All Versions By default, PowerShell displays the current path in its input prompt which wastes as lot of space. When you overwrite the...
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Doing Things in Parallel
Any version By processing things in parallel rather than sequential, a script can complete much faster. Here is an example that uses background jobs...
More Splitting Fun
In the previous tip, we explained how you can use a regular expression to split strings in groups of a given length. Let’s explore what else...
Splitting Groups
All PowerShell Versions Ever wanted to split a string in chunks of a given length? Regular expressions can help. Here is an example that splits a...
Using Form-Based Windows in PowerShell
WPF-based windows are the preferred way to create user interfaces this way - because the code is much easier to write, shorter, and WPF scales well...
Safely Opening WPF Windows
In the previous tip we explained how you can create WPF-based windows in PowerShell. However, when you play with WPF code inside PowerShell ISE, it...
Creating WPF Windows
WPF is a great technique to create user interfaces in PowerShell. Most of the window content can be defined using XAML, a description similar to...
Sending Emails (and Diagnosing Mail Servers)
Send-MailMessage has been around for many years. It can be used to quickly send an email without the need to have an email client at hand. All you...
Saving Multiple Credentials
Thanks to Jaap Brasser’s finding, here is an easy way of encrypting a bunch of credentials: $CredPath = "$home\Desktop\mycreds.xml"...
Saving Credentials
Here is a safe way of saving credentials to a file: $CredPath = "$home\Desktop\mycred.xml" Get-Credential | Export-Clixml -Path $CredPath...
Clearing the Recycle Bin
A much awaited new cmdlet surfaced in PowerShell 5.0: Clear-RecycleBin! You can clear the recycle bin on a particular drive, or on all drives. This...
Launching PowerShell with Admin Privileges – Always
When you launch PowerShell, you should right-click the PowerShell icon in the taskbar and pin it to the taskbar. This way it is always visible, and...
ValidateSet Instead of Enum
In the previous tip we illustrated how the new "enum" keyword works in PowerShell 5.0 to set the values that are assignable to a...
Using Enumerations
Beginning with PowerShell 5.0, you can use the new keyword "enum" to create enumerations. They can be useful for parameter validation:...
Remotely Executing Applications on Behalf of Someone Else
When you remotely execute an application, it will run invisibly on the remote system. Here is some code that illustrates how you can run an...
Changing Excel Cells from PowerShell
If you need to change the content of a specific cell in an Excel spreadsheet, take a look at this sample code: $ExcelPath =...
Reading Excel Cells
The fastest way to read data from an Excel spreadsheet is to export the data to CSV, then use Import-CSV. However, sometimes the data in an Excel...
Minimizing All Windows (Part 2)
If all you need to do is minimizing all open windows, there is the Shell.Application COM object. PowerShell can access its methods via New-Object:...
Minimizing All Application Windows
In a previous tip we explained how PowerShell can access low level API functions such as ShowWindowAsync(). Once you better understand how a...
Accessing API Methods
PowerShell can use C# to define new .NET types that access the internal Windows API methods. Here is some code that makes accessible the...
Check Default PowerShell Module Paths
Sometimes, PowerShell modules ship as MSI packages. When they do, you never know what the installation logic does to your system. Unfortunately,...
PSGet is Evil!
If you have played with the early releases of PowerShellGet and the PowerShell Gallery (www.powershellgallery.com), you may still have a module...
Converting 8.3 File Names
If you want to convert a short 8.3 filename to its long file name, try something like this: PS> (Get-Item...
Use PowerShell 5.0 Code Generation API
In PowerShell 5.0, a new .NET type was introduced that can help you escape text information so it can be displayed correctly: PS>...