PowerShell Receive-Job

PowerShell Background Jobs

The purpose of this cmdlet is to view the data stored in a PowerShell job.  Receive-Job works in conjunction with Start-Job, and you can troubleshoot with Get-Job.

Windows PowerShell Receive-Job Topics

• The Relationship Between Start-Job and Receive-Job
• Example 1: List Events in the System Log
• Example 2: List Services on Remote Computers

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The Relationship Between Start-Job and Receive-Job

You need Start-Job to create the object, Job# holds the results of instructions in {ScriptBlock}.  The particular role of Receive-Job is to display the contents of that Job#.  When getting testing or troubleshoot PowerShell jobs, I find that a third cmdlet Get-Job is invaluable.

Task Breakdown

a) Start-Job (Creates and stores the data; you see ID 2, Name Job2)
b) Get-Job (Lists the job names, their numbers, and their status)
c) Receive-Job (The climax, to actually view the results in the job)

Example 1: List Events in the System Log

a) Create the Job

Note 1: I have explicitly added -ScriptBlock, even though PowerShell would assume that the instruction in the first position contains this required parameter.

b) View the existence and status of your jobs
This is an optional step, useful in testing and troubleshooting.

Note 2: I ran the Start-Job command 3 times – just testing!

Note 3: Keep an eye on HasMoreData, False means it's run but the data has gone!  If you want to retain the results employ the -Keep parameter when you use Receive-Job.

c) Review a Specific Job

Note 4: There are several ways of viewing a completed job, here is a simpler command: Receive-Job -ID 6 -Keep

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Research Receive-Job

Note 5: This is how I discovered the -Keep and -AutoRemove parameter.

Example 2: List Services on Remote Computers

As we have already seen, Receive-Job works well with Start-Job; however it can run jobs against remote computers using Invoke-Command.

Let us set up the jobs:

Note 6: Observe the -AsJob parameter of Invoke-Command

View the contents of Job1

Note 7: This time I used the -AutoRemove parameter to delete this job once we have seen the details.

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Researching Similar PowerShell Job Cmdlets

See also PowerShell -AsJob »

Summary of PowerShell Receive-Job

The purpose of this cmdlet is to obtain the results of a PowerShell background jobs; it relies on Start-Job or Invoke-Command -AsJob to actually create the job.

See more Microsoft PowerShell tutorials

• PowerShell Home   • Real life tasks   • Invoke-Command   • PowerShell Windows 7

• Remote PowerShell   • PowerShell WSMan  • -Online   • PowerShell WinRm   • Test-Connection

• Jobs  -AsJob   • Receive-Job   • Get-Job   • Receive-Job   • Free WMI Monitor

Please email me if you have a better example script. Also please report any factual mistakes, grammatical errors or broken links, I will be happy to correct the fault.