Sometimes it may be clever to use simple text-based CSV format internally to bulk-create objects, especially if the original data is already...
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Finding Active Directory Group Members Efficiently
Often, AD Administrators need to find all members of a given AD group, including nested members. Here is a code snippet that frequently surfaces in...
Using Artificial Intelligence with Azure Cognitive Services
The cloud these days not only offers virtual machines and storage, but also brand new and exciting services such as the cognitive services. You need...
Backing Up All Scripts to ZIP
PowerShell 5 finally includes support for ZIP files, so if you want to backup all of your PowerShell scripts into one ZIP file, here is a one-liner:...
Running PowerShell Code as Someone Else
Local admin privileges are extremely powerful, and you should use techniques such as JEA to minimize the number of local Admins as much as you can....
Hardening Script Block Logging
By default, script block logging data is open to anyone, not just Administrators. When script block logging is enabled, any user can access the log...
Enabling Script Block Logging
In the previous tips, we took a deep look at how PowerShell 5 script block logging works: in a nutshell, when enabled, all PowerShell code that...
Finding Secret Passwords in Memory
Some scripts may leave variables with sensitive information behind. This can happen by accident, when the global scope is used, or when users call...
Outputting Data to HTML Reports
Here is a super easy and useful PowerShell function called Out-HTML: function Out-HTML { param ( [String] $Path = "$env:temp\report$(Get-Date...
Stealing Sensitive Data from PowerShell Functions
Frequently, PowerShell functions work with sensitive information, i.e. log-on information including passwords, and store this information in...
Handling Credentials as Parameters
Credentials are objects that contain a user name and an encrypted password. If your PowerShell functions should be able to accept credentials,...
Resolving Mapped Drive
Ever wanted to know the original URL behind network drives? Here is an easy PowerShell way: # make sure the below drive is a mapped network drive #...
Downloading Data with BitsTransfer in the Background
Downloading very large files can be a challenge because the download process may take longer than a machine is turned on. With BitsTransfer, you can...
Downloading Data via SSL and BitsTransfer (Sync)
A very convenient built-in way to download files, even with SSL connections, is Start-BitsTransfer. It also sports a progress bar that shows the...
Downloading Data via SSL and Invoke-WebRequest
Invoke-WebRequest can download files for you but may struggle with HTTPS URLs. To use SSL connections, you may have to change a default setting....
Finding Disabled GPOs
Here is a quick one-liner that dumps all Group Policy objects that have all settings disabled: Get-Gpo -All | Where-Object GpoStatus -eq...
Browsing All Event Logs
Get-EventLog always requires you to specify exactly one event log via -LogName. You cannot use wildcards, and you cannot browse all event logs at...
Creating Event Log Reports
You probably have used Get-EventLog frequently to dump event log information, for example: PS> Get-EventLog -LogName System -EntryType Error...
Keyboard Shortcuts for PowerShell Console
The PowerShell console starting in version 5 ships with a module called PSReadLine which does much more than just coloring command tokens. It comes...
Using SSH from PowerShell
PowerShell 6 (PowerShell Core) finally ships with SSH support: you can use SSH to connect to non-Windows machines for PowerShell remoting...
Managing Lenovo BIOS Settings (Part 4)
In the previous tip we showed how you can read and change BIOS settings for Lenovo computers. This was the code to disable WakeOnLan, for example:...
Managing Lenovo BIOS Settings (Part 3)
In the previous tip we explained how to manage Lenovo BIOS settings from PowerShell. Typically, there are single settings that need to be managed....
Managing Lenovo BIOS Settings (Part 2)
Managing Lenovo BIOS Settings (Part 1)
There is unfortunately no standardized way of managing BIOS settings for computer vendors. Each vendor employs proprietary approaches. For Lenovo...