September 2012 - Power Tips - PowerShell.com – PowerShell Scripts, Tips, Forums, and Resources

Controlling PSComputerName in Remoting Data with PowerShell

Whenever you use Invoke-Command to remotely execute code, you will notice that PowerShell automatically adds the column PSComputerName to your results. That's great because when you run Invoke-Command against more than one computer, you want to still...

Published Fri, Sep 28 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

Listing Windows Updates with PowerShell

There is a not widely known COM object that you can use to list all the installed Windows Updates on a machine. Here is the code: $Session = New-Object -ComObject Microsoft.Update.Session $Searcher = $Session . CreateUpdateSearcher () $HistoryCount =...

Published Thu, Sep 27 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

Determine Functions Pipeline Position with PowerShell

Assume your function wanted to know whether it is the last element in a pipeline or operating in the middle of it. Here is a way for a function to determine its current pipeline position: function test { param ( [ Parameter ( ValueFromPipeline = $true...

Published Wed, Sep 26 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

Displaying Balloon Tips with PowerShell

Let's assume your script wants to share status information via a balloon message in the system tray area. Here is a sample: [ system.Reflection.Assembly ] :: LoadWithPartialName ( ' System.Windows.Forms ' ) | Out-Null $balloon = New-Object...

Published Tue, Sep 25 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

Extracting Icons with PowerShell

To extract an icon from a file, use .NET Framework methods. Here is a sample that extracts all icons from all exe files in your Windows folder (or one of its subfolders) and puts them into a separate folder: [ System.Reflection.Assembly ] :: LoadWithPartialName...

Published Mon, Sep 24 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

Saving History to Script with PowerShell

PowerShell is all about trial and error, and when you want to save your interactive input to a script file, this is how it could be done: Get-History -Count $MaximumHistoryCount | ForEach-Object { $_ . CommandLine | Out-File $env:temp\myscript.ps1 -Append...

Published Fri, Sep 21 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

Forwarding Selected Parameters with PowerShell

In a previous tip you learned how you can forward function parameters to cmdlets. But what if you just want to forward some of the parameters? Here is a sample: function Get - BIOS ( $ComputerName , $Credential , [ switch ] $Verbose ) { $a = $global:psboundparameters...

Published Thu, Sep 20 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

Clean Your Temp Folder with PowerShell

When disk space gets low, you may want to clean up your temporary folder. The code deletes all files that are older than 30 days to make sure you're not dumping anything that's still needed: $cutoff = ( Get-Date ) - ( New-TimeSpan -Days 30 ) ...

Published Wed, Sep 19 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

Filtering Files or Folders with PowerShell

To filter folder content by file or folder, check whether the Length property is present. It is present for files and missing in folders: Dir $env:windir | Where-Object { $_ . Length -eq $null } Dir $env:windir | Where-Object { $_ . Length -ne $null ...

Published Tue, Sep 18 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

Office365 Cmdlets with PowerShell

Office365 comes with a complete set of PowerShell cmdlets. To review the cmdlets and what you can do with them, visit this URL: http://onlinehelp.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-enterprises/hh125002.aspx ReTweet this Tip!

Published Mon, Sep 17 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

Use Select-String with Context in PowerShell

Select-String can find lines with a specific keyword. It can also include context-relevant lines before and after that line. This will filter the result from ipconfig to focus on your network adapter parameters only: ipconfig | Select-String LAN -context...

Published Fri, Sep 14 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

Launching Applications with PowerShell

When you launch *.exe-applications with arguments, you may get exceptions because PowerShell may misinterpret the arguments. A better way to do this is using Start-Process and then separate file path and arguments with the parameters -FilePath and -ArgumentList...

Published Thu, Sep 13 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

Managing File System Tasks with PowerShell

If you need to list all cmdlets that deal with file system-related tasks, try this: Get-Command -Noun item * , path Many of these cmdlets have historic aliases that will help you guess what they are doing: Get-Alias -Definition *- item * , *- path * ...

Published Wed, Sep 12 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

Appending CSV Data with PowerShell

To append a CSV file with new data, first of all make sure the type of data you append is the same type of data already in a file (or else column names will not match). This creates a list of unique running processes (so it will not list duplicate process...

Published Tue, Sep 11 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

Create CSV without Header using PowerShell

ConvertTo-CSV can create comma separated values (CSV) on the fly but it always adds a new header. To create CSV data without columns, take a look at some piece of code - it removes the first two lines: $filepath = " $env:temp\rawcsv.txt " $processes...

Published Mon, Sep 10 2012 6:00 AM by ps1

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