Unix tail equivalent command in Windows Powershell
Use the -wait parameter with Get-Content, which displays lines as they are added to the file. This feature was present in PowerShell v1, but for some reason not documented well in v2.
Here is an example
Get-Content -Path "C:\scripts\test.txt" -WaitOnce you run this, update and save the file and you will see the changes on the console.
For completeness I'll mention that Powershell 3.0 now has a -Tail flag on Get-Content
Get-Content ./log.log -Tail 10gets the last 10 lines of the file
Get-Content ./log.log -Wait -Tail 10gets the last 10 lines of the file and waits for more
Also, for those *nix users, note that most systems alias cat to Get-Content, so this usually works
cat ./log.log -Tail 10
As of PowerShell version 3.0, the Get-Content cmdlet has a -Tail parameter that should help. See the technet library online help for Get-Content.