powertips

In a previous tip you learned that text arrays can easily be multiplied. The same is true for assignment operators such as +=. When you apply this...

You probably know what this line produces: 'Hello' * 12 Right, you get 12 times the string you submitted. If you wanted new lines instead, a...

To enumerate all subkeys in a Registry key, you might be using a line like this: PS> Dir...

When you write functions that accept credentials as parameters, add a transformation attribute! This way, the user can either submit a credential...

Use the provider name instead of a drive name when you need to get a list of all registry hives: Dir Registry:: ReTweet this Tip!

If you need to set the default value for a registry key, you can use either of these approaches: Set-ItemProperty -Path HKCU:\Software\Somekey -Name...

You can start by dumping all Help information into a file to learn more about a PowerShell cmdlet. You can then read all details about the cmdlet...

Out-GridView is a great way to present results in a “mini-Excel” sheet: Get-Process | Out-GridView However, Out-GridView has two...

Inside the PowerShell console, you can hold CTRL while pressing the arrow key to move the cursor word-by-word. This way, you can move the cursor...

When you list services with Get-Service, you will find that a lot of properties may seem to be missing. You can still set such properties when you...

You can use WMI like this if you want to change a service start mode: ([wmi]'Win32_Service.Name="Spooler"').ChangeStartMode('Automatic').ReturnValue...

By using WMI, you can enumerate the start mode that you want your services to use. To get a list of all services, try this: Get-WMIObject...

Try this one-liner if you need to print out all PDF documents you have stored in one folder: Dir c:\myfolder\*.pdf | Foreach-Object { Start-Process...

When you need to store a picture into an AD account, the picture will have to be converted to byte values before it can be stored. Just make sure...

When you query network adapters with WMI, it is not easy to find the active network card. To find the network card(s) that are currently connected...

When you read multi-valued information from WMI or any other source, for example, network adapter IP addresses, this information is returned as a...

Sometimes it would be nice to be able to access network adapter configuration based on the name of that adapter as it appears in your network and...

Provided you have Microsoft Excel installed, here is a clever function that you can use to convert PowerShell results into Excel spreadsheets:...

If you want to capture PowerShell results in a text file, you can redirect the results or pipe them to Out-File. In any case, what you capture is...

Sometimes, you'd like to turn security identifiers (SIDs) into real names. Here is a function that can do this for you: function SID2Name($sid){...

If you want to translate a valid user name to its security identifier (SID), here is a function to do that for you: function Name2SID($name,...

When you list folder contents, file sizes are in bytes. If you'd rather like to view them in MB or GB, you can use calculated properties, but by...

When you access Microsoft Excel from script, you may have noticed that it never gets removed from memory again, even if you call its Quit() method:...

Formatting numbers as currencies is straight-forward - as long as it is your own currency format: '{0:C}' -f 12.22 If you want to output...

When you use Dir (alias: Get-ChildItem) to list folder contents, you can use simple wildcards but they do not give you much control. A much more...

To create or change an environment variable in the user context, use this low-level call: [environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable('Test',...

You can use the env: PowerShell drive to list all Windows environment variables like this: PS> Dir env:*user* Name Value ---- ----- USERNAME...

PowerShell is console based, so its default menus are console based as well. To offer choices to your users, here is some sample code to create a...

The Windows Registry is a repository filled with various Windows settings. Get-ItemProperty can read Registry values and accepts wildcards. So, with...

When execution policy prevents execution of PowerShell scripts, you can still execute them. There is a secret parameter called "-" . When you use...