A transaction allows a set of changes to be grouped together and committed at the same time. Transactions are only supported under Windows PowerShell.

The registry provider supports transactions, as shown in the following code:

PS> Get-PSProvider

Name            Capabilities                         Drives 
----            ------------                         ------ 
Registry        ShouldProcess, Transactions          {HKLM, HKCU} 
Alias           ShouldProcess                        {Alias} 
Environment     ShouldProcess                        {Env} 
FileSystem      Filter, ShouldProcess, Credentials   {B, C, D} 
Function        ShouldProcess                        {Function} 
Variable        ShouldProcess                        {Variable} 

A transaction may be created as follows:

Start-Transaction 
$path = 'HKCU:TestTransaction' 
New-Item $path -ItemType Key -UseTransaction 
Set-ItemProperty $path -Name 'Name' -Value 'Transaction' -UseTransaction 
Set-ItemProperty $path -Name 'Length' -Value 20 -UseTransaction 

At this point, the transaction may be undone:

Undo-Transaction 

Alternatively, the transaction may be committed:

Complete-Transaction 

A list of the commands that support transactions may be viewed, although not all of these may be used with the registry provider:

Get-Command -ParameterName UseTransaction