powertips

PowerShell always uses a culture-neutral approach when you implicitly convert a date. So this does not necessarily work with your own culture....

Export-CSV used to only support the comma as separator, which caused problems on non-U.S.-systems. In PowerShell v.2, with -useCulture you can have...

Usually, once a pipeline runs, you cannot stop it prematurely, even if you already received the information you were seeking. Simply use this filter...

You can always resort to the underlying .NET framework whenever the functionality you need isn't available through a cmdlet. The following code...

Sometimes, it is more efficient to use existing console tools rather than PowerShell cmdlets. For example here is a way to create a large file for...

If you have jobs that need to execute regularly, you can manage them with a PowerShell script and make it a scheduled task: schtasks /CREATE /TN...

To launch a PowerShell script outside of the PowerShell console (i.e. as scheduled task or as a link), prepend the script path with this:...

Profile scripts are executed automatically when PowerShell starts. The paths to these scripts can be found in $profile: $profile | gm *Host* | % {...

In PowerShell v.2, there are multiple execution policies. You should use this to view and check the settings: Get-ExecutionPolicy -List ReTweet this...

When you use Stop-Process to kill a program, it will stop instantaneously. The user will get no chance to save unsaved documents: Get-Process...

When you launch a program using Start-Process with -passThru, you will get back the process object representing the started program. You can then...

PowerShell can run native console applications, which can be very helpful. For example, you should take a closer look at CHOICE.EXE, which will...

Start-Process has a parameter called -WindowStyle. With it, you can control the window size of the application you launch. You should use this line...

PowerShell launches Windows applications asynchronously. It only waits for the console application so you should use -wait if you want to launch a...

If you are stuck in the console and would like to move over to the Explorer GUI, the next line opens your current folder in an Explorer window:...

Finding the appropriate command for a task is important. With a little trick, PowerShell can help you. Have a look: function ??($keywords) {...

A number of cmdlets provide two parameters that seem to work very similar: -filter and -include: Dir $env:windir -filter *.logDir $env:windir...

"To ship is to choose", so the Help files provided by PowerShell are sometimes outdated. You should use their online versions if you want...

Sometimes, you may run into issues like this once you learned more about the parameters a given cmdlet supports: Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 50...

Positional parameters can be great time savers as many cmdlets assign a parameter position to its most widely used parameters. This way you do not...

Since Get-Help accepts wild cards, you can easily list all white papers available for a specific topic. Use this to get you all topics that deal...

Beginning with Vista, there is a new console tool called clip.exe, which copies whatever you pipe to it to your clipboard. You should try this if...

PowerShell protects its own pre-defined aliases so you normally cannot override and redefine them. It will still work if you use the correct...

Whenever you want to break up a lot of information in separate page views, you can traditionally pipe to more.com, which is an external executable....

Help information is typically pretty extensive. If you'd like to make the information more readable, you could always pipe the result to the...

The following line opens the folder that stores all the PowerShell white papers. You can open them in your word processor or print them for future...

PowerShell comes with lots of white papers. However, you do not need to know the exact title of the white paper to find information about a specific...

PowerShell v.2 has added remote capabilities to a number of cmdlets, including Get-EventLog. So now you are able to collect important events...

In PowerShell v.2, a number of parameters have been added to Set-ExecutionPolicy, which allows you to change this setting without Admin privileges,...

When you press Tab to auto-complete, PowerShell will look at what you have entered so far to find the most appropriate suggestion. One little known...