Powershell

When PowerShell asks Windows for updates via the Microsoft.Update.Session object, some information seems to be unreadable. The code below dumps...

Windows can automatically determine the updates that may be missing on your system, provided you have an Internet connection. PowerShell can use the...

In the previous tip we introduced the PreCommandLookupAction supported by PowerShell 3 and better. Today we have a special implementation for you....

PowerShell comes with a couple of “secret” (better: under-documented) settings. One is PreCommandLookupAction, and it gives you great...

In the previous tip you have discovered how ConvertFrom-StringData can turn plain text key-value pairs into a hash table. What’s missing is...

In the previous tip we used ConvertFrom-StringData to parse plain text key-value pairs into hash tables. Here is an example where such conversion...

Let’s assume you want to save settings to a file in the most simplest form. Your settings may look like this: $settings = ' Name=Weltner...

In the previous tip we presented code that would update the PowerShell title bar in a background thread, displaying a live clock. Wouldn’t it...

To continuously update the PowerShell title bar, and for example display the current date and time, you need a background thread that takes care of...

Add-Type can be used to load additional .NET assemblies from DLL files into PowerShell. This works well most of the time, and here is a sample call...

PowerShell maintains its own current location: PS> Get-Location Path ---- C:\Users\tobwe The current location applies to relative paths used with...

To find out the path your PowerShell is currently using, simply run Get-Location: PS> Get-Location Path ---- C:\Users\tobwe However, the current...

There are two PowerShell Editions now: “Windows PowerShell” shipping with Windows, and running on the full .NET Framework, and the...

Lately there has been confusion about PowerShell versions. There is a “PowerShell 6” open source initiative at GitHub...

You probably know that you can change the title text of a PowerShell host window with a line like this: PS> $host.UI.RawUI.WindowTitle =...

In the previous tip we illustrated how you can identify built-in PowerShell variables with an approach like this: $ps = [PowerShell]::Create() $null...

In the previous tip we illustrated how you can identify built-in PowerShell variables with an approach like this: $ps = [PowerShell]::Create() $null...

In the previous tip we explained how you can use a separate new and fresh PowerShell to retrieve all default variables. When you examine these...

Sometimes it would be useful to identify the automatic PowerShell variables managed by PowerShell so you could differentiate between built-in...

Starting in PowerShell 5, you can define PowerShell classes. They are defined dynamically and live in memory. So how would you know the names of...

Starting in PowerShell 5, you can define PowerShell classes. You can use classes to create new objects, and by defining one or more...

Starting with PowerShell 5, you can define classes. They have many use cases. One would be to create libraries of useful helper functions to better...

In the previous tip we illustrated that Get-ItemProperty cannot read registry key values when there is a value present with corrupted content:...

Occasionally, reading values of a registry key may fail with a strange error message: PS> $key =...