Logging shell sessions to a transcript

You may find it useful at times to record the output of your shell sessions in a log file. This can help you save the history of all the commands you've executed and determine the success or failure of automated scripts. In this recipe, you'll learn how to create a PowerShell transcript. An example of when this could be useful is if we are developing a script and about to implement it in a production environment. It would be neat to use transcript logging during the first run(s).

How to do it...

1. To create a transcript, execute the Start-Transcript cmdlet:

Start-Transcript c:\logfile.txt

2. You can stop recording the session using the Stop-Transcript cmdlet:

Stop-Transcript

How it works...

When starting a PowerShell transcript, you can specify a path and a file name that will be used to record your commands and their output. The use of the -Path parameter is optional; if you do not provide a file path, the cmdlet will create a transcript file with a random name...