Powershell

Here is how you convert a binary text string into the corresponding integer value: $binary = "110110110" $int =...

Sometimes it could be useful to load all attributes from a given AD user into a hash table. This way, you could edit them, and then use Set-ADUser...

To manage users and computers in your Active Directory from PowerShell, you need the ActiveDirectory module which comes as part of the free RSAT...

If you’d like to know whether an array contains a given element, PowerShell provides the –contains operator. This operator does not...

LDAP filters are a fast and powerful way of retrieving information from Active Directory. However, LDAP filters use a very low-level date and time...

PowerShell can call internal Windows API functions, and in this example, we’d like to show how you can change the show state of an application...

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

For ages, systeminfo.exe returned all profiling information for a computer, and could made object-oriented in Powershell – somewhat: PS...

If you use PowerShell remoting and get “HTTP 403” errors, one of the more obscure reasons for this is a proxy that interferes with your...

PowerShell 2+ Sometimes it becomes necessary to replace special characters like German “Umlauts” in order to normalize user names or...

PowerShell 5 The free Microsoft RSAT tools come with a full-blown ActiveDirectory module, but sometimes simple AD tasks can be mastered with just a...

If you need to change the content of a specific cell in an Excel spreadsheet, take a look at this sample code: $ExcelPath =...

Windows maintains a log file named cbs.log in $env:windir\logs\cbs. It logs various pieces of information related to the Windows trusted installer,...

Check out this simple way of creating temporary passwords: -join...

If you need to add new items to an XML document that already contains such items, the easiest way is to search for an existing item, then clone it....

PowerShell can use Add-Type to access internal Windows API functions. This way, it is easy to bring any process window into the foreground. Here is...

By default, the Telnet client is disabled on Windows systems. You can easily enable it with a one liner in PowerShell, though. Just launch a...

By default, PowerShell remoting uses Kerberos authentication and works only in domain environments, and only when you specify computer names, not IP...

The Test-Connection cmdlet implements a simple ping to check whether a system responds to an ICMP request. Unfortunately, you cannot specify a...

PowerShell 3.0 added an alternative to Get-WmiObject: Get-CimInstance seems to work very similar and can retrieve information from the internal WMI...

PowerShell has a built-in support to wait until a process or many processes end: simply use Wait-Process. There is no support to do the opposite:...

In the PowerShell ISE, there are two key shortcuts that can help you. Pressing TAB works just like in the console, and each time you press TAB, you...

If you have installed the free RSAT tools from Microsoft, you can use PowerShell to update information stored in your AD user account, for example...

Whenever you add delegation rights to an AD object (i.e. allow a user to manage the members of an organizational unit), you really invoke a change...

By default, AD objects are protected from accidental deletion. To remove this protection for all objects in a given scope (i.e. all objects in an...

In a previous tip you have seen that the PowerShell console supports all characters available in a TrueType font. You just need to convert the...

Did you know that console output can contain special icons like checkmarks? All you need to do is set the console to a TrueType font like...

You may know that each string object has a method called Trim() that trims away whitespace both from the beginning and end of a string: $text =...

Do you know off-hand what "break", "continue", "return", and "exit" do? These are powerful language...

Get-ItemProperty can easily read registry values, but you do not get back any information about the registry value type. Get-ItemProperty -Path...