Common parameters

ErrorAction parameter

Possible values are Continue | Ignore | Inquire | SilentlyContinue | Stop | Suspend.

Value of this parameter will determine how the cmdlet will handle non-terminating errors (those generated from Write-Error for example; to learn more about error handling see [topic not yet created]).

Default value (if this parameter is omitted) is Continue.

-ErrorAction Continue

This option will produce an error message and will continue with execution.

PS C:\> Write-Error "test" -ErrorAction Continue ; Write-Host "Second command"

-ErrorAction Ignore

This option will not produce any error message and will continue with execution. Also no errors will be added to $Error automatic variable.
This option was introduced in v3.

PS C:\> Write-Error "test" -ErrorAction Ignore ; Write-Host "Second command"

-ErrorAction Inquire

This option will produce an error message and will prompt user to choose an action to take.

PS C:\> Write-Error "test" -ErrorAction Inquire ; Write-Host "Second command"

-ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

This option will not produce an error message and will continue with execution. All errors will be added to $Error automatic variable.

PS C:\> Write-Error "test" -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue ; Write-Host "Second command"

-ErrorAction Stop

This option will produce an error message and will not continue with execution.

PS C:\> Write-Error "test" -ErrorAction Stop ; Write-Host "Second command"

-ErrorAction Suspend

Only available in Powershell Workflows. When used, if the command runs into an error, the workflow is suspended. This allows investigation of such error and gives a possibility to resume the workflow. To learn more about Workflow system, see [topic not yet created].

Remarks

Common parameters can be used with any cmdlet (that means as soon as you mark your function as cmdlet [see CmdletBinding()], you get all of these parameters for free).

Here is the list of all common parameters (alias is in parenthesis after corresponding parameter):

-Debug (db)
-ErrorAction (ea)
-ErrorVariable (ev)
-InformationAction (ia) # introduced in v5
-InformationVariable (iv) # introduced in v5
-OutVariable (ov)
-OutBuffer (ob)
-PipelineVariable (pv)
-Verbose (vb)
-WarningAction (wa)
-WarningVariable (wv)
-WhatIf (wi)
-Confirm (cf)