complicated -exclude gci parameter work. By “genious” design it only works on files, not on entire path. So how to make it work.
For example how to exclude all files whose path contains “Windows” substring?
naive
gci -exclude "*Windows*" -rec
doesnt work

EDIT: googled/figured out this:

 | where {$_.DirectoryName -notmatch ".*abcdef.*" }

If somebody knows better solution please share. If not will close question.

Answer 1

The solution is this:

 gci ./ |Where{ $_.PSPath -notmatch ".*Windows.*"}

BTW useful thing for guessing solutions to problems like this is to know what methods the current object has, for that I used Get-Member. Example output:

PS C:\Users\jh> gci ./ | Get-Member


       TypeName: System.IO.DirectoryInfo

    Name                      MemberType     Definition
    ----                      ----------     ----------
    Mode                      CodeProperty   System.String Mode{get=Mode;}
    Create                    Method         void Create(), void Create(System.Security.AccessControl.DirectorySecurity ...
    CreateObjRef              Method         System.Runtime.Remoting.ObjRef CreateObjRef(type requestedType)
    CreateSubdirectory        Method         System.IO.DirectoryInfo CreateSubdirectory(string path), System.IO.Director...
    Delete                    Method         void Delete(), void Delete(bool recursive)
    EnumerateDirectories      Method         System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable[System.IO.DirectoryInfo] EnumerateDi...
    EnumerateFiles            Method         System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable[System.IO.FileInfo] EnumerateFiles()...
    EnumerateFileSystemInfos  Method         System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable[System.IO.FileSystemInfo] EnumerateF...
    Equals                    Method         bool Equals(System.Object obj)
    GetAccessControl          Method         System.Security.AccessControl.DirectorySecurity GetAccessControl(), System....
    GetDirectories            Method         System.IO.DirectoryInfo[] GetDirectories(), System.IO.DirectoryInfo[] GetDi...
    GetFiles                  Method         System.IO.FileInfo[] GetFiles(string searchPattern), System.IO.FileInfo[] G...
    GetFileSystemInfos        Method         System.IO.FileSystemInfo[] GetFileSystemInfos(string searchPattern), System...
    GetHashCode               Method         int GetHashCode()
    GetLifetimeService        Method         System.Object GetLifetimeService()
    GetObjectData             Method         void GetObjectData(System.Runtime.Serialization.SerializationInfo info, Sys...
    GetType                   Method         type GetType()
    InitializeLifetimeService Method         System.Object InitializeLifetimeService()
    MoveTo                    Method         void MoveTo(string destDirName)
    Refresh                   Method         void Refresh()
    SetAccessControl          Method         void SetAccessControl(System.Security.AccessControl.DirectorySecurity direc...
    ToString                  Method         string ToString()
    PSChildName               NoteProperty   System.String PSChildName=Contacts
    PSDrive                   NoteProperty   System.Management.Automation.PSDriveInfo PSDrive=C
    PSIsContainer             NoteProperty   System.Boolean PSIsContainer=True
    PSParentPath              NoteProperty   System.String PSParentPath=Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\Users\jh
    PSPath                    NoteProperty   System.String PSPath=Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\Users\jh\Cont...
    PSProvider                NoteProperty   System.Management.Automation.ProviderInfo PSProvider=Microsoft.PowerShell.C...
    Attributes                Property       System.IO.FileAttributes Attributes {get;set;}
    CreationTime              Property       datetime CreationTime {get;set;}
    CreationTimeUtc           Property       datetime CreationTimeUtc {get;set;}
    Exists                    Property       bool Exists {get;}
    Extension                 Property       string Extension {get;}
    FullName                  Property       string FullName {get;}
    LastAccessTime            Property       datetime LastAccessTime {get;set;}
    LastAccessTimeUtc         Property       datetime LastAccessTimeUtc {get;set;}
    LastWriteTime             Property       datetime LastWriteTime {get;set;}
    LastWriteTimeUtc          Property       datetime LastWriteTimeUtc {get;set;}
    Name                      Property       string Name {get;}
    Parent                    Property       System.IO.DirectoryInfo Parent {get;}
    Root                      Property       System.IO.DirectoryInfo Root {get;}
    BaseName                  ScriptProperty System.Object BaseName {get=$this.Name;}