powershell newbie here. I am building a simple bit of code to help me find user's by entering letters of user names. How do I get a wildcard to work w/ a variable? this works: $name=read-host -prompt "enter user's first or last initial" $userInput=get-aduser -f {givenname -like 'A*' } cmd /c echo "output: $userInput" this does not: $name=read-host -prompt "enter user's first or last initial" $userInput=get-aduser -f {givenname -like '$name*' } cmd /c echo "output: $userInput" The first bit of code delivers a list of users with "A" in their name. Any suggestions woudl be appreciated. thanks