Powershell

In the previous tip we showed how PowerShell can validate and test user account passwords, however the password was requested in plain text....

PowerShell can test user account passwords for you. This works both for local and domain accounts. Here is a sample function called Test-Password:...

If your laptop battery is going low too soon, or you’d like to investigate related issues, there is a simple way to generate an extensive...

The PowerShell Gallery provides easy access to additional PowerShell commands. For example, you can download and install the command extension for...

To manage and automate your assets in the Azure cloud, you can easily install a free PowerShell module which comes with a wealth of new PowerShell...

In the previous tip we illustrated how you can dump all Wi-Fi profile names using netsh.exe. Typically, profile names and SSIDs are identical....

In the previous tip we used netsh.exe to dump Wi-Fi profiles. Let’s take it a step further and expose the cached passwords: # get cleartext...

PowerShell is not limited to cmdlets and can run executables. For example, there is no built-in cmdlet to list the existing Wi-Fi profiles, but...

Write-Host is an extremely useful cmdlet to output information to a user because this output cannot be discarded: function Invoke-Test {...

PowerShell outputs information via different streams. Warnings are written to a different stream than output, and errors again go to a different...

There are (a few) commands in PowerShell that output information to the console no matter what you do. Neither redirection of streams nor assigning...

WMI returns a cryptic number when you ask for operating system details: PS> Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_OperatingSystem | Select-Object...

The WMI class Win32_OperatingSystem provides rich information about a number of datetime information, including the date of last boot-up and the...

Each Windows operating system has a description, and you can view (and change) this description with the following command: PS> control sysdm.cpl...

Typically, when you output a single object to Out-GridView, you get one line, and every property surfaces as a column: Get-ComputerInfo |...

WMI and Get-CimInstance can provide you with a lot of useful information but the returned objects often contain a number of empty properties: PS>...

Often, your code needs to assert certain prerequisites. For example, you may want to ensure that a given folder exists, and use code like this: #...

There is no need for external “Wake On LAN” tools. If you want to wake up a network machine, simply tell PowerShell the MAC address of...

PowerShell can interactively convert hexadecimal numbers when you prefix “0x”: PS> 0xAB0f 43791 If the hex number is stored in a...

Argument completion is awesome for a user because valid arguments are always suggested. Many built-in PowerShell commands come with argument...

In the previous tip we talked about the new [ArgumentCompletions()] attribute that was added to PowerShell 7, and how you can use it to add...