CPE Dictionary cpe-item search

Question

What is the correct way to do a string search, without using XPATH / Namespace manager (legacy XP machine, Powershell 2.0)?
I'm new to powershell xml, and am attempting to construct something like that returns only "cpe-item names" containing a specific string. I'm attempting to pull information from the CPE Dictionary.
Example, I'd like to return all "cape:/a: ..." lines that contain the string cisco. I attempted the following, but I don't understand how to properly construct
$nvdxml=[xml]'<root/>'
$nvdxml.load('.\Documents\Scripts.\cpe-dictionary.xml')
$nodes=$nvdxml |?{$_.'cpe-list'[$_.'cpe-item'["cisco"]]}
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?>
<cpe-list xmlns:meta="http://scap.nist.gov/schema/cpe-dictionary-metadata/0.2" xmlns:config="http://scap.nist.gov/schema/configuration/0.1" xmlns:ns6="http://scap.nist.gov/schema/scap-core/0.1" xmlns:scap-core="http://scap.nist.gov/schema/scap-core/0.3" xmlns="http://cpe.mitre.org/dictionary/2.0" xmlns:cpe-23="http://scap.nist.gov/schema/cpe-extension/2.3" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://scap.nist.gov/schema/configuration/0.1 http://nvd.nist.gov/schema/configuration_0.1.xsd http://cpe.mitre.org/dictionary/2.0 http://scap.nist.gov/schema/cpe/2.3/cpe-dictionary_2.3.xsd http://scap.nist.gov/schema/scap-core/0.3 http://nvd.nist.gov/schema/scap-core_0.3.xsd http://scap.nist.gov/schema/scap-core/0.1 http://nvd.nist.gov/schema/scap-core_0.1.xsd http://scap.nist.gov/schema/cpe-dictionary-metadata/0.2 http://nvd.nist.gov/schema/cpe-dictionary-metadata_0.2.xsd http://scap.nist.gov/schema/cpe-extension/2.3 http://scap.nist.gov/schema/cpe/2.3/cpe-dictionary-extension_2.3.xsd">
<generator>
<product_name>National Vulnerability Database (NVD)</product_name>
<product_version>2.22.0-SNAPSHOT (PRODUCTION)</product_version>
<schema_version>2.3</schema_version>
<timestamp>2014-03-05T05:13:33.550Z</timestamp>
</generator>
<cpe-item name="cpe:/a:1024cms:1024_cms:0.7">
<title xml:lang="en-US">1024cms.org 1024 CMS 0.7</title>
<cpe-23:cpe23-item name="cpe:2.3:a:1024cms:1024_cms:0.7:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"/>
</cpe-item>
<cpe-item name="cpe:/a:1024cms:1024_cms:1.2.5">
<title xml:lang="en-US">1024cms.org 1024 CMS 1.2.5</title>
<cpe-23:cpe23-item name="cpe:2.3:a:1024cms:1024_cms:1.2.5:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"/>
</cpe-item>
<cpe-item name="cpe:/a:1024cms:1024_cms:1.3.1">
<title xml:lang="en-US">1024cms.org 1024 CMS 1.3.1</title>
<cpe-23:cpe23-item name="cpe:2.3:a:1024cms:1024_cms:1.3.1:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"/>
</cpe-item>
<cpe-item name="cpe:/h:zyxel:p-660hw_t3:v2">
<title xml:lang="en-US">ZyXEL P-660HW T3 Model v2</title>
<cpe-23:cpe23-item name="cpe:2.3:h:zyxel:p-660hw_t3:v2:*:*:*:*:*:*:*"/>
</cpe-item>
</cpe-list>

Answer 1

You cannot effectively search XML using that method.  You need to use XPath.  The NVD is a very complex schema and takes time to learn.  you would do better to post quesitons about how to extract information in the NVD forums where the users
have extensive experience with extractions. THey will pointyou at lists of XPAth and XQuery methids that have been devised to access the data.
The NVD databases are a hierarchcal data set and any item can exist at almosst any level andfor many differnt structural reaasons.  String parsing cannot do what you are trying to do with any reliability.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯