Powershell

Beginning with PowerShell 4.0, method names may come from variables. Here's a simple example: $method = 'ToUpper'...

In PowerShell, you can use variables in place of properties. This sample script defines the four property names that return profile paths, then...

If you just need to replace characters anywhere in a text, you are easy off. This would capitalize every "l" in a text: "Hello...

Check out this code and try to find the problem: $desc = Get-Process -Id $pid | Select-Object -Property Description "PowerShell process...

Get-Service lists all services on a computer, but the information returned is very sparse. You cannot easily see what a service does, whether it is...

By default, Active Directory returns only the first 1000 search results when you use an ADSISearcher. This is a security mechanism designed to...

Beginning with PowerShell 4.0, a script author can decide to hide function parameters from IntelliSense. This way, less frequently used parameters...

The more specific your LDAP query is the faster and less resource intense the query is, and the more precise are the results as well. For example,...

If you know the SID and would like to find the corresponding Active Directory account, then LDAP queries won't work well. For them to work, you...

When you use the ADSISearcher type accelerator to find Active Directory accounts, it defaults to the current domain you are logged on to. If you...

A "DN" (Distinguished Name) is the path to an Active Directory object and could look similar to this:...

Active Directory accounts contain the SID in binary form. To convert the byte array into a string representation, use a .NET function like this: #...

Beginning in PowerShell 3.0, there is a very easy way of determining the folder a script is located in: $PSScriptRoot. This variable always holds...

In a previous script you have discovered how easy it is to find Active Directory accounts with just some simple PowerShell code. The result is a...

There are modules and cmdlets to deal with Active Directory tasks, but sometimes it is easier and faster to simply use some .NET code instead. If...

Imagine you have worked long hours on a script in the ISE editor. While you worked on it, you probably have defined variables, created functions,...

Get-Command can be used to find cmdlets, but in PowerShell 3.0 it will often return many more cmdlets than expected. Due to module auto-loading,...

The PowerShell ISE editor is great for copying and pasting code, for example to Microsoft Word and other text processors. Since ISE formats the...

Here's a code snippet that creates DateTime ranges. Just specify a year and a month, and the script produces a DateTime object for each day in...

Frequently, you will have PowerShell retrieve data, and then you pick parts of the information and use it in reports. Like here: $serial =...

Ever had the need to store a password in a script? Ever needed to automate a credential dialog? First: storing passwords and other confidential...

If your partner is as geeky as you, he or she may enjoy a private message in hex encoding. Everyone else may at least enjoy the technology used...

WMI is a treasure chest full of information. This line will read local partitions along with their block sizes: Get-WmiObject -Class...

When you export Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to CSV files, Excel by default saves CSV files in ANSI encoding. That's bad because special...

Sometimes it can get confusing which startup scripts run when PowerShell starts. There can be plenty, and they may be different, depending on...

There are many ways to create custom objects. Here's a creative solution that can be useful in many scenarios: create a text-based...

With an increasing number of PowerShell scripts on your hard drive, it can become hard to find the script you are looking for. Here's a helper...

If your display driver supports WMI, then you can change the display brightness using PowerShell - event on remote machines! Here's the...

If you want to check your current display brightness (preferably on notebooks, of course), here's a quick function: function...

Symbolic links work very similar to "regular" link files (*.lnk): they can point to virtually any file or folder and even UNC paths....