powertips

Let's assume you have a bunch of scripts (or pictures or log files or whatever) in a folder, and you'd like to rename all files. The new file name...

If you'd like to reorganize your picture archive, then here is a piece of code that reads the "DateTaken" information from picture...

Most software registers itself in the Registry. Here is a piece of code that reads all installed software from the 32-bit and 64-bit hive and works...

To run gpupdate.exe remotely, you could use a script like this: function Start-GPUpdate { param ( [String[]] $ComputerName ) $code = { $rv = 1 |...

Have you ever been puzzled just what the connection string would look like for a given database? When you create a new data source in Control Panel,...

Splatting is a great way of forwarding parameters to another cmdlet. Here is an example that can be used to encapsulate WMI calls and make them...

Splatting was introduced in PowerShell 3.0, but many users still never heard of this. It is a technique to programmatically submit parameters to a...

If you need to find out the Active Directory groups your user account is in, typically you would query the Active Directory, and you would have to...

Setting permissions for Registry keys isn't trivial. With a little trick, though, it is no big deal anymore. First, open REGEDIT and create a...

If you know that your script requires Administrator privileges, then you should add this to the top of your script: #requires -runasadministrator...

Maybe you need to remove some permission settings from NTFS permissions. Let's assume you want to remove all permissions for a specific user...

Before you can run a PowerShell script, the execution policy needs to allow this. Typically, you would use this line to enable script execution:...

To check all installed updates on a Windows box, there is a COM library you can use. Unfortunately, this library isn't very intuitive to use,...

There are two great sources for PowerShell cheat sheets. One is the set of cheat sheets created by powershellmagazine.com which was just updated to...

Desired State Configuration (DSC) is a new feature in PowerShell 4.0. With DSC, you can write simple configuration scripts and apply them to the...

PowerShell functions can mimick all the features found in a true binary cmdlet--but PowerShell functions are plain PowerShell code, so anyone can...

Whether you want to add a new NTFS access rule to a file or turn off inheritance and add new rules, here is a sample script that illustrates the...

Occasionally, text from a text file needs to be read and processed by other commands. Typically, you would use Get-Content to read the text file...

There is an obscure bug in the PowerShell ISE that may dead-lock the debugger. It affects PowerShell version 3.0 and 4.0. Here is a test script:...

Occasionally, it may become necessary to bulk rename object properties to create better reports. For example, if you retrieve process objects, you...

When you send information to Microsoft Excel, it is converted to text using the built-in .NET ToString() method. This method typically does not...

PowerShell objects can easily be opened in Microsoft Excel. Simply export the objects to CSV, then open the CSV file with the associated program...

By default, any object created from JSON uses String as a data type: $json = @" { "Name": "Weltner", "ID" :...

JSON is describing objects, similar to XML--but a lot easier. JSON allows for nested object properties, so you can retrieve information from various...