Powershell

There is no a built-in way to launch a PowerShell script hidden: even if you run powershell.exe and specify -WindowStyle Hidden, the PowerShell...

For a long time, the command-line utility systeminfo.exe provides a wealth of information about a computer and can return object-oriented results...

Here’s a fun PowerShell script that you can use to create a simple multi-channel chat room. All you need is a network share where everyone has...

It can be very useful to be able to convert an encrypted SecureString back to a plain text. This way, for example, you can use PowerShell’s...

If your script requires external binary resources such as picture files or DLLs, you can of course ship them together with your script. You could,...

This is part 5 of our mini-series about the awesome and free “ImportExcel” PowerShell module by Doug Finke. Make sure you install the...

In the previous example we created a small PowerShell function that checks web site availability, and as part of the test results, a HTTP response...

The most widely known PowerShell hosts are certainly powershell.exe and powershell_ise.exe because they ship out-of-the-box. However, there can be...

In the previous tip we used an old COM technique to display a pop-up box with a built-in timeout. That worked pretty well except that the dialog box...

Sometimes, web requests that work fine in a browser do not seem to work well in PowerShell. For example, when you navigate to...

In the previous tip we looked at the FileSystemWatcher object and how it can monitor folders for changes. To not miss any changes, however, an...

Each PowerShell host running PowerShell 5 or better opens a “named pipe” that you can detect. The code below identifies these named...

Rather than calling functions recursively, you may at times want to use a Queue object that you can load with fresh tasks while you are unloading...

Here is a PowerShell function called Lock-Screen that can lock the screen and prohibit user interaction. There can be a custom message, and the...

Encoding PowerShell code is a great way to run PowerShell code outside the PowerShell environment, i.e. in batch files. Here is some sample code...

Deleting registry keys is typically trivial and can be done with Remove-Item. However, every once in a while, you may come across registry keys that...

PowerShell can split large files in multiple smaller parts, for example to transfer them as email attachments. Today, we focus on splitting files....

When you define mandatory parameters in PowerShell, the user gets prompted for the value if it is missing. The prompt uses the parameter name only...

Numbers are stored internally as bytes. An Int32 value, for example, uses four bytes. Sometimes it is required to split up the number into its byte...

It’s amazing how versatile PowerShell is: with just a couple of lines of code, you can turn any photo and image into a piece of ASCII art....

In the previous tip, we asked Active Directory to validate user account passwords. The same can be done with local accounts. Your PowerShell code...

WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation)is not just a technique to create UIs. You can create any type of vector-based graphics composition and save it...

Occasionally you come across lists (arrays) with empty elements. What’s the best way of removing empty elements? Let’s first focus on a...

BOM (Byte Order Mask) is a characteristic byte sequence used in some Unicode encoded text files. If you receive text files with BOM that need to be...

Text files can be stored using different encodings, and to correctly reading them, you must specify the encoding. That’s why most cmdlets...

Here is a one-liner that returns the SID for the current user and can be used in logon scripts, for example:...

Every Windows installation has a unique UUID that you can use to distinguish machines. While computer names can change, the UUID won’t: PS>...

In the previous tip we illustrated how Get-Date can take a format string and convert DateTime values to strings. The string conversion always uses...

Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016 finally come with a built-in PDF printer called “Microsoft Print to PDF” that you can use from...