Powershell.com – Powershell Scripts, Tips and Resources

Event Handling & Scope

pringtef — Thu, 24 May 2012 08:09:49 GMT

I discovered whilst attempting to write an event handler for the DownloadFileCompleted event of System.Net.WebClient in a WinForms script (via PrimalForms) that it was better to use the add_DownloadProgressChanged method of the object to add the event handler than adding it through the Register-ObjectEvent. It appears whilst running a form that event handling in Register-ObjectEvent didnt fire correctly.

In other words,instead of using :-

Register-ObjectEvent -InputObject $webclient -EventName DownloadFilecompleted -SourceIdentifier Webclient.DownloadFilecompleted -Action {blablabla}

It was better for me to do

$webclient.add_DownloadFileCompleted($webClient_DownloadFileCompleted)

$webClient_DownloadFileCompleted = {blablabla}

In any case, using the add_DownloadProgressChanged method also appeared to extend the scope automatically in the $webClient_DownloadFileCompleted scriptblock. i could now update other controls in the form (such as changing the text of a label) I left this part of the code happy!

This leads onto my question though. Can i replicate this type behaviour for other any other type of event that might not have that type of add_ method? i.e. have working event handling scriptblocks in a form and have access to all the objects in the form.

Hope i've explained this well!

cheers,

Tim

error 500 or error 401 when using sharepoint client

Laurent Schneider — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:55:53 GMT

I downloaded the sharepoint client SPClient_x86.msi here:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=21786

I tried

[Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint.Client")
[Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime")
$c = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ClientContext("http://communities.example.com/ddcc")
$c.ExecuteQuery()

but I am getting

Exception calling "ExecuteQuery" with "0" argument(s): "The remote server returned an error: (500) Internal Server Error."

At line:1 char:16

+ $c.ExecuteQuery <<<< ()

+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodInvocationException

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : DotNetMethodException

I also tried

$cc = New-Object Net.CredentialCache;
$cc.Add((new-object Uri("http://communities.example.com/ddcc" )),"Basic",(new-object Net.NetworkCredential("u1234","***","MYDOMAIN")))
$c.Credentials = $cc
$c.ExecuteQuery()

But then I get

Exception calling "ExecuteQuery" with "0" argument(s): "The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized."
At line:1 char:16
+ $c.ExecuteQuery <<<< ()
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodInvocationException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : DotNetMethodException

Any clue on how to connect to sharepoint from the client?

Can't get processes from Windows 7 client.

BruceS — Tue, 22 May 2012 21:26:13 GMT

I have started working my way through Month of Lunches and came up with a minor problem. I have set up a private network in VMware with two Server 2008 R2 Enterprise servers and one Windows 7 client. One of the servers (SRV1) is the domain controller and the other is a member server (SRV2). The Windows 7 machine is also joined to the domain (WIN7).

When I log onto the Windows 7 machine with domain admin credentials, I can use get-process –computername SRV1 to get a list of running processes on the remote server. I can also do this for SRV2 and can do it with the NetBIOS name or IP Address. So far so good.

When I log onto SRV1 with the same domain admin credentials, I can use the same command syntax to get the running processes from SRV2. However, attempts to get the running processes from WIN7 fail whether I use the NetBIOS name or IP address.

The error message says: Get-Process : Couldn’t connect to remote machine

I tried turning off the WIN7 firewall, but that didn’t help. So I can run the command FROM the WIN7 machine, but not TO the WIN7 machine. Is there something that needs to be changed on the WIN7 machine?

Thanks for any help!

BruceS

Trouble executing cmdlet

rickeb1 — Wed, 23 May 2012 22:17:44 GMT

Being new to PowerShell, I am sure I am missing something very simple here. I have created a cmdlet named Get-ReportSQL.ps1. It is designed to be invoked as: dir *.rpt | Get-ReportSQL

When I invoke it, I get an error saying that the cmdlet is not recognized. Here is the odd part (at least to me). If I open up the ps1 file and add the above invocation into the ps1 file itself and run the cmdlet from the Powershell ISE, it works perfectly. Then, if I remove the invocation line from the ps1 file and go back and invoke it from the command line, it now works perfectly, too!

It seems as if something about running the cmdlet once from within the cmdlet file itself, from the ISE, somehow "registered" the cmdlet with PowerShell, and from then on, it runs fine from the command line.

Can someone tell me what's going on, and how I can get the cmdlet to run without having to execute it from within the cmdlet ps1 file first?

Thanks!

~ Rick

Use Powershell script to verify backup files

ps2 — Wed, 23 May 2012 21:55:05 GMT

Before restoring backup, we always verify the backup file first, and run the 3 command below:

Never miss an appointment again with PowerShell

ps2 — Wed, 23 May 2012 21:49:46 GMT

If your anything like me then you spend most of your time in PowerShell and sometimes forget to check your appointments in Outlook, wouldn’t it be great if you could see your Outlook calendar straight in PowerShell ?

Proper Use of -OutVariable in PowerShell

pkluss — Wed, 23 May 2012 17:47:50 GMT

I'm trying to make use of the Common Parameter OutVariable in a simple one-liner PowerShell command, but it's not working the way I think it should (or really at all).

Get-Mailbox -OutVariable mBoxes | Get-MailboxStatistics | `

Select-Object DisplayName,TotalItemSize,@{name="ArchiveStatus";Expression={$mBoxes.ArchiveStatus}}

I simply want to return 3 columns, with the third column being a property of the results of the initial Get-Mailbox command. I tried to use OutVariable to store the results for use in my Select-Objectcommand at the end, but that column is always empty when the results print.

Am I not understanding the purpose of OutVariable?

BTW, Get-Mailbox | Select ArchiveStatus works just fine.

A simplified version of the command would be as follows --

get-mailbox -OutVariable mBoxes | Select-Object @{name="Null?";Expression={$mBoxes -eq $null}}

I get True for every line that Get-Mailbox would return. It's clearly not storing anything in the $mBoxes variable. What have I done wrong?

Help!!! Trying to display a list box to select a window!

clovisc — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:20:45 GMT

Hi, I'm making a program for work and I'm not very good with for, foreach, etc...

I have the list-box function that accepts arguments "item1, item2, item3 and so on, topic, text to display".

now what I want to do is this :

$a= (select-window | ? { $_.Title -like "INC0*"} |Select-Object title | select-string "INC0*")
for each window returned, I want to do:

$c=$a[0]tostring().trimstart("@{Title=")"

$d=$a[1]string().trimstart("@{Title=")", etc..

and then

list-box -item1 $c -item2 $d, etc...

Any help on how to do this will be much appreciated.

Thank you!

Clovis

remoting in powershell

ash.cash — Wed, 23 May 2012 05:26:06 GMT

is there any way of exposing the private data members of a .net object in power shell while transferring the object across the wire.if yes please provide some references for it.

How to prepare Exchange Server 2010 for reusable PowerShell scripts

ps2 — Wed, 23 May 2012 01:45:39 GMT

If you work with Exchange Server 2010, you’ve probably had to fire up the Exchange Management Shell to perform any number of administrative tasks. You may have used it to provision mailboxes or add users to a distribution group. One aspect that many Exchange admins struggle with, however, is writing reusable scripts and setting up their Exchange Management Shell environments to do so.

Automate Database Backups with MySqlDump and PowerShell

ps2 — Wed, 23 May 2012 01:41:49 GMT

By Rob Gravelle

One of the Database Administrator (DBA)'s most important duties is performing regular scheduled database backups. Equally important is the maintenance of the backup files and practicing of the restoration procedure. All in all, it can be a time intensive endeavor. That's why having an established reliable backup and restore process is so important. To this end, tools like mysqldump are indispensable. Now, with the introduction of PowerShell, database backups can be more automated than ever.

How to avoid XML Name space(xmlns="") attribute in unattend xml.

NewtonS — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:35:02 GMT

I am editing a windows 2008 unattended answer file to include MPIO to be installed.

the tag to be inserted is <selection name="MultipathIo" state="true"/>

and here is the power shell script i have written

[xml] $xd.load("C:\unattend-ent2.xml")
$elem = $xd.CreateElement("selection")
$elem.SetAttribute("name","MultipathIo")
$elem.SetAttribute("state","true")
$xd.unattend.servicing.package.AppendChild($elem)
$xd.save("C:\unattend-ent2.xml")

but this appends a empty xmlns="" tag, as below, is there a way to avoid xmlns being added?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<unattend xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:unattend">
<servicing>
    <package action="configure">
      <assemblyIdentity name="Microsoft-Windows-Foundation-Package" version="6.1.7600.16385" processorArchitecture="amd64" publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" language="" />
      <selection name="SNMP" state="true" />
      <selection name="WMISnmpProvider" state="true" />

Function to ""translate" GUID (input parameter) to "readable" text

powertom — Tue, 22 May 2012 12:10:46 GMT

What happens?

The Script:

$x = Read-Host "Please type First Name, Last Name, Display Name, saMAccountName, ..."
Get-QADUser $x -IncludeAllProperties | fl DisplayName, SamAccountName,hsg*Template*

gives me back:

DisplayName          : Thomas Koeppel
SamAccountName       : TKoeppel
hsgIsTemplate        : False
hsgMemberOfTemplates : {{1255f5b5-6d5e-4e33-83a2-68ef336ab01d}, {f3571627-a7d3-4ad8-be64-d49aad8c1450}}

This is because we modified our ad schema with add. attributes "hsgIsTemplate" and "hsgMemberOfTemplates".

We use for administration of user objects "templates" as shown in:

DisplayName          : Template HSG-INFOB
SamAccountName       : HSG-INFOB
hsgIsTemplate        : True
hsgMemberOfTemplates :

The property "hsgMemberOfTemplates" hase type "multi-valued string". For better performance within AD an in combinatione with our admin toolset we use the GUID instead of clear-text names (done by one of our programmers!).

What i am lookin for is:

A funktion usable in "every script" to "translate" the input parameter (GUID in this case) to any defined "output-property".

In my case the result shoud be:

DisplayName          : Thomas Koeppel
SamAccountName       : TKoeppel
hsgIsTemplate        : False
hsgMemberOfTemplates : Template HSG-VERW-HSG, Template HSG-INFOB

Function to "translate" GUID to readable tesxt

powertom — Tue, 22 May 2012 09:51:03 GMT

What happens?

The Script:

$x = Read-Host "Please type First Name, Last Name, Display Name, saMAccountName, ..."
Get-QADUser $x -IncludeAllProperties | fl DisplayName, SamAccountName,hsg*Template*

gives me back:

DisplayName          : Thomas Koeppel
SamAccountName       : TKoeppel
hsgIsTemplate        : False
hsgMemberOfTemplates : {{1255f5b5-6d5e-4e33-83a2-68ef336ab01d}, {f3571627-a7d3-4ad8-be64-d49aad8c1450}}

This is because we modified our ad schema with add. attributes "hsgIsTemplate" and "hsgMemberOfTemplates".

We use for administration of user objects "templates" as shown in:

DisplayName          : Template HSG-INFOB
SamAccountName       : HSG-INFOB
hsgIsTemplate        : True
hsgMemberOfTemplates :

The property "hsgMemberOfTemplates" hase type "multi-valued string". For better performance we use the GUID instead of clear-text names (done by one of our programmers!).

What i am looking for is:

A funktion usable in "every script" to "translate" the input parameter (GUID in this case) to any defined "output-property".

In my case the result shoud be:

DisplayName          : Thomas Koeppel
SamAccountName       : TKoeppel
hsgIsTemplate        : False
hsgMemberOfTemplates : Template HSG-VERW-HSG, Template HSG-INFOB

serialisation and de-serialisation

ash.cash — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:24:21 GMT

i am trying to get an custom object back from remote sesion to my local session and i want the methods to be entacted i.e. i want the de-serialised object to convert back to "live" object how can i do this. do i need to add any changes in the types.ps1 file of powershell

HTTP Error 401.0 - Access Denied : You do not have permission to view this directory or page.

sxavier — Tue, 22 May 2012 09:55:39 GMT

Hello All,

I have installed power-shell & Exchange server 2010 in a machine. When I try to browse power-shell using following URL http://192.168.1.235/powershell?ser...evel=Full, It gives the below error.

Can anyone help me on this?

I have referred the following article msexchange and did the following steps.

Step 1 : Set-User ‘Administrator’ –RemotePowerShellEnabled $True (Success)

Step 2 : $SkipCertificate = New-WSManSessionOption –SkipCACheck –SkipCNCheck –SkipRevocationCheck (Success)

Step 3 : $Session = New-PSSession –ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange –ConnectionUri https://192.168.1.235/PowerShell/ -
Authentication NegotiateWithImplicitCredential –SessionOption $SkipCertificate

This Step 3 failed with following error:::::

New-PSSession : Cannot bind parameter 'SessionOption'. Cannot convert the "Microsoft.WSMan.Management.SessionOption" value of type "Microsoft.WSMan.Management.SessionOption" to type "System.Management.Automation.Remoting.PSSessionOption".
At line:1 char:175
+ $Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://192.168.1.235/PowerShell/ -Auth
entication NegotiateWithImplicitCredential -SessionOption <<<< $SkipCertificate
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (:) [New-PSSession], ParameterBindingException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CannotConvertArgumentNoMessage,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.NewPSSessionCommand

I hope you can further help me with these details...

Regards
Sebastian

HTTP Error 401.0 - Access Denied : You do not have permission to view this directory or page.

sxavier — Tue, 22 May 2012 09:53:22 GMT

Hello All,

I have installed power-shell & Exchange server 2010 in a machine. When I try to browse power-shell using following URL http://192.168.1.235/powershell?ser...evel=Full, It gives the below error.

Can anyone help me on this?

I have referred the following article msexchange and did the following steps.

Step 1 : Set-User ‘Administrator’ –RemotePowerShellEnabled $True (Success)

Step 2 : $SkipCertificate = New-WSManSessionOption –SkipCACheck –SkipCNCheck –SkipRevocationCheck (Success)

This Step 3 failed with following error:::::

I hope you can further help me with these details...

Regards
Sebastian

Windows Server 2012: IT Pros Will Need WS-MAN Remoting Skills (And Not Just for PowerShell)

ps2 — Tue, 22 May 2012 01:40:11 GMT

I'm seeing a worrying trend in the world of Microsoft IT. Let's politely call it the "head in the sand" phenomenon. My theory is that it comes from such a long period -- around a decade, really -- of relatively few major OS-level changes, especially in the Server version of Windows. Not that Windows 2008 didn't feature improvements over 2003, or that R2 didn't improve upon that, but they were largely incremental changes. They were easy to understand, easy to incorporate, or if they didn't interest you, easy to ignore.

How to Change Your IP Address Using PowerShell

ps2 — Tue, 22 May 2012 01:36:54 GMT

We have already shown you how you can change your IP address from the command prompt, which required long netsh commands, now we are doing the same thing in PowerShell, without the complexity.

Management OData and PowerShell

ps2 — Tue, 22 May 2012 01:33:23 GMT

There is a new feature of Windows Server 8 that will allow for access to PowerShell cmdlets and objects via OData served through ASP.NET. Doug Finke wrote a blog post for PowerShell Magazine on the topic. The article gives a good overview of what the Management OData feature is and how to configure it. In this blog post I will be showing off some of the steps involved in getting the service configured and what it looks like to consume the OData in PowerShell.

Adding a new record to the hosts of the current host

Bader — Thu, 17 May 2012 07:11:42 GMT

Hi,

How can add new record (IP address and host name) to the hosts file of the current (localhost) machine?

It is very appreciated to send me a sample script.

Regards,

Bader

Change Remote Desktop Profile path for all users in an AD security group.

John Morgan — Mon, 21 May 2012 18:13:53 GMT

Hi,

I am extremely new to power shell.

I am looking to write a script which will change the "Remote Desktop Services Profile" profile path for users in an AD group.

All these users are in the group "Citrix Users" and we have brought a new server on line to store their remote profiles.

How can this be done with a PS script?

Thanks.

Cannot copy file (copy-item) to a network share as a different user

paulexander — Thu, 17 May 2012 22:23:06 GMT

I have a script that gathers a bunch of files together into a local folder, and I am trying to copy that folder to a network share for backup purposes.

I am running this script from the Task Scheduler, as a different user.

The local folder gets created just fine, but it fails on the copy-item to the network share:

$BACKUPlocal="e:\backups\localfolder"

$BACKUPshare="\\bkup\archive"

Copy-Item -path $BACKUPlocal -Destination $BACKUPshare: -recurse -force

The failure is "Access to the path '\\bkup\archive\localfolder" is denied"

Troubleshooting so far:

1. I have confirmed that this user account has all the necessary rights to this shared folder. If I run Windows Explorer as that user on the source server, I can browse to the shared folder and add and remove files as needed.

2. From the source server, if I run my script with my Domain Admin credentials, there are no failures.

3. I have run "enable-psremoting" on both ends (for good measure). No luck.

4. I have even created a new PSdrive and pointed it to the network share. Again, nothing.

5. I can open a Powershell console as that user on the source server, map the PSdrive, and tried to manipulate files (create items, pipe something to text files, etc..). I am rejected.

6. I have even added the user account to local administrators on both servers. Foo.

Any thoughts?

Advanced dynamic variables and functions, help please!

freakling — Mon, 21 May 2012 13:39:41 GMT

Hello!

I'm trying to create a windows forms gui with dynamic buttons. I've already managed to do that but when i try to assign dynamic variables it gets screwed up.

Here is what i've got.

Function CreateButton{
param(
$name,
$text,
$size,
$location,
$onclick,
$Form
)
$name = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.Button
$name.Text = "$text"
$name.Location = "$location"
$name.Size = "$size"
$name.add_Click($onclick)
$Form.Controls.Add($name)
}

.... CODE .....

$x = 0
$y = 0
foreach($command in $script:Commands){
New-Variable - Name ('var{0}' -f "$command") -Value {
... code ....
}
CreateButton -name $command -text $command -size "100,30" -location "$x,$y" -form $form -onclick
$x += 100
if($x -gt "900"){$y += 30;$x = 0}
}

I get the following error when running the script:

Cannot convert argument "0", with value: "$varwlan", for "add_Click" to type "System.EventHandler": "Cannot convert the "$varwlan" value of type "System.String" to type "S

ystem.EventHandler"."

At H:\My Documents\Scripts\Netsh\Netsh.ps1:39 char:18

+ $name.add_Click <<<< ($onclick)

+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodException

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : MethodArgumentConversionInvalidCastArgument

"Enable-PSRemoting –force" commnad fails

Bader — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:19:54 GMT

Hi,

I'm trying to run the "Enable-PSRemoting –force" command in order to enable remote script execution on the Local and Remote machine (Could be a VM).

But I getting the following error message:

I have read the above error message, but I didn't understand what to do.

Can you pleae, expalin to me step by step how to fix the above issue?

Important note: I'm trying to control remotely VMs as explained in the post http://powershell.com/cs/forums/p/8571/14049.aspx#14049.

Regards,

Bader