DOWST.DEV

November 29, 2019

Announcements!

PowerShell Support in Azure Functions is now Generally Available (azure.microsoft.com)
Azure Functions now supports PowerShell for serverless automation tasks in production. Organizations

can now take advantage of the event-driven programming model for infrastructure management and scripting tasks across Azure and hybrid environments.

...>more
By: submitted:Jun 15 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Azure Functions – Event Driven, Serverless Functions (millerb.co.uk)
Quick introductory overview of Azure Functions with PowerShell. Some use cases and I will follow up

with a couple of in-depth posts on getting started and lessons learned.

...>more
By: Brett Miller submitted:Jun 15 2022

Convert ConfigMgr Error Codes to Plain Text Messages for Reporting (asquaredozen.com)
If you have ever checked the logs in ConfigMgr, you've likely run across an error code in a format

like 0x87D00664 or -2016410012. If use the error lookup feature in CMTrace, you can generally convert the error to plain text. In the ConfigMgr console, if you are looking at deployment statuses or even SSRS reports, you will see the plain text listed, but that data doesn't exist in the database.

...>more
By: Adam Gross submitted:Jun 15 2022

Find disabled Security Center Recommendations using PowerShell (techcommunity.microsoft.com)
If you are using Security Center's Secure Score today (and you should!), you are able to disable

specific recommendations which may not be relevant to you. By navigating to the ASC's default initiative in the Azure Policy blade, you can disable a recommendation:

...>more
By: Tiander Turpijn submitted:Jun 15 2022

OSDWindowsImage – OSD (osd.osdeploy.com)
Here's a PowerShell One-Liner to update a WIM with the latest WindowsUpdates.
By: David Segura submitted:Jun 15 2022

Three Ways to use PowerShell to Send a Welcome Message to New Office 365 Users (office365itpros.com)
A recent appeal from a reader for a PowerShell script to send a welcome message to new people

joining an Office 365 tenant forced me to think about the best solution. The issue isn't finding a script to do the job because there's plenty of scripts published in places like the TechNet Gallery

...>more
By: Tony Redmond submitted:Jun 15 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

AWS Tools for PowerShell (github.com)
The AWS Tools for PowerShell lets developers and administrators manage their AWS services from the

PowerShell scripting environment. This repository is meant to be used as a way to collect feedback from users of the AWS Tools for PowerShell modules. You are invited to create GitHub issues to report bugs or make feature requests.

...>more
By: submitted:Jun 15 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

Microsoft 365 internals explained | Microsoft Graph, substrate, and PowerShell with Jeffrey Snover (youtube.com)
See the benefits and explanation for AI-infused capabilities in Office. We'll show you the Microsoft

Graph and the Graph Explorer, everyday AI in office.com, PowerPoint and the upcoming Project Cortex. Plus, you'll see how all of this can be put into practice using PowerShell scripting together with the Microsoft Graph.

...>more
By: submitted:Jun 15 2022

Fun

So say we all! (reddit.com)

By: u/SpacezCowboy submitted:Jun 15 2022

Do you have a suggestion for PowerShell Weekly? Do you know something that should be included? Let me know in the comments below, or on
twitter.

November 22, 2019

Announcements!

PowerShell 7 Preview 6 (devblogs.microsoft.com)
Today we shipped PowerShell 7 Preview.6! This release contains a number of new features and many bug

fixes from both the community as well as the PowerShell team. See the Release Notes for all the details of what is included in this release.

...>more
By: Steve Lee submitted:Jun 15 2022

Welcome to the PowerShell-Docs wiki! (github.com)
We are using the wiki to capture raw information that may end up in documentation. There is a lot of

arcane knowledge about PowerShell locked in peoples brains, hidden in blog posts, or buried in long issue or RFC discussions. With this wiki, I want to begin to capture that raw information, curate it, polish it, and eventually create published documentation.

...>more
By: submitted:Jun 15 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Across numerous scripts and management servers I find I need to know the support dates for different Windows versions. (twitter.com)
Across numerous scripts and management servers I find I need to know the support dates for different

Windows versions. Updating lists everywhere was a pain. PowerShell flavored Azure Functions to the rescue! Now I just have to update it once, and it's available everywhere.

...>more
By: Josh King submitted:Jun 15 2022

Hitting Snooze (toastit.dev)
Hitting snooze on your alarm clock is probably rather common. Let's take a look at how you can do

the same thing with your Toast Notifications.

...>more
By: Josh King submitted:Jun 15 2022

How to Prevent and Detect Malicious PowerShell Attacks (blog.rapid7.com)
Hello! My name is Rohit Chettiar, and I am a Solutions Engineer at Rapid7. In this series, we will

discuss why organizations should care about malicious PowerShell activity, how attackers use PowerShell to steal credentials (e.g., Mimikatz), and how to prevent and detect malicious PowerShell activity.

...>more
By: Rohit Chettiar submitted:Jun 15 2022

Speeding Up Group-Object (powershell.one)
There is a design flaw in Group-Object. With a workaround, your scripts can be up to 50x faster and

still 2x faster on PowerShell Core.

...>more
By: TobiasPSP submitted:Jun 15 2022

Windows Autopilot health check: An experiment in Graph API scripting (oofhours.com)
We have talked to a number of customers over the past months who have run into challenges with

Windows Autopilot - sometimes these were simple configuration issues, other times they were self-inflicted pains (e.g. deleting Azure AD device objects associated with a registered Windows Autopilot device). But as we learn more about the types of challenges encountered, we get better at detecting those issues (and eventually we'll try to prevent them from happening). To help with the detection process, I've published a new script called AutopilotHealthCheck.ps1 to the PowerShell Gallery. You can install it using PowerShell quite easily, along with its pre-requisite modules.

...>more
By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Jun 15 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

Teams Updates PowerShell Module for Private Channels (office365itpros.com)
Microsoft released support for private channels on November 4 (also see this note about managing

private channels). Support for PowerShell access to private channels is not yet available in the publicly available version of the Teams PowerShell module. Instead, if you want to work with private channels through PowerShell, you must install the latest version of the Teams module from the PowerShell test gallery. You need to run version 1.0.18 or better to manage private channels.

...>more
By: Tony Redmond submitted:Jun 15 2022

Fun

A Beginner PowerShell Function Challenge (ironscripter.us)
The Chairman realizes that many IT Pros who take on his challenges are experienced and advanced

PowerShell users. But everyone was a beginner once. Everyone had that first challenge of writing a PowerShell function. Today's challenge is for those of you in the early stages of learning PowerShell. Now, it is time for you to begin scripting. For this beginner challenge, the Chairman would like you to write 2 very simple functions.

...>more
By: Iron Scripter submitted:Jun 15 2022

Do you have a suggestion for PowerShell Weekly? Do you know something that should be included? Let me know in the comments below, or on
twitter.

November 15, 2019

Announcements!

Az.Functions 0.0.1-preview (powershellgallery.com)
We have just published a preview of the Azure PowerShell module to manage AzureFunctions! Check it

out and share your feedback!

...>more
By: Azure PowerShell submitted:Jun 15 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Automate Azure Disk Encryption for Windows Virtual Machines – Elan Shudnow’s Blog (shudnow.net)
The purpose of this article is to provide a script and demonstrate different scenarios in which my

script can be used to help provide an automated method which can encrypt your OS and Data disks as well as automatically creating a Key Vault if one does not exist including the Access Policy configuration.

...>more
By: Elan Shudnow submitted:Jun 15 2022

Deep dive into a custom class in PowerShell (lagebj.github.io)
On November 7th I published a post about my new Powershell module Passphraser. I have been using

this module to test Plaster, Pester, psake, platyPS, Appveyor and ReadTheDocs. I have also been wanting to explore custom classes in Powershell, so I figured Passphraser would be the perfect platform. This allows me to get a passphrase as an object which I can manipulate further to my needs. I wrote a little bit about this in an update to my post on Passphraser, but here I'll dig deeper into the class itself.

...>more
By: Lage Berger Jensen submitted:Jun 15 2022

PowerShell Multithreading: A Deep Dive (adamtheautomator.com)
At some point, most people will run into a problem that a basic PowerShell script is just too slow

to solve. This could be collecting data from lots of computers on your network or perhaps creating a ton of new users in Active Directory at once. These are both great examples of where using more processing power would get your code to run faster. Let's get into how to solve this using multithreading in PowerShell!

...>more
By: Tyler Muir submitted:Jun 15 2022

Testing RPC ports with PowerShell (and yes, it’s as much fun as it sounds!) (devblogs.microsoft.com)
Using PowerShell to identify RPC ports in use by capturing content from Dos Commands like

PortQRY.exe

...>more
By: Dr Scripto submitted:Jun 15 2022

Using PowerShell to Retrieve Exchange Mailbox Statistics for Office 365 Migrations (mikefrobbins.com)
Recently, I've been working on trying to finish up a migration from Exchange Server 2010 to Office

365. There are potentially numerous mailboxes that aren't used and those won't be migrated to Office 365 because there's no sense in paying for licensing for them. How do you determine what mailboxes are in use?

...>more
By: Mike F Robbins submitted:Jun 15 2022

Watching the Watcher with PowerShell (jdhitsolutions.com)
If you followed along with my recent articles about my PowerShell based backup system, you may

recall that I used a PowerShell scheduled job an an event subscriber to monitor for file changes in key folders that I want to back up. I created the scheduled task to run at Windows startup and so far it appears to be working just fine. However, I did catch one instance where the scheduled task stopped. I didn't find any reason, although I didn't dig too deeply either. I simply restarted the scheduled task. But it got me thinking that since I'm relying on this task to log new and changed files, I need to make sure it is watching. In other words, I need to watch the watcher. This is the approach I took.

...>more
By: Jeff Hicks submitted:Jun 15 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

Unified PowerShell experience for Microsoft Graph (myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com)
Microsoft Graph provides access to a wide range of information belonging to you and your

organization. Currently PowerShell users do not have a unified experience for accessing all of Microsoft Graph. This session introduces our preview Microsoft Graph PowerShell module generated from Microsoft Graph metadata using the same technology the Azure team is using to build their management PowerShell modules. Come learn how you can quickly use this to do ad-hoc interrogation of Microsoft Graph data and also build scripts that can perform unattended processes on your organization's data.

...>more
By: Darrel Miller submitted:Jun 15 2022

Video: Configuring PowerShell Remoting security (networkadm.in)
I believe that remoting in PowerShell unfairly gets a bad rap in the security world and the truth is

that when done right; PowerShell remoting is equal to SSH. The problem is that Microsoft and Windows get a bad rap because most people assume Windows is not secure. I invite you to watch the video and take notes. If you have questions, please reach out to me via the comments here or via the contact information posted int he video. Also, you can more links on this website that discuss remoting in detail.

...>more
By: Mike Kanakos submitted:Jun 15 2022

Fun

Look, obviously I’m not saying you should write PowerShell like this. just that you can… (twitter.com)
owwww! my eyes!!!!
By: Liam Kemp submitted:Jun 15 2022

My favorite PowerShell Images – free for everyone! (github.com)
These are the images, icons, and desktops I like to use at conferences and in materials. These are

free to use! Enjoy!

...>more
By: Jason Helmick submitted:Jun 15 2022

Do you have a suggestion for PowerShell Weekly? Do you know something that should be included? Let me know in the comments below, or on
twitter.

November 8, 2019

Announcements!

PowerShell Editor Services Roadmap (devblogs.microsoft.com)
Over the last year we have committed to making the PowerShell editing experience in Visual Studio

Code a rich and productive cross-platform alternative for the PowerShell ISE. To that end, we have focused on two primary areas: bringing the PSReadLine experience to the Integrated Console, and improving the stability of the extension while editing and debugging. The goal of this blog post is to walk through how we have made efforts in these key areas, and what our next steps are to follow through on these efforts.

...>more
By: Sydney Smith submitted:Jun 15 2022

PowerShell Support in Azure Functions is now Generally Available (azure.microsoft.com)
Azure Functions now supports PowerShell for serverless automation tasks in production. Organizations

can now take advantage of the event-driven programming model for infrastructure management and scripting tasks across Azure and hybrid environments.

...>more
By: submitted:Jun 15 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Do-While vs. Do-Until vs. While (sid-500.com)
Understanding the differences between a do-while, do-until and while loop could be confusing. Is it

the same? Why then two different techniques? In this blog post I will show the differences.

...>more
By: Patrick Gruenauer submitted:Jun 15 2022

Get-ADObject: Querying Active Directory Objects (adamtheautomator.com)
Are you looking for a quick way to create an Active Directory (AD) report using PowerShell? You've

come to the right place! In this article, you will learn how to create custom reports of user accounts in your AD environment using the Get-ADObject cmdlet.

...>more
By: Kevin Sapp submitted:Jun 15 2022

How to access ARM template outputs in PowerShell (yobyot.com)
This post takes a look at how you might use outputs: {} to send ARM template results to a PowerShell

script.

...>more
By: Alex Neihaus submitted:Jun 15 2022

Installing Windows Services Created with PowerShell (sapien.com)
Last week we introduced a new PrimalScript template for Windows PowerShell which makes writing

Windows Services much easier. In this article, we will show you how to use MSI Builder to create an installer for your Windows Services.

...>more
By: Alex Riedel submitted:Jun 15 2022

Office 365 E-Mail forward attack via inboxrules in user mailboxes (blog.it-koehler.com)
A customer called me two weeks ago, that he got the feedback from his customer that he is sending

some strange mails. So I had a look at the O365 security and clompliance center. After searching some reports I found out, that every E-Mail four users receive was redirected to a GMAIL address. The report also said that it was done with some inboxrules (the user never set up). Here some screenshots from the Azure Security Center and Compliance Center.

...>more
By: Alexander Koehler submitted:Jun 15 2022

PowerShell Notebooks are Available in Azure Data Studio (sqlvariant.com)
PowerShell Notebooks are now available in the November release of Azure Data Studio. Back in March I

requested this feature be added to Azure Data Studio and it has become the most popular feature request for Notebooks. (Although, I'm sure it only became the most popular after they added copying from the results grid a few months ago )

...>more
By: Aaron Nelson submitted:Jun 15 2022

PowerShell’s plus equals (+=), the array serial killer (theposhwolf.com)
I did a livestream recently where I created a function to parse an HTML table and convert it to a

PowerShell object. If you followed along, you probably noticed that I used a += with no shame whatsoever. Luckily, @PrzemyslawKlys caught it and asked that I fix it (you can see the commit history here, the actual request was a Twitter DM). This was a great reminder to me that += should be avoided!

...>more
By: Anthony Howell submitted:Jun 15 2022

Use a CSV file to make a graphical menu of PowerShell scripts (blog.osull.com)
I've recently been working on a PowerShell module that uses a CSV file to create a custom menu of

scripts.

...>more
By: Dan O'Sullivan submitted:Jun 15 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

BurntToast (github.com)
Module for creating and displaying Toast Notifications on Microsoft Windows 10.
By: Josh King submitted:Jun 15 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

Creating a UI Part 3 – POSH GUI (youtube.com)
In this third in the series on developing a GUI for your PowerShell apps, we learn about a free web

based service called POSH GUI available on poshgui.com. It writes the Winform code for you. In this video I'll explain what you need to know to develop your own UI with POSH GUI.

...>more
By: Bryan Cafferky submitted:Jun 15 2022

Essential PowerShell for Office 365 (amazon.com)
Take your Office 365 skills to the next level. Master PowerShell for Office 365 to stay competitive

in today's world of highly sought after cloud management skills. With expert guidance, IT pros will learn how to leverage the muscle of PowerShell to automate many advanced administrative tasks not otherwise accessible in the Office 365 Admin Center. You will discover how to unlock configuration options and automate tasks in order to free up valuable time and resources.

...>more
By: Vlad Catrinescu submitted:Jun 15 2022

Fun

Raise the Dead with this PowerShell Challenge (ironscripter.us)
Halloween is upon us and the Chairman has devised a demonic PowerShell scripting challenge for you.

This is not for the faint of heart. The Chairman wants you to raise the dead. Specifically deleted items in your Recycle Bin on a Windows 10 desktop.

...>more
By: Iron Scripter submitted:Jun 15 2022

The PowerShell Magic 8 Ball (jdhitsolutions.com)
I have a short script that uses Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) to create a spooky graphical

prompt that allows you to ask questions of a Magic 8 Ball (this name may be trademarked or otherwise protected). For those of you who may not be familiar with it, this is a toy shaped like a giant 8 ball from a billiards game. You ask a question aloud, shake the ball and look at the bottom to get an answer. I did the same thing with PowerShell.

...>more
By: Jeff Hicks submitted:Jun 15 2022

Do you have a suggestion for PowerShell Weekly? Do you know something that should be included? Let me know in the comments below, or on
twitter.

November 1, 2019

Announcements!

Update to Drive Automation Tool – Coming Soon (twitter.com)
It feels like its been too long since the last update, so the Driver Automation Tool 6.4.0 will be

out by the end of the week. Added Windows 10 1909 support, new Microsoft Surface device support and other tweaks/fixes.

...>more
By: Maurice Daly submitted:Jun 15 2022

Windows Terminal Preview 1910 Release (devblogs.microsoft.com)
Another update to the Windows Terminal has just been released! As always, you can download the

Terminal from the Microsoft Store, the Microsoft Store for Business, and GitHub.

...>more
By: Kayla Cinnamon submitted:Jun 15 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Fast, Dirty DNS Enumeration BONUS: Fast, Dirtyport scan (reddit.com)
It's a native powershell/.net zone transfer... without the zone transfer. It's on GitHub
By: submitted:Jun 15 2022

How to Monitor Microsoft Teams using PowerShell Universal Dashboard (starwindsoftware.com)
In this guide, I will describe how to create a PowerShell Dashboard using the PowerShell Universal

Dashboard module created by Adam Driscoll (PowerShell MVP), in order to monitor Microsoft Teams Cloud call queues.

...>more
By: Nicolas Prigent submitted:Jun 15 2022

Intune-App-Deploy (github.com)
A fast, reliable way to package your win32 applications and deploy them to Intune from any source -

including SCCM, using Powershell & VS Code tasks!

...>more
By: Ben Reader submitted:Jun 15 2022

Managing Azure Blueprints with PowerShell (blog.ipswitch.com)
Azure Blueprints provide a "one-stop shop" for Azure governance. By implementing JSON templates and

a controlled, unified workflow, Azure administrators can define, deploy, enforce, and maintain standardized Azure environments.

...>more
By: Tim Warner submitted:Jun 15 2022

PS1 To Exe Generator – v1.1 Released (systanddeploy.com)
In this post, I will show you the new version of my tool PS1 To EXE generator that allows you to

generate an EXE file from a PowerShell project, choose the main ps1 and inlude other files and folders.

...>more
By: Damien Van Robaeys submitted:Jun 15 2022

Testing DFS Replication with PowerShell (bcthomas.com)
DFS Replication (DFS-R) is a fantastic tool in any sysadmins belt when it comes to creating highly

redundant and scalable file shares. And yet anyone who has used it, knows that monitoring it can be difficult at the best of times.

...>more
By: Ben Thomas submitted:Jun 15 2022

Fun

Creating a Spooky Windows Terminal Theme (jdhitsolutions.com)
With Halloween fast arriving, I thought I'd share some more holiday-themed fun. Today's entry isn't

necessarily PowerShell related but you might use it with your PowerShell work. If you've been kicking the tires on the Windows Terminal project from Microsoft, you might enjoy this. Here's the finished product and then I'll show you how to recreate it.

...>more
By: Jeff Hicks submitted:Jun 15 2022

Get-Bugs (reddit.com)
I know the feeling all to well
By: submitted:Jun 15 2022

Write-Host ?? But I always use the debugger. I mean, yea, always. (twitter.com)
There is the right way and the way to works.
By: Adam Bertram submitted:Jun 15 2022

Upcoming Events

The PowerShell Team Community Meetup at Ignite 2019 (twitter.com)
"The PowerShell Team is hosting a community meetup at MSIgnite 2019! Meet the team along with other

PowerShell enthusiasts on Nov 4th from 4-5pm location TBA. Note that only the first 100 to arrive will be able to attend and you must bring your Ignite badge"

...>more
By: submitted:Jun 15 2022

Do you have a suggestion for PowerShell Weekly? Do you know something that should be included? Let me know in the comments below, or on
twitter.

PowerShell Weekly – Your weekly round up of all things PowerShell

Categories

Archive