DOWST.DEV

September 25, 2020

Announcements!

Windows Package Manager Preview (v0.2.2521) (devblogs.microsoft.com)
Our newest feature is support for installing Apps from the Microsoft Store. Yes, you read that

correctly. Our goal is to make it easier to install software on Windows. We also recently released tab completion in PowerShell, and a feature toggle.

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By: Demitrius Nelon submitted:Jun 16 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Configure PowerShell Secret Management Module (connorcarnes.com)
This post is a quick set up guide for the PowerShell Secret Management module. I'll do my best to

keep these steps up to date but the module is still under development so the steps required to get set up could change at any time.

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By: connorcarnes submitted:Jun 16 2022

Documenting with PowerShell: Documenting mobile devices (cyberdrain.com)
This was a request by a friend in one of the peer groups I operate in. He wanted a method to

document which mobile devices exist in a O365 tenant and put them into IT-Glue as configurations. I figured I'd help him real quick and blog about it.

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By: Kelvin Tegelaar submitted:Jun 16 2022

Got strings that you need to normalize? (twitter.com)
PowerShell makes it easy to strip diacritics off letters for example
By: Mathias Jessen submitted:Jun 16 2022

If you needs to verify if a system is BIOS or UEFI (twitter.com)
this Powershell one-liner will return that info
By: Mike Pletcher submitted:Jun 16 2022

Troubleshooting Active Directory Replication Using PowerShell (woshub.com)
Most AD administrators use the repadmin (appeared in Windows Server 2003) and replmon (must be

copied from Support Tool for WS2003) console tools to monitor and control Active Directory replication. In Windows Server 2012, Microsoft added a number of PowerShell cmdlets to manage and check replication status in the Active Directory forest. In this article we'll look at the main useful PoSh cmdlets that an AD administrator can use to control replication between domain controllers.

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By: Windows OS Hub submitted:Jun 16 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

Introduction to Az.Tools.Installer (techcommunity.microsoft.com)
Intoducing the new PowerShell module to help installing and managing your Azure PowerShell modules
By: Azure PowerShell submitted:Jun 16 2022

SecretManagement.LastPass (github.com)
A PowerShell SecretManagement extension for LastPass.
By: Tyler Leonhardt submitted:Jun 16 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

PowerShell Unplugged – Challenge Edition (youtube.com)
PowerShell is more than just a management and configuration framework - it's the one tool, the glue,

for managing, configuring, and automating your servers and services. Are you responsible for managing servers on-premises? No problem! How about managing resources in the cloud for Windows or Linux? Why not both?

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By: Jeffery Snover submitted:Jun 16 2022

SANS PowerShell Cheat Sheet (PDF) (wiki.sans.blue)
The purpose of this cheat sheet is to describe some common options and techniques for use in

Microsoft's PowerShell.

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By: Marc Ochsenmeier submitted:Jun 16 2022

Taking your automation to the next level with PowerShell 7 (youtube.com)
PowerShell 7 is the latest PowerShell offering for managing all of your cloud and on-prem resources,

regardless of whether they're hosted on Windows, macOS, Linux, or in a serverless platform. In this video, learn about native parallelism, improvements to the shell experience, new language operators, and better backwards compatibility with Windows PowerShell modules than ever before. Also, learn more about how PowerShell 7.0 and 7.1 can enhance your automation workflows, as well as what's coming down the road.

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By: Jeffery Snover submitted:Jun 16 2022

Upcoming Events

September Virtual Meetup – Building a GUI with PowerShell (beginner level) (meetup.com)
Donna Ryan is giving us an exciting introduction to building GUIs with PowerShell!
By: PowerShell Southampton submitted:Jun 16 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.

September 18, 2020

Announcements!

Update to PowerShell Pro Tools (twitter.com)
I just released an update to PowerShell Pro Tools that enables the ability to create self-contained

PowerShell 7 executables that support Windows Forms. No need to install PWSH first.

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By: Adam Driscoll submitted:Jun 16 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

11 PowerShell Automatic Variables You Should Know (koupi.io)
Automatic variables are one of the fundamental things you should know about PowerShell. When I was

learning PowerShell, I kept creating complicated scripts to handle things easily handled by those automatic variables.

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By: Caroline Chiari submitted:Jun 16 2022

Convert from OATime (powershell.city)
One of my favorite reasons I love PowerShell is because can tap into its programming roots for added

power. I will demonstrate later in my post.

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By: Xajuan Smith submitted:Jun 16 2022

Finding nested Active Directory groups faster with PowerShell (4sysops.com)
Finding nested groups in large Active Directory groups can be a challenging task. Active Directory

includes the cmdlet Get-ADGroupMember for finding group members, but it cannot be used to query groups with over 5000 members. The cmdlet also suffers from performance bottlenecks. I'd like to share with you a tool I built that solves both those problems.

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By: Mike Kanakos submitted:Jun 16 2022

Is Batch scripting still relevant? (reddit.com)
The other day, one of my coworkers sent me a 150 lines batch script. It wasn't fun to read 🙁 In

those wonderful days where PowerShell can do everything that batch can but better and cleaner, is batch still relevant? what do you guys think?

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By: u/CodingCaroline submitted:Jun 16 2022

Module Updates: What’s New? (eightwone.com)
After updating your PowerShell modules which support managing parts of the Microsoft 365, some of us

are curious on changes that come with the new module version. In the world of continuous change, it is hard to keep track of these changes as new cmdlets or parameters get added to support new features, and some get removed as they become obsolete. So, how to discover what those changes are after updating to the latest module?

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By: Michel de Rooij submitted:Jun 16 2022

Monitoring with PowerShell: Monitoring network traffic (cyberdrain.com)
In any case, let's get back to our regular scheduled program: Monitoring and documentation scripts!

?? This time we're tackling three issues in one; We're going to monitor traffic usage to see if a connection isn't saturated. We're also going to check if the NIC speed is correct and we're going to check if the connection is metered and if it is alert on it.

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By: Kelvin Tegelaar submitted:Jun 16 2022

PowerShell Logging: Recording and Auditing all the Things (adamtheautomator.com)
IT professionals of all skill levels are using PowerShell daily to perform a wide variety of tasks.

Everything from automation of systems & database administration to help desk troubleshooting, PowerShell logging and auditing has a role to play. All this activity generates security concerns for an organization. You may find yourself asking:

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By: Bill Kindle submitted:Jun 16 2022

PowerShell: 101-vm-secure-password (kpatnayakuni.com)
Very simple deployment of a Windows VM using password stored in Key Vault
By: Kiran Patnayakuni submitted:Jun 16 2022

What is your favorite PowerShell module? (twitter.com)
I learned about a few new ones reading through the replies.
By: Trevor Sullivan submitted:Jun 16 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

Spend less time CD’ing around directories with the PowerShell Z shortcut (hanselman.com)
Everyone has a trick for moving around their computer faster. It might be a favorite shell, a series

of aliases or shortcuts. I like using popd and pushd to quickly go deep into a directory structure and return exactly where I was.

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By: Scott Hanselman submitted:Jun 16 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

New PluralSight Course: Extending PowerShell (mattallford.com)
This is a short post and I'll cut straight to it. I'm really happy to announce that I've published

my first course with Pluralsight, Extending PowerShell. The course is aimed at helping you learn and understand PowerShell Modules and is part of a larger learning path for PowerShell 7 that is being produced currently on PowerShell.

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By: Matt Allford submitted:Jun 16 2022

PowerShell vs Python Reference (blog.ironmansoftware.com)
Below is a reference between PowerShell and Python language syntax. Most of these examples where

adpated from W3 schools Python tutorials.

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By: Adam Driscoll submitted:Jun 16 2022

Fun

A PowerShell Session Challenge (ironscripter.us)
PowerShell Remoting is a key management tool. But just because you've turned it on, doesn't mean you

are done. The Chairman thinks it should still be managed. To that end, he has commissioned the following advanced challenge. Although, as with all challenges, don't let the label deter you. The Chairman hopes you will tackle as much of the challenge as you can.

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By: Iron Scripter submitted:Jun 16 2022

Upcoming Events

MyIgnite – Ask the Expert: Everything you ever wanted to know about PowerShell (myignite.microsoft.com)
In this Ask the Experts session we will learn what our panelists are using PowerShell for, what are

they most excited for in the future and how PowerShell has expanded from being an optional Windows component to a fully-fledged, open-source scripting and automation language supported on dozens of platforms. Join us to learn more about PowerShell, how PowerShell is applied to solve real-world challenges, and what drives the ever-growing community of PowerShell enthusiasts around the world.

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By: Microsoft submitted:Jun 16 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.

September 11, 2020

Announcements!

PowerShell 7.1-preview7 was accepted by Windows Store. (microsoft.com)
Still working on getting 7.0.x published to the Store.
By: Steve Lee submitted:Jun 16 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Check if Azure AD Users exists PowerShell function (blog.it-koehler.com)
When scripting with cloud users in AzureAD some people might ask how to check if an Azure AD user is

available or not. I also had to challenge this scenario while scripting for a customer. After this I thought this is something many people may need. So here is my solution with some explanation to use it in your own script.

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By: Alexander Koehler submitted:Jun 16 2022

Deploy PowerShell ActiveDirectory Module without installing the remote server tools (janikvonrotz.ch)
Make use of the PowerShell ActiveDirectory module always required to install the Remote Server

Administration Tools. That sucks! We want it as simple as executing a script.

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By: Janik Vonrotz submitted:Jun 16 2022

How To Manage NTFS Permissions With PowerShell (adamtheautomator.com)
If you're an IT professional and find yourself struggling with setting file system permission for

your organizations, you're in luck. Managing NTFS permissions using a GUI is time-consuming especially when working with many users or groups. Luckily, we have PowerShell to make it all better. How? The Microsoft.PowerShell.Security module.

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By: Bill Kindle submitted:Jun 16 2022

PowerShell 1 liner (twitter.com)
to run on domain controllers to show AD account lock out events & the device they occurred on
By: Guy Leech submitted:Jun 16 2022

Windows Service : Setting Recovery Options & (techcartnow.com)
Sending Alert Email in case of service failure using PowerShell script
By: Kapil Khandelwal submitted:Jun 16 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

PowerShell Tips & Tricks That Will Increase Your Productivity (koupi.io)
Last week, I shared 8 Quick and easy tips to get you started with PowerShell on Reddit and I

received amazing feedback, some of which were mind-blowing tricks that I either did not know or did not use often enough. So I decided to create this post to keep track of all those wonderful shortcuts PowerShell has to offer.

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By: Caroline Chiari submitted:Jun 16 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

Convert Scoop and Winget Packages to Chocolatey with Stephen Valdinger (youtube.com)
Stephen Valdinger discusses some scripts he created to convert / import Scoop and WinGet packages

into Chocolatey. Stephen is a support engineer for Chocolatey and active PowerShell community member.

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By: Research Triangle PowerShell Users Group submitted:Jun 16 2022

PowerShell Error Handling (skylinesacademy.com)
To ensure we set up a net to catch all of the errors that are bound to happen, it's important to

understand error handling. Error handling is a concept in all programming languages that outlines steps, procedures and code that's written to intelligently capture errors and do something about them. PowerShell is no different.

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By: Adam Bertram submitted:Jun 16 2022

Tiny-PowerShell-Projects (github.com)
Learning PowerShell through test-driven development of games and puzzles
By: Doug Finke submitted:Jun 16 2022

Fun

Wizard’s Castle (40th Anniversary PowerShell Edition) (github.com)
A remake of the 1980 Exidy Sorcerer game written by JOSEPH R. POWER The instructions are included

with the game. I stayed mostly true to the original, but added some additional functionality.

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By: yourwishismine submitted:Jun 16 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.

September 4, 2020

Announcements!

PowerShell Universal Visual Studio Code Extension (blog.ironmansoftware.com)
Today, I'm happy to announce the release of the first version of the PowerShell Universal Visual

Studio Code Extension! This extension provides some features to make it easier to get up and running with Universal and initially aids in authoring dashboards.

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By: Adam Driscoll submitted:Jun 16 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Formatting dates from text or objects (powershell.city)
Ever imported data just to have a non readable date stamp?
By: Xajuan Smith submitted:Jun 16 2022

How to monitor a printer with Powershell (scriptinglibrary.com)
When it comes to monitoring, as much I like scripting languages, it is never my first choice to rely

only on a 'custom' script. Considering how many variables are involved: requirements, environments, the overall experience of the team that will manage that piece of software, and all efforts to develop, test, and support the solution over time.

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By: Paolo Frigo submitted:Jun 16 2022

NetNeighbor Watch: The PowerShell Alternative To Arpwatch (spiderzebra.com)
In this post, we are going to setup NetNeighbor Watch on a Raspberry Pi. NetNeighbor Watch can keep

an eye on your network and send you an email when a new host is discovered. NetNeighbor Watch is done completely in PowerShell. The results are very similar to those of arpwatch. NetNeighbor Watch is for anyone that wants more visibility into the wireless or wired devices on their network. We will also setup a weekly email report with all of the known hosts on your network. In this post, I will walk you through the entire process of setting this up from scratch on a Raspberry Pi, lets get started!

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By: SpiderZebra submitted:Jun 16 2022

PowerShell Core Support Lifecycle (docs.microsoft.com)
Based on the Lifecycle of PowerShell, the following table lists the dates when various releases will

no longer be supported.

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By: Microsoft submitted:Jun 16 2022

Restoring (Recovering) PowerShell Scripts from Event Logs (evotec.xyz)
A few days ago, I was asked to take a look at PowerShell Malware. While I don't know much about

malware, my curiosity didn't let me skip on this occasion, and I was handed and WindowsPowerShell.evtx file. Ok, that's not what I expected! I wanted PowerShell .ps1 files that I can read and asses? Well, you play with the cards you were dealt with. What I was handed over was PowerShell Event Log. By design, PowerShell writes whatever you execute, and it thinks it is risky to Windows PowerShell Operation Event Log.

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By: Przemyslaw Klys submitted:Jun 16 2022

Scheduled Script Best Practices (reddit.com)
A great discussion on r/PowerShell about the best way to schedule PowerShell scripts.
By: u/save_earth submitted:Jun 16 2022

Visually display Active Directory Nested Group Membership using PowerShell (evotec.xyz)
In the Active Directory PowerShell module, you have two commands to your disposal that help display

group membership. Those are Get-ADGroup and Get-ADGroupMember. The first command contains property Members, which gives you DistinguishedName of all members, and Get-ADGroupMember can provide you either direct members or with Recursive switch all members recursively (skipping groups). Till a few weeks ago, I was a happy user of those commands until I noticed two things. Member property for Get-ADGroup sometimes misses elements for whatever reason.

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By: Przemyslaw Klys submitted:Jun 16 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

Active Directory Scripts Galore: Come and Get It! (adamtheautomator.com)
Active Directory is one of the most common uses for PowerShell. I have personally been building

Active Directory scripts using VBScript and PowerShell for over a decade. Here's a big sample of Active Directory PowerShell scripts to do all kinds of stuff!

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By: Adam Bertram submitted:Jun 16 2022

IT Admin Toolkit (nkasco.com)
A customizable and expandable destination for centralizing day-to-day job functions
By: Nathan Kasco submitted:Jun 16 2022

Updated Version of the Graph User Statistics Script Available (office365itpros.com)
Last June, I wrote about a PowerShell script to interrogate the Microsoft Graph to retrieve usage

data from workloads like Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Teams. Some of this data is available via PowerShell cmdlets like Get-ExoMailboxStatistics and Get-SPOSite, but using the Graph is usually faster.

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By: Tony Redmond submitted:Jun 16 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

8 Quick and easy tips to get you started with PowerShell (koupi.io)
PowerShell is a very powerful scripting language. It is built on top of the .NET framework and can

interact with all its libraries. This architecture makes it a convenient tool for anyone working on Windows until recently, that is. Recently PowerShell was released for MacOS and Linux, making it an even more useful skill to possess.

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By: Caroline Chiari submitted:Jun 16 2022

Debugging PowerShell Modules with Pester Unit Tests in Visual Studio Code (youtube.com)
If you are the author of a PowerShell module, you can use the built-in debugging tools in Microsoft

Visual Studio Code to debug your script modules. In this video, we'll build a simple PowerShell script module, and then use the Pester unit testing module to write some failing tests. Then, we'll set a breakpoint in our module and break into the debugger when we execute the Pester unit tests. Once execution is paused, we'll step through the module code line by line, to discover where things are going wrong. We'll then fix the module code, and ensure that our Pester unit tests are passing.

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By: Trevor Sullivan submitted:Jun 16 2022

The PowerShell Scripting and Toolmaking Book (leanpub.com)
Learn the patterns, practices, and details of PowerShell Scripting and Toolmaking from the

industry's two most recognized experts on the subject.

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By: Don Jones and Jeff Hicks submitted:Jun 16 2022

Fun

How To Write Unmaintainable Code (github.com)
Ensure a job for life 😉
By: tinkerttoy submitted:Jun 16 2022

The 3 laws of PowerShell (twitter.com)
Wise words to live by
By: Jeff Hicks submitted:Jun 16 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.

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