How can I extract "Path to executable" of all services with PowerShell

I think you'll need to resort to WMI:

Get-WmiObject win32_service | ?{$_.Name -like '*sql*'} | select Name, DisplayName, State, PathName

UpdateIf you want to perform some manipulation on the selected data, you can use calculated properties as described here.

For example if you just wanted the text within quotes for the Pathname, you could split on double quotes and take the array item 1:

Get-WmiObject win32_service | ?{$_.Name -like '*sql*'} | select Name, DisplayName, @{Name="Path"; Expression={$_.PathName.split('"')[1]}} | Format-List

A variant on the WMI Query that may be faster (I just had to do this for an SCCM Client)

$SQLService=(get-wmiobject -Query 'Select * from win32_service where Name like "*SQL*"') | Select-object Name, DisplayName, State, Pathname

The other trick is to trap for the multiple SQL results if you want the path names without the Double Quotes (so you can action upon them)

$SQLService | Select-Object Name, DisplayName, State, @{Name='PathName';Expression=$_.Pathname.replace('"','')}

The big advantage to using -query in the get-wmiobject (or get-ciminstance) is the speed of processing. The older example gets a full list and then filters, whilst the latter grabs a very direct list.

Just adding in two cents :)

Cheers all!SeanThe Energized Tech

Since Get-WmiObject have been deprecated in PowerShell Core, you can use

Get-CimInstance -ClassName win32_service | ?{$_.Name -match '^sql'} | Select Name, DisplayName, State, PathName >> C:\temp\sqlservices.txt

instead.