database-tools

You can use New-TimeSpan to define “amounts” of time, and then add or subtract them from dates. Here is an example: $1Day = New-TimeSpan...

Sometimes, a PowerShell script needs to wait for external processes to finish. Here is what some users do: $processNameToWaitForExit =...

If you have set up a PIN to log into your computer, PowerShell remoting against your own machine may fail with a weird error message: PS C:\>...

If you use PowerShell remoting to receive information from remote machines, you can use fan-out simply by specifying more than one computer name....

Use Group-Object to group objects based on shared property values, but don’t forget to use –NoElement parameter to discard the actual objects and...

Cmdlets and functions should use only approved verbs to make it easier on user to find commands, and improve consistency. Here is quick audit code...

When you encrypt secret information, the challenge is to find a good secret. One particular safe secret would be your Windows identity, paired with...

The -WhatIf common parameter turns on simulation mode, so a cmdlet won’t change anything and instead report what it “would have”...

In Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1, there are many useful new modules with cmdlets such as New-SmbShare which creates new file shares easily. If you...

Yesterday we looked at custom scopes to automatically restore variables and clean up behind your code. Custom scopes can also be used to discard any...

When you change variables, you might need to clean up later and ensure that you reverted them back to some default value – unless you use...

Ever wondered how you can catch errors emitted by native console EXEs? PowerShell’s error handlers can only deal with .NET code. Here is the...

When you handle errors, you may sometimes want to replace the original exception with your own. Here is a sample: function Do-Something { # function...

Let’s assume you would like to open multiple PowerShell consoles running under different identities – or launch whatever application you...

Meanwhile, there are five major versions of PowerShell around. Toss in the new minor versions such as PowerShell 5.1 on Windows 10 and Server 2016....

When you download PowerShell help via Update-Help, there was a bug in PowerShell 5 that might be fixed by now: text-based help files had the...

When you create PowerShell functions, parameters can be named or positional. Here is an example: If you’d like to detect illegal characters in...

When you create a PowerShell function, all parameters are positional until you start adding the “Position” attribute. Once you start to...

Sometimes a PowerShell script should just produce something, for example a report, which then opens in Excel or notepad. You don’t want to...

PowerShell 5.1 (available on Windows 10 and Server 2016) comes with some new cmdlets to manage computer time zones. Get-TimeZone returns the current...

The only fundamental difference between cmdlets and functions in PowerShell is the way how they are programmed: functions use plain PowerShell code,...