posts-powershell

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...

To find out when Automatic Updates wakes your PC to install new updates, here is a script that will retrieve that information: $updateObj =...

To control whether Windows download and/or installs updates silently or prompts for permission, use this script and set the appropriate...

To retrieve all error events from a system log that occurred yesterday, here is how to calculate the start and stop times: PS> $end = Get-Date...

To create variables that calculate their content each time they are accessed, use access-triggered variable breakpoints. This line, for example,...

Most sophisticated PowerShell editors have built-in debugging support. PowerShell can handle breakpoints natively, too, though. To make PowerShell...

When you digitally sign scripts, you can easily tell whether a script was manipulated or comes from an untrusted source. Here is a function that can...

When you save scripts with the PowerShell ISE script editor, they are saved with the rather unusual "Big Endian Unicode" encoding....

In a previous tip, we illustrated how you access a code signing certificate that was installed on your computer. With such a certificate, you can...

To digitally sign PowerShell scripts, you need a certificate with the purpose "CodeSigning". Here is how you find out which code signing...

To find out the total size of all subfolders in a directory, try this function: function Get-FolderSize($Path=$home) { $code = { ('{0:0.0}...

To scrape valuable information from websites with PowerShell you can download the HTML code and then use regular expressions to extract what you are...

PowerShell comes with great support for regular expressions but the -match operator can only find the first occurrence of a pattern. To find all...

In a previous tip, we illustrated how a function can run inside a PowerShell pipeline. That's an excellent way to create filters. Here is a...

Code inside PowerShell functions always is placed in the begin, process, or end block. You may not have noticed this because when you don't do...

When you handle errors using try/catch/finally, you may wonder what the finally block is for. Here is a demo: try { dir nonexisting:\ -ErrorAction...

To suppress errors in a cmdlet, you can use the common parameter -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue. Here is a sample: Get-WmiObject Win32_BIOS...

To quickly define large integers, use the keyword "E" inside your number: PS> 64E6 64000000 ReTweet this Tip! http://bit.ly/pGRrMP

If a script needs to run only particular commands with full Administrator privileges, you can run those in a separate elevated shell. $code =...

On UAC-enabled systems, to make sure a script is running with full admin privileges, add this code at the beginning of your script:...