powertips

Group-Object is perfect for grouping objects based on one or more properties. Once you group objects, you can then filter, or sort, based on their...

Format-Table is a great cmdlet to output formatted data. Sometimes, you may just be interested in the raw table data. You can simply hide the column...

Sort-Object is a great and versatile cmdlet to sort anything you want. Simply specify the property or properties you want to use for sorting: Dir...

Select-Object can limit results to only the first or last elements. Simply use -first or -last: dir | select-object -first 10Get-Process |...

If you ever need to read in a file and split file content into words, there are a couple of gotchas to keep in mind. First off, remember that...

Usually, when you assign a variable to another variable, its content is copied. Here is an example: $a = "Hello"$b = $a$a = "Hello...

PowerShell can still use COM libraries. Simply use New-Object -comObject and provide the COM library name to load it. With this approach, you can do...

Get-Member is the third important basic PowerShell cmdlet as it gives you a documentation of what a command returns. It lists all of the object and...

Get-Help is the second of the three most important PowerShell cmdlets as it retrieves all the Help for any cmdlet. If you just enter Get-Help, you...

There are only three cmdlets you should know by heart. One is the Get-Command, which can do a lot more than you might think. When called without...

If you ever wanted to create shortcut icons on your Desktop, or in your programs menu, to quickly launch PowerShell, here is a way to do it:...

Maybe you have invested some time in creating new aliases, and now you would like to know how to preserve your new aliases so that the next time you...

As you may know aliases are shortcuts to other commands. So, you can easily add new aliases like this: Set-Alias edit notepad.exe The next time you...

PowerShell comes with a lot of documentation. One thing you should check out is the QuadFold.rtf file. You should use the following line to find and...

PowerShell can be configured in a multitude of ways. Most often, you use Add-PSSnapin to load additional snap-ins with more cmdlets and providers....

PowerShell offers you a multitude of ways to write information to disk. Here's a quick overview. 1. You can use classic redirection:...

Ever wanted to get a sorted list of all variables used inside a script? Use this function: simply call Get-ScriptVariables and supply a path to your...

In a previous tip, you have learned how you can encrypt a PowerShell script using your identity as a secret key. You might prefer to use a...

Sometimes, you may want to hide the code of your PowerShell script in order to protect passwords contained within the code. One way to safely...

WMI is an excellent way of remotely checking files or folders since it has the ability to access individual files and folders, and also works...

The Shell.Application COM object returns a list of all open windows, including all opened IE browser windows. This way, you can find out whether a...

Accessing Internet Explorer can be useful for obtaining Web content. The usual approach uses a COM object called InternetExplorer.Application like...

You can use WMI and Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration to determine whether a computer uses DHCP to acquire an IP address. Simply look for all...

Want to provide your users with a neat dialog to select folders? Simply use a COM object called Shell.Application, which provides the...