Powershell

In a previous tip, you learned how to use $ConfirmPreference to get a warning before a cmdlet actually changes your system. This was based on the...

Cmdlet authors can judge how severe the action is a cmdlet takes and choose from Low over Medium to High. You can use the variable...

You may already know that you can suppress error messages with the ErrorAction parameter, which is often a good idea. Take a look at this and then...

Thanks to Get-Date, you can easily create unique temporary file names with a timestamp: (Get-Date -format 'yyyy-MM-dd hh-mm-ss') +...

Many Get-*-Cmdlets, such as Get-EventLog or Get-Process, will output data in columns and support parameters named like these columns. So to filter...

PowerShell always uses a culture-neutral approach when you implicitly convert a date. So this does not necessarily work with your own culture....

Export-CSV used to only support the comma as separator, which caused problems on non-U.S.-systems. In PowerShell v.2, with -useCulture you can have...

Usually, once a pipeline runs, you cannot stop it prematurely, even if you already received the information you were seeking. Simply use this filter...

You can always resort to the underlying .NET framework whenever the functionality you need isn't available through a cmdlet. The following code...

Sometimes, it is more efficient to use existing console tools rather than PowerShell cmdlets. For example here is a way to create a large file for...

If you have jobs that need to execute regularly, you can manage them with a PowerShell script and make it a scheduled task: schtasks /CREATE /TN...

To launch a PowerShell script outside of the PowerShell console (i.e. as scheduled task or as a link), prepend the script path with this:...

Profile scripts are executed automatically when PowerShell starts. The paths to these scripts can be found in $profile: $profile | gm *Host* | % {...

In PowerShell v.2, there are multiple execution policies. You should use this to view and check the settings: Get-ExecutionPolicy -List ReTweet this...

When you use Stop-Process to kill a program, it will stop instantaneously. The user will get no chance to save unsaved documents: Get-Process...

When you launch a program using Start-Process with -passThru, you will get back the process object representing the started program. You can then...

PowerShell can run native console applications, which can be very helpful. For example, you should take a closer look at CHOICE.EXE, which will...

Start-Process has a parameter called -WindowStyle. With it, you can control the window size of the application you launch. You should use this line...

PowerShell launches Windows applications asynchronously. It only waits for the console application so you should use -wait if you want to launch a...

If you are stuck in the console and would like to move over to the Explorer GUI, the next line opens your current folder in an Explorer window:...

Finding the appropriate command for a task is important. With a little trick, PowerShell can help you. Have a look: function ??($keywords) {...

A number of cmdlets provide two parameters that seem to work very similar: -filter and -include: Dir $env:windir -filter *.logDir $env:windir...

"To ship is to choose", so the Help files provided by PowerShell are sometimes outdated. You should use their online versions if you want...

Sometimes, you may run into issues like this once you learned more about the parameters a given cmdlet supports: Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 50...