In a previous tip we illustrated how you can copy the previously entered interactive PowerShell commands to your favorite script editor. Here is a...
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Finding Dates Between Two Dates
If you must know how many days are between two dates, you can easily find out by using New-TimeSpan: $startdate = Get-Date $enddate = Get-Date -Date...
Using Default Parameters
In PowerShell 3.0, an option was added to define default values for arbitrary cmdlet parameters. This line, for example, would set the default value...
Speeding Up Scripts with StringBuilder
Often, scripts add new text to existing text. Here is a piece of code that may look familiar to you: Measure-Command { $text = "Hello" for...
Finding Working Days
To find all working days in a given month, here is a neat little one-liner: $month = 7 1..31 | ForEach-Object { Get-Date -Day $_ -Month $month } |...
Why Directories Have a Size of 1
Occasionally, you may notice that folders have a length of 1 byte. This was introduced in PowerShell 3.0. In PowerShell 2.0, they did not report...
Speeding Up Background Jobs
Background jobs can be a great thing to speed up scripts because they can do things in parallel. However, background jobs only work well if the code...
Understanding the statement "exit"
PowerShell supports the keyword "exit" which is a scope-based. It may work much differently than you assumed it would. Let's take a...
Using break, continue, and return
There are two special keywords in PowerShell that you can use in loops: break and continue. With continue, the loop continues but skips the...
Dealing with Environment Variables
To read a Windows environment variable in PowerShell, simply use the prefix "env:": PS> $env:windirC:\WindowsPS> $env:USERNAMETobias...
Using Nested Hash Tables
Nested hash tables can be a great alternative to multidimensional arrays. They can be used to store data sets in an easy-to-manage way. Have a look:...
Speeding Up Arrays
When you assign new items to an array often, you may experience a performance problem. Here is a sample that illustrates how you should not do it:...
Using Event Logs Instead of Log Files
Often, people use file-based logging. There is nothing wrong about that, but using the built-in event log system provided by Windows may be much...
Reading Registry Values the Easy Way
With PowerShell, it can be a piece of cake to read out Registry values. Here is your simple code template: $RegPath =...
Handling Cmdlet Errors without Interruption
When you want to use error handlers with errors that occur inside a cmdlet, then you can only catch such exceptions when you set the -ErrorAction of...
Fun with Path Names
You can use the -split operator to easily split a path in its components. The result is always an array. Simply use comparison operators to exclude...
Skipping Profile on Keystroke
Maybe you'd like to be able to occasionally skip certain parts of your profile script. For example, in the ISE editor, simply add this...
Using Profile Scripts
You probably know that PowerShell supports profile scripts. Simply make sure the file found in $profile exists. It's a plain script that gets...
Be Aware of Side Effects
There are plenty of low level system functions that PowerShell can use. This one, for example, creates a temporary file name:...
Bulk File Renaming
Let's assume you have a bunch of scripts (or pictures or log files or whatever) in a folder, and you'd like to rename all files. The new file name...
Getting DateTaken Info from Pictures
If you'd like to reorganize your picture archive, then here is a piece of code that reads the "DateTaken" information from picture...
Reading Installed Software Remotely
Most software registers itself in the Registry. Here is a piece of code that reads all installed software from the 32-bit and 64-bit hive and works...
gpupdate on Remote Machines
To run gpupdate.exe remotely, you could use a script like this: function Start-GPUpdate { param ( [String[]] $ComputerName ) $code = { $rv = 1 |...
Getting Database Connection String
Have you ever been puzzled just what the connection string would look like for a given database? When you create a new data source in Control Panel,...