provides his 5 reasons why he recommends using PSReadLine.

web site. The challenges are designed for individuals to do on their own to build up their PowerShell scripting skills. A few weeks ago, a challenge was posted to create a network monitoring tool using PowerShell and the Write-Progress cmdlet. I thought I'd share my notes on the challenge and some of the code I came up with.

Active Directory. The code used PowerShell and CIM events to notify you, for example, when a new user account is created. This can be helpful when you need alerting. But perhaps you only need reporting. What has changed in Active Directory since a given date and time, such as in the last 24 hours? And wouldn't it be nice to have a pretty report? Let me help. Here's how I approached the prob lem using PowerShell and the ActiveDirectory module.

is at an end. I was on the road a lot this summer and feel I didn't have enough time to enjoy it properly. Maybe next year. In the meantime, let's see what we have to wrap up August.

thing or two. As has been the custom here, let's wrap up with grab bag of tips and suggestions.

a potpourri of tips and tricks that you can use to improve your console experience and add a little pizzazz to your PowerShell scripts and functions.

2023. I guess we'd better get right to the monthly wrap-up.

thought I'd take a little time to explain it and hopefully entice a few of you into joining me.

the world of PowerShell.

PowerShell functions. I know I've mentioned a few recommended best practices. But since they are important, I want to review and re-emphasize them. These practices will make your code easier to write, debug or troubleshoot and more secure. I'd like to think some of them are simply common sense, but sometimes we need someone to remind us. These items are not in any particular order.

to build a solid reporting tool around Active Directory. I had a library of scripts and functions I have written over the years, including a few that I've written about here recently. Thus was born ADReportingTools.

can make your life better as an IT professional. I have a friend - let's call her Gladys Kravitz. Gladys and I were chatting and she mentioned how tricky it is to pull information out of Windows event logs. If I recall, she was looking at 4625 events in the Security log which represents failed logon attempts.

we were asked to write some PowerShell code that we could use to inventory our PowerShell script library. Here's how I approached the problem, which by no means is the only way.

PowerShell and PowerShell 7. Sometimes I'm in a session with a loaded profile, sometimes not. Sometimes I have a PowerShell 7 Preview session running. And then there are the scheduled jobs which also run PowerShell. Over the years, I've written a number of variations of a PowerShell script or function to discover all of the running PowerShell sessions on my computer. But I think I have finally written the final version of a PowerShell process detection tool.

PowerShell. Even after all these years. She has a specific use case, but you might also feel the need for a better comparison option. And to be clear, the comparison we're talking about is not the object's values, as you might see with Compare-Object. But rather the property names.

I am writing. As you know, PowerShell maintains a command history in your PowerShell session. You can view history with the Get-History cmdlet or its alias h. To re-rerun a command use Invoke-History or its alias...

files to multiple destinations. If you look at help for Copy-Item, which you should, you'll see that the Destination parameter does not take an array. That's ok. I can fix that. However, I have a disclaimer that you should consider this a proof-of-concept and not production-ready code.

you do as well. Even though I have the typical clock running in the Windows taskbar, I have an ultrawide monitor so it isn't always easy to read.

command in real time. Often, I am sharing code and commands I've already written. Instead, over the course of the next several weeks, I don't know exactly since I haven't written anything yet, I want to share my experiences creating a PowerShell weather command based on free Open-Meteo weather API. The development process will hopefully expose you to new techniques and concepts.

as a PowerShell remoting protocol. Unfortunately, this is not a topic that typically comes up for Windows-centric IT Pros. I know this is definitely true in my case, and a deficiency I have been working on. On the plus side, Windows 10 ships with the OpenSSH client installed and ready to go. But what about the OpenSSH Server? On Windows platforms, you need to enable and configure this element if you want to use SSH remoting in PowerShell. Naturally, I'd like to do this with PowerShell and also remotely. First up, I want to show you how to setup the OpenSSH Server component on Windows 10.

converting PowerShell scripts and functions to files. I even whipped up a script, think of it as a meta-script, to create the module using the commands that I am adding to the module.

comfortable with Pester 5 and as my tests grow in complexity I am embracing the use of tags. You can add tags to different Pester test elements.

off-hand remark about parsing out organizational unit names from a distinguished name. On one hand, this is a pretty simple task, assuming a proper distinguished name from the Active Directory cmdlets. All you really need to do is split the string.

PowerShell. He wanted to know more about the $MyInvocation variable. This is something that isn't well documented, yet can be very useful in your PowerShell scripting. Let's take a look at it in a bit more detail.

Windows Sandbox feature. I think I tinkered with a pre-release version and was intrigued. I normally have a set of Hyper-V virtual machines that I can test with, but I'm always looking for something new to play with. And what is better to play with than a sand box!

that I need in a form that I want. Here's a good example. Running Get-Process is simple enough and the output is pretty complete. But one thing that would make it better for me, is that sometimes I want an easy way to see high-memory use properties. Yes, I can pipe Get-Process to Sort-Object and Where-Object. However, in this particular situation, what I really want is to see high-memory usage processes displayed in red. Maybe those that are getting close to my arbitrary limit I'd like to see in Yellow. This isn't that difficult to achieve using ANSI escape sequences.

store your module functions is a great discussion topic and I don't think there is necessarily one best practice for everyone.

me in my environment. But that doesn't mean it is necessarily right for you and your environment. There are plenty of ways to use PowerShell to achieve the same results as my code. This is something you should always keep in mind when looking at someone else's code. But enough caveats. In the previous post I left you with a tease that there is more to be done with PSDrives. Let's look at that today.

work on yesterday? Or what files were modified in the last 48 hours?

PowerShell, I thought we should explore the System.IO namespace. Here, you will find several classes to incorporate into your PowerShell scripting. As you'll see, some of the classes provide functionality already offered by existing cmdlets. I always recommend using cmdlets in your code wherever possible for beginner scripters. Cmdlets are easier to understand, are documented, and provide features like -WhatIf that you don't get when accessing the .NET Framework directly.

certainly possible that you may intentionally want a 0 length file. But perhaps they are artifacts or accidents that you'd like to clean up. Here's one approach you might take.

easier to insert dynamic parameters.

were installed. For servers, you can use Get-WindowsFeature to check if PowerShell-V2 is installed. But what about PowerShell Core, PowerShell 7, or even a preview build? My solution was to query the registry.

PowerShell. Of course you can use performance counters to manage all sorts of things, but personally, memory is the most critical.

thought I'd remind you of a command in the PSScriptTools module that I use often, especially when teaching a live class or presenting at a conference. As you've seen, I use PSDrives as shortcuts to commonly used folders. Back in my DOS days, I relied on subst.exe. PSDrives are much easier. Here's my typical dilemma and how I solve it.

gh.exe. You've seen how I approach building a PowerShell and the questions and decisions that come up. Now that I've built a few more Crescendo commands, I realize I can begin copying and pasting. Some of the commands I have in mind, I think, will be very similar. Plus, I have my VSCode Crescendo command snippet.

preview of PowerShell 7 Personally. I've been waiting for this for a long time. I used to only use PowerShell workflows because it offered a way to run commands in parallel. Having this feature as part of the language is a welcome addition.

working with items in the recycle bin. You were asked to calculate how much space the recycle bin is using and then restore a file. If you'd prefer, stop reading this post, check out the challenge and see what you can come up with. If you get stuck, this article might get you back on track. Although, I'm sure there are several ways to meet the challenge. My solution is far from the only solution.

lately I've been trying with Windows 10 Sandbox. This is handy when all I need is a Windows 10 desktop. When I setup the system, I have particular settings I need to configure. Naturally I use a PowerShell script to automate the process. One item that I wanted to address was Windows 10 taskbar. When I'm recording a course, I like to have it auto-hide. Sure, I could manually set it. But that's no fun.

for myself in a manual process. Hopefully you'll find it useful. As you probably know, PowerShell uses a set of profile scripts. These scripts have hard-coded paths and PowerShell runs them in order from broadest to narrowest.

parameter to your PowerShell function is easy. But deciding exactly what you need requires planning and forethought. If you make smart decisions up front, your function will be easier to use and less error-prone.

extended properties. The TagLibSharp assembly works great for media files. $f = [TagLib.File]::Create("C:workcircuit-dreams.mp3") $f.tag.title = "Circuit Dreams" $f.tag.Year = 2022 $f.tag.Composers = "Jeff Hicks" $f.tag.Genres = "Techno","Electronic" $f.Tag.Comment = "This is a computer-generated performance" $f.Save() $f.dispose()

Format-Wide is one of those cmdlets that I don't think gets much use. This is a shame because it certainly fulfills a need. But as Mike points out, if you have a list of strings, Format-Wide requires a little extra work, which Mike demonstrates. I decided to take his idea and run with it. Wouldn't it be easier to have a function?

use ssh. But of course, with PowerShell 7 and ssh-based remoting, it is time to up my game. I've started deploying the ssh server component to my Windows test servers (I'll write about that another day) and exploring how to use ssh in my automation and scripting work.

cross-platform. Theoretically, you can write a PowerShell script or function that works on Windows, Linux, and Mac. However, this is not without challenges. In some ways, it feels like we are back to the early days of PowerShell scripting where we are all trying to figure out what to do. Based on my experiences, let me share some thoughts on what I think you should keep in mind.

saw my recent post about backing up my settings.json file. I've also put together a few other simple PowerShell scripts that I use to make Windows Terminal even easier to use and manage.

little curiosity and a willingness to try new things.

added inline command prediction based on your history. You would start typing a command and the module would search your saved history and suggest an inline completion.

environment. I love having one interface with tabs for different terminal profiles. Windows Terminal makes it easy for me to have tabs open to PowerShell 7, Windows PowerShell, an Ubuntu instance or even a PowerShell session with no profile. The last piece I needed was an easy way to launch a Windows Terminal profile and connect to a remote computer. Want to see how I did it?

and other bits of wisdom I've gleaned over the last 14 years.

helps?

soon, I thought it might be good to revisit this topic. Here's the potential issue. If you've been installing PowerShell 7 releases for a while, and have been enabling PowerShell remoting, you most likely have a list of remoting session configurations like this.

deliberate decision to avoid having a dead link if the user uninstalled Windows Terminal. Don't even get me started.

PowerShell 7 installations. This should work for most people who install PowerShell 7 with the provided installer. But, as has been pointed out more than once to me, this won't detect any side-loaded or out-of-band installations. I made reference to this in the previous article. I think the best you can do is search the hard drive instances of pwsh.exe. But we don't want to do a brute-force recursive directory search. Instead, I'm going to use Get-CimInstance.

its focus on objects. I have taught PowerShell objects to many people over the last 10 years and this is not as difficult as people make it out to be.

In this post, I show you how you can use ANSI rendering to control text decorations, such as color and font styling, in PowerShell.

PowerShell. I've shared many of the tools I use daily on Github. Today, I want to share another way I have PowerShell work the way I need it, with minimal effort. This specific task centers on files and folders.

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.

Terminal. I also had posted a script to backup my Windows Terminal settings file. With all that code, plus other ideas brewing, it only made sense to bundle everything together into a PowerShell module.

a time. I was finding it difficult to keep track of what I was working on and what I might be neglecting. So I turned to PowerShell and created a tool that I use to keep on top of my projects.

and am always looking for ways to solve problems or answer questions without taking my hands off the keyboard. For some reason, I started thinking about metric conversions. How many feet are 50 meters? How many meters is 21.5 feet?

with PowerShell scripts and functions. My goal was to build a framework of tools that I could use to automate PowerShell scripting work, such as creating a new module from a group of existing files. I've finally...

from a PowerShell prompt. Not ready to publish to the PSGallery, but the module is stable enough for you to kick the tires.

PowerShell prompt as well as view your feed and timeline.

Windows PowerShell and PowerShell 7.

list excludes major vendors such as Microsoft, Amazon, and VMware. The exclusions are completely subjective. The intent is to use this report to highlight individual contributors to the PowerShell Gallery

and scripts. The Samples folder contains demonstration script files.

new command.

facilitate working in the console. Most should work in both Windows PowerShell and PowerShell 7, even cross-platform.

database to store task and category information. The module is not a full-featured project manag...

database to store task and category information. The module is not a full-featured project management solution, but should be fine for personal needs. The module requires a 64-bit Windows platform.

help topics. Apparently, this is a known issue, although I don't think it gets a lot of attention. Microsoft is working on improving updateable help for PowerShell 7 which I think will also have a beneficial change for Windows PowerShell. Microsoft has in fact been updating the about topics. All of the help files are open source on GitHub at https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/PowerShell-Docs/tree/staging/reference. I use the about topics often, so I wrote a PowerShell script to download and install the latest About topics from GitHub.

module daily and I realized there is still value in the ISE as a remoting interface so I dusted off the code and polished it up.

to PowerShell 7 has been assembled into a free single ebook. Brought to you by your favorite PowerShell community members. The book is offered for free, although we hope you'll consider making a donation for the OnRamp Scholarship fund.

and scripter. From one of the original PowerShell experts.

Know You Needed to Know

challenges to test your skill and knowledge.

of them in PowerShell, then this course is for you. Learn the regex fundamentals, from matching, splitting, replacing, to turning text into objects.

Get the book and you get future updates for free.

to report on the age of an object. The idea being that you could pipe any type of object to the function and get a result. And because I can't help myself, I went a bit further with my solution.

PowerShell MVP and veteran teacher Jeff Hicks.

Updated weekly!

top of trends in IT, and generally be that co-worker sitting across from me. I have worked from home for at least as long as I worked from an office. I often miss the social aspect.

was to create PowerShell code that would create nonsense documents, with a goal of creating 10 sample files filled with gibberish.

with passionate PowerShell professionals again. The culmination of the event is the Iron Scripter Challenge.

our 2020 event to the pandemic but fortunately, the people at The DevOps Collective were able to pull together a fantastic virtual even t. There were as many virtual attendees as we normally have at the in person event. But of course, we are all looking forward to next year when we can gather again in...

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.

PowerShell. As I mentioned in that article, PowerShell ships with a number of custom views for different types of objects.

color escape sequences. And actually, even in Windows PowerShell you can use them. Although you need to use a different escape character. Run Get-PSReadlineOption to see what I'm talking about.

standard command line interface for PowerShell and more. I'm not sure at what point some of these features were added, but I can now set a background image and specify where to display it in the terminal. This has led me to creating a PowerShell 7 experience like this:

editor in PowerShell. Naturally, the PowerShell wheels in my head began turning. While I was intrigued by some of the options in the article, I've in fact installed the Micro editor to play with, I realized I already had my favorite console text editor installed.

off-beat ways. The goal is to demonstrate techniques and concepts not necessarily give you something ready for production.

little fun. Here is a collection of PowerShell one-liners, all celebrating 13. And maybe you'll even pick up something new about PowerShell. Manage and Report Active Directory, Exchange and Microsoft 365 withManageEngine ADManager Plus -...

come up with 13 PowerShell related tidbits which I hope you'll find fun and maybe even a little educational. Manage and Report Active Directory, Exchange and Microsoft 365 withManageEngine ADManager Plus - Download Free Trial Exclusive...

a digital clock using a transparent WPF form.

thought some of you might like to start your week off with a little fun. And maybe even learn a little PowerShell along the way. If your family is anything like mine, you are hopefully spending...

PowerShell problems to solve. The idea is that in solving the problem, you improve your PowerShell skills and expertise. Tonight's problems were not scripting problems. The answers to these puzzles are not limited to one-line commands, although some might. Most of these problems should be solved with no more than a few lines of PowerShell code that you would run interactively at a PowerShell prompt.

jdhitsolutions/PSQuizMaster: A module for creating and running quizzes to learn PowerShell

PowerShell work and console sessions. One of things I talked about was using ANSI escape sequences to add some color.

PowerShell prompt. I know I run into this issue during classes and conferences. Perhaps you encounter it as well. You are in in the PowerShell console and have ended up in a deep directory structure so that you prompt and console now look like this:

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.

follow along