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There can always be only one physically logged on user on a machine. The physically logged on user is the one sitting right at the machine. Here is...

In a previous tip we explained how you can construct the connection string to a SQL database. Whether you use this to create the connection string,...

If you’d like to contact an SQL Server database via PowerShell, you need a connection string. The connection string contains all pieces of...

If you have installed the free RSAT tools from Microsoft, you can use PowerShell to update information stored in your AD user account, for example...

If you’d like to add custom attributes to an AD object, simply use a hash table, and add the desired attribute names and their values. Then...

Whenever you add delegation rights to an AD object (i.e. allow a user to manage the members of an organizational unit), you really invoke a change...

The built-in PowerShell ISE editor that ships with PowerShell 3.0 or better can be customized, and you can add your own menu items. When you run the...

Provided you have downloaded and installed Microsoft’s free RSAT tools, managing AD groups and group members is very simple. Here are some...

To access the full PowerShell help, you first need to download help information from the Internet. Simply launch a PowerShell console with full...

To safely use temporary AD accounts, for example for guests or consultants, always make sure to set an expiration date. Here is some sample code...

By default, AD objects are protected from accidental deletion. To remove this protection for all objects in a given scope (i.e. all objects in an...

When you download the free RSAT tools from Microsoft, these include the ActiveDirectory module. It contains a rich set of cmdlets to manage Active...

To access local user accounts and assign a new password, you can use the low-level WinNT: namespace. Note: you do need Administrator privileges to...

There are many ways to encrypt text. Here is an approach that does not use an explicit “secret”. Instead, the secret is defined as your...

Occasionally, you may want to move files to an archive folder when they are older than a given number of days. Here is an example that illustrates...

In a previous tip we showed how you can select applications and kill them immediately. All unsaved data in the applications would get lost. Here is...

With just one pipeline command, PowerShell can open a list of running applications. You can then select one or more in the list (hold CTRL to select...

To quickly open a new web page in the Internet Explorer, you could define a new function called Show-WebPage like this: #requires -Version 2...

Here is a quick way to find the current user in your Active Directory and retrieve account information such as the display name:...

In a previous tip we showed a script that would find all variable names in all scripts open in PowerShell ISE. Here is an adaption that adds a new...

Ever wanted an inventory of variable names used in all open scripts in the PowerShell ISE? Here is some code that you can run to create such a list:...

Requires PowerShell 4.0 There are plenty of looping constructs in PowerShell. Here is a rather unusual way introduced in PowerShell 4.0 to repeat...

You probably know Get-EventLog. This cmdlet can dump all entries from a given event log: Get-EventLog -LogName System However, Get-EventLog can only...

If you don't have much time yet would like to know what the most common sources of errors are in your System event log, try this line:...