powertips

In the previous tip we published a super-fast function called Test-OnlineFast, and this function was able to ping an entire IP segment in record...

In the previous tip series, we developed a new function called Test-OnlineFast that can ping multiple computers in record time. For some reason, the...

When you write events to an event log using Write-EventLog, you must specify a valid source name. However, there is no easy way of finding out which...

Here is a line of code that often puzzles PowerShell users: Get-Service | Select-Object -ExcludeProperty Name When you use Select-Object, its...

Here is a fun PowerShell function called Convert-PowerShellToBatch. Provide it with the path to a PowerShell script, or pipe in the results from...

If you’d need to find out the SID for a user name, here is a useful chunk of code that does the job: $domain = 'MyDomain' $username =...

Out-GridView always produces a table with one object per line: Get-Process -Id $pid | Out-GridView Occasionally, it would be more helpful to display...

In the previous tip we explained how you can use the ActiveDirectory module and its cmdlets to find all domain controllers in your organization, or...

In the previous tip we talked about a public module called PSCredentialManager that helps you manage cached credentials. Sometime, less is more, so...

When you’d like to install modules for all users from the PowerShellGet repository, you need Administrator privileges. On PowerShell Core on...

Distinguished names are strings, and strings contain powerful ways of parsing data. The most powerful yet simple approach is the Split() method....

If you use the PowerShellGet module (which ships by default on Windows 10 and Server 2016), you can easily download and install shared PowerShell...

If you need to run a PowerShell script in regular intervals, why not run it as a scheduled task? Here are some lines that help you create a new...

If you just need a bunch of randomly generated MAC addresses, and you don’t care much about whether these addresses are actually valid, then...

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...