Sometimes it can save a lot of time to manually abort a PowerShell pipeline. For example, if you don’t know exactly where a file is located...
posts-powershell
Using a StopWatch to Measure Execution Times
There are situations when you’d like to know how long some code took to execute, for example to return statistics or compare code, and there are...
Foreach -parallel (Part 3: Mass Ping)
In PowerShell 7, there is a new parallel ForEach-Object that can execute code in parallel and speed up things considerably. The same technique can...
Foreach -parallel (Part 2: Windows PowerShell)
PowerShell 7 comes with a new ForEach-Object that supports parallel execution: 1..100 | ForEach-Object -ThrottleLimit 20 -Parallel { Start-Sleep...
Foreach -parallel (Part 1: PowerShell 7)
PowerShell 7 comes with a built-in parameter to run different tasks in parallel. Here is a simple example: 1..100 | ForEach-Object -ThrottleLimit 20...
-RepeatHeader Parameter
Here is a somewhat unknown parameter: -RepeatHeader! What does it do? Let’s assume you want to see results page by page (which only works in a...
PowerShell 7 Ternary Operator
With PowerShell 7, the language gets a new operator that created a lot of debate. Basically, you don’t have to use it, but users with a developer...
Get-ComputerInfo vs. systeminfo.exe (Part 2)
In PowerShell 5, a new cmdlet called Get-ComputerInfo was introduced which does what systeminfo.exe did in the past, yet Get-ComputerInfo is...
Get-ComputerInfo vs. systeminfo.exe (Part 1)
For a long time, the command-line utility systeminfo.exe provides a wealth of information about a computer and can return object-oriented results...
Safely Using WMI in PowerShell (Part 4)
In this mini-series, we are looking at the differences between Get-WmiObject and Get-CimInstance. Future PowerShell versions no longer support...
Safely Using WMI in PowerShell (Part 3)
In this mini-series, we are looking at the differences between Get-WmiObject and Get-CimInstance. Future PowerShell versions no longer support...
Safely Using WMI in PowerShell (Part 2)
In this mini-series, we are looking at the differences between Get-WmiObject and Get-CimInstance. Future PowerShell versions no longer support...
Safely Using WMI in PowerShell (Part 1)
WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) is part of any Windows operating system and a common and widely used way of getting information about a...
Converting Word Documents from .doc to .docx (Part 2)
Converting old Word documents to the new .docx format can be a lot of work, and in part 1 you learned the basic steps to automate conversion....
Converting Word Documents from .doc to .docx (Part 1)
Converting old Word documents to the new .docx format can be a lot of work. Thanks to PowerShell, you can automate the conversion: function...
Exploring PowerShell Modules
Most PowerShell commands live in modules, and by adding new modules, you can add new commands to your PowerShell environment. To find out whether a...
WMI Explorer
WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) is a great information source: you can find almost any information about your computer somewhere. The hard...
Turning Objects into Hash Tables
Often, a single object needs to be examined, i.e. a process or an Active Directory user. When you display an object in a grid view window such as...
Object Magic (Part 4)
How about turning a single object into a hash table? This way, you can display one object property per line when you output the object in a grid...
Object Magic (Part 3)
Let’s assume you want to hide all object properties that have no value (are empty). Here is a simple approach: # get any object $object =...
Object Magic (Part 2)
Via the secret “PSObject” property, you can get detailed information about object members. For example, if you’d like to know...
Object Magic (Part 1)
In PowerShell, most data are represented as PSObjects, a specific object “wrapper” added by PowerShell. To get to this specific wrapper,...
Encrypting Text (Part 2)
This is the second part of our text encryption/decryption series. In the first part you learned how you can safely encrypt text on a machine. Now...
Encrypting Text (Part 1)
Let’s take a look at a safe way of encrypting text on a computer. The below Protect-Text function takes any text and encrypts it...