DOWST.DEV

November 4, 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

How to Detect Process Injection of PowerShell Backdoor with Native CMD or Powershell commands . (reddit.com)
I'm doing a cyber training exercise and have been informed by red team that there is a PowerShell

backdoor on a box we're investigating . The box does not have any extra installed software such as sysinternals its just a basic windows image . This has lead me to wondering if there is a good way to detect process injection such as DLL hijacking or PE injection with native commands . Links to any resources or scripts is greatly appreciated .

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By: u/MyRedditiJustMade submitted:Nov 4 2022

I love power shell. Teach me something new about searching windows logs to converge on an error? (reddit.com)
I'm in network incident response.
By: u/No-Werewolf2037 submitted:Nov 4 2022

The Many Ways to Send Email via the Microsoft Graph (practical365.com)
For those wanting to eliminate the SMTP AUTH protocol, Microsoft has three ways to send email using

Graph APIs. This article looks at how to use the Send-MgUserMail cmdlet and compares it to the Send-MgUserMessage cmdlet (covered in depth in a previous article). Our conclusion is that you'll probably end up using Send-MgUserMail because it's easier to use.

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By: Tony Redmond submitted:Nov 4 2022

Tools of the trade (reddit.com)
Sysadmin recently had a thread about your goto tools, and obviously here powershell is likely top of

that list but what other top tools do you use and why.

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By: u/ExceptionEX submitted:Nov 4 2022

Upgrade of Teams Policy Cmdlets Enables Use in Azure Automation (office365itpros.com)
This article explains how to make Teams policy assignments using an Azure Automation runbook and

some of the modernized cmdlets available in the Teams PowerShell module. Not everything worked as smoothly as we'd like, but like most PowerShell scenarios, there's usually a workaround available to get the job done. It just needs to be found.

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By: Tony Redmond submitted:Nov 4 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

ChangelogManagement 3.0.0 (powershellgallery.com)
ChangelogManagement is a PowerShell module for reading and manipulating changelog files in Keep a

Changelog 1.0.0 format. The primary feature is automatic updating of changelogs at release time in a CI/CD workflow via Update-Changelog.

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By: Nate Scherer submitted:Nov 4 2022

Format time and date output of PowerShell New-TimeSpan (4sysops.com)
My function, Get-TimespanPretty, allows you to view the time span-the difference between two time

points or dates-in a compact, user-friendly format. It is built on top of the New-TimeSpan cmdlet, which offers details as output that you usually need. With Get-TimespanPretty, you can simply pipe the output (TimeSpan object) of New-TimeSpan or Measure-Command to Get-TimespanPretty. It's easy to use, and there's no need for complex reworking of scripts that may include such commands.

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By: Emanuel Halapciuc submitted:Nov 4 2022

Quickly create a new profile for Edge with PowerShell (cloudappie.nl)
Quickly create a new profile for Edge with PowerShell a great way to keep profiles for each company

you work for!

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By: Albert-Jan Schot submitted:Nov 4 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

Cool features in Visual Studio 2022 (devblogs.microsoft.com)
A few weeks ago, I gave a presentation at a conference about cool new features in Visual Studio

2022. It was a pre-recorded presentation, so I was able to do final edits to the video before sending it to the conference organizers.

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By: Mads Kristensen submitted:Nov 4 2022

Practical Automation With Matthew Dowst (powershellpodcast.podbean.com)
Shameless self promotion time! But seriously it was great talking with these guys. I hope to do it

again in the future.

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By: The Powershell Podcast submitted:Nov 4 2022

Fun

Create a multiple-choice quiz using PowerShell (powershellisfun.com)
Tomorrow I'm taking the AZ-800 (Administering Windows Server Hybrid Core Infrastructure) exam and I

wanted to create a simple test exam quiz for myself with multiple-choice questions. This blog post will show you how to do that using an Excel file with questions and A, B, C, and D answers including the correct answer to check on.

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By: Harm Veenstra submitted:Nov 4 2022

Happy Cakeday, r/PowerShell! Today you’re 14 (reddit.com)
Let's look back at some memorable moments and interesting insights from last year.
By: r/PowerShell submitted:Nov 4 2022

PwshPaint (github.com)
A simple painting application for PowerShell
By: Shaun Lawrie submitted:Nov 4 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.

October 28, 2022

Announcements!

PSScriptAnalyzer (PSSA) 1.21.0 has been released (devblogs.microsoft.com)
Announcing the release of PSScriptAnalyzer 1.21
By: Jim Truher submitted:Oct 28 2022

v7.3.0-rc.1 Release of PowerShell (github.com)
Come test out the latest release candidate
By: PowerShell Team submitted:Oct 28 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Enable Microsoft Sentinel Analytics Rules at Scale (charbelnemnom.com)
Microsoft Sentinel comes with analytics rule built-in templates that you can turn into active rules

by effectively creating a copy of them - that's what happens when you create a rule from a template.

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By: Charbel Nemnom submitted:Oct 28 2022

Is ‘stealing code’ counterproductive in the long run? (reddit.com)
I'm relatively new to scripting (<1 yr) and I recently noticed that I have not made it a habit of

using other people's code unless I am really stuck on something, and usually only for the section that I'm stuck on. This is mostly on principal as I feel like I'm cheating myself if I just copy entire swaths of code or entire scripts from the internet.

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By: u/amoncada14 submitted:Oct 28 2022

pwsh 5.1 vs 7 behavior (reddit.com)
Can anybody tell me why this produces no result on 7 but works great on 5? There's a few things like

this..

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By: u/allthetrouts submitted:Oct 28 2022

Synchronizing PowerShell scripts – control the flow (itconstructors.com)
Part 1 - Synchronizing PowerShell scripts - allow only one instance at a time Part 2 - Synchronizing

PowerShell scripts - control the flow (this article) Intro In the last article I described how to ensure that only a single instance of your script runs at a time. Today is time for the second topic ...

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By: Wiktor Mrówczyński submitted:Oct 28 2022

Using PowerShell on Linux (powershellisfun.com)
Personally, I run PowerShell on my Windows 11 laptop, but I also have Linux VMs and use PowerShell

on those too. In this blog post, I will show you two ways in which you can install PowerShell on your Linux machine and yes, I know... There are different Linux Operating Systems with different package managers, in my case I used Ubuntu 22.04 🙂

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By: Harm Veenstra submitted:Oct 28 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

AzExpression 0.2.0 (powershellgallery.com)
Small module with functions that let you run Azure ARM template functions from PowerShell
By: Simon Wahlin submitted:Oct 28 2022

Release 1.1.6 SailPoint IdentityNow PowerShell Module (blog.darrenjrobinson.com)
I've just published v1.1.6 of the SailPoint IdentityNow PowerShell Module to both GitHub and the

PowerShell Gallery. Release 1.1.6 of the SailPoint IdentityNow PowerShell Module is the result of updates by Sean McGovern, Yannick Beot, David Minnelli and myself.

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By: Darren Robinson submitted:Oct 28 2022

View All API Permissions Microsoft Graph (nielskok.tech)
I couldn't find this myself quickly in the Microsoft docs. So I decided to write...
By: Niels Kok submitted:Oct 28 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

Loving the Community with Phil Bossman (powershellpodcast.podbean.com)
In this episode, Phil shares his favorite thing about PowerShell: the community. As a leader of the

RTPSUG, Phil encourages Andrew and Jordan to submit for Summit while not committing himself fully. Phil loves the PowerShell community and troubleshooting. He doesn't define Yak Shaving but says other stuff worth listening to.

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By: The Powershell Podcast submitted:Oct 28 2022

Upcoming Events

Swiss PowerShell in Bern (meetup.com)
Tuesday, November 22, 2022 at 5:00 PM CET
By: Swiss PowerShell User Group submitted:Oct 28 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.

October 21, 2022

Announcements!

v7.2.7 Release of PowerShell (github.com)
Come get the latest and greatest
By: PowerShell Team submitted:Oct 21 2022

Windows Terminal is now the Default in Windows 11 (devblogs.microsoft.com)
The day has finally come! Windows Terminal is now the default command line experience on Windows 11

22H2! ?? This means that all command line applications will now automatically open in Windows Terminal. This blog post will go into how this setting is enabled,

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By: Kayla Cinnamon submitted:Oct 21 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Assigning Permissions for Apps to Use the Microsoft Teams PowerShell Module (office365itpros.com)
Before an app or an Azure Automation account can use the Teams PowerShell cmdlets in a script or

runbook, it must have the permission to act as an administrator. In this article, we cover how to assign the necessary role to a service principal.

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By: Tony Redmond submitted:Oct 21 2022

Create color coded HTML reports from powershell (reddit.com)
Lately I have been working on building easy to read HTML reports directly from Powershell.
By: u/HipsterSlug submitted:Oct 21 2022

Hackers use new stealthy PowerShell backdoor to target 60+ victims (bleepingcomputer.com)
A previously undocumented, fully undetectable PowerShell backdoor is being actively used by a threat

actor who has targeted at least 69 entities.

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By: Bill Toulas submitted:Oct 21 2022

UserAccountControl attribute: Checking and configuring security settings for Active Directory accounts (4sysops.com)
The UserAccountControl attribute can be used to configure several account settings in Active

Directory. This applies, for example, to the expiration date of passwords or to Kerberos delegation. An AD audit should check this attribute regularly. This can be done using PowerShell, and there is a cmdlet for changing flags.

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By: Wolfgang Sommergut submitted:Oct 21 2022

Using PSScriptAnalyzer to optimize your PowerShell scripts (powershellisfun.com)
I use Visual Studio Code for writing PowerShell scripts, which makes formatting and writing so much

easier. Even though it shows you things that you shouldn't do, for example using aliases, you can get even more tips and hints to make your code even better. This blog post will show you how to use the PSScriptAnalyzer module which can give you some additional hints that Visual Studio Code doesn't show you.

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By: Harm Veenstra submitted:Oct 21 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

A WPF Countdown Timer (jdhitsolutions.com)
Last year I released a PowerShell module called PSClock. The module contains a command to create a

transparent WPF form displaying a clock. Shortly after, someone posted a request for a countdown timer. Not an unreasonable request and one I finally got around to implementing.

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By: Jeffery Hicks submitted:Oct 21 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

How to Use a PowerShell Array (petri.com)
A PowerShell array is a data structure designed to store
By: Michael Reinders submitted:Oct 21 2022

PowerShell Podcast in 1 day of Lunch with Claudio Silva (powershellpodcast.podbean.com)
In this podcast, Claudio shares his journey as a DBA and the massive role of PowerShell in that

journey. He shares advice for DBAs who are just getting started with PowerShell and automation as well as some of the easiest ways to start taking advantage of dbatools. We learned about different methods for learning and how the book Learn dbatools in a Month of Lunches can be a great fit for those trying to get started with dbatools.

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By: The Powershell Podcast submitted:Oct 21 2022

PowerShell Unplugged 2022 Edition (thomasmaurer.ch)
April Edwards and I had the chance to host the PowerShell Unplugged 2022 Edition and the video is

now available on YouTube! In the PowerShell Unplugged 2022 Edition we talked to the PowerShell product group at Microsoft to learn more about PowerShell 7, secret management, PowerShell Crescendo, Remoting, Predictive IntelliSense, VS Code, the roadmap, and .

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By: Thomas Maurer submitted:Oct 21 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.

October 14, 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Convert to and from Windows and Unix timestamps with PowerShell (blog.darrenjrobinson.com)
In this post I detail a module I've just published that is another of those I've done this before,

but how do I find it again moments. Converting from Windows and Unix timestamps with PowerShell.

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By: Darren Robinson submitted:Oct 14 2022

Create and manage append blobs with PowerShell (4sysops.com)
Before diving into how to manage append blobs using PowerShell, let's have a quick look at the blob

types (block blobs, page blobs, and append blobs) available on Azure storage accounts. Storage accounts on Azure support three types of blobs, each of which is used for a different purpose. Therefore, it's important to determine the type of blob you need when you create it, as it is not possible to change the type once the blob is created. The supported blob types are as follows.

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By: Baki Onur Okutucu submitted:Oct 14 2022

Introduction to the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK Part II: Performing Common User and Group Operations (practical365.com)
This article dives deep into using the SDK to perform common day-to-day tasks to manage users and

groups through the Graph. Be on the look out for the next part of this series!

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By: Sean McAvinue submitted:Oct 14 2022

PowerShell Secrets Management – Part 4: Backup/Export/Migrate Secrets (powershell.co.at)
The PowerShell Secrets Management Module became one of my must-haves on every computer i use with

PowerShell. I already wrote a couple of posts about it. First Look into the beta module 1-Introduction 2-Installation and first steps 3-Use secrets in scripts Recently i tested a Macbooc Air M1 and wanted to use the secrets i had on my main Windows machine. The approac was to simply generate a CSV-file from the secrets and import it on the Mac. As a reminder, lets summarize what Secrets Managemt Architecture is about. Secrets are stored in Vaults Secrets may occur in the form

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By: Roman Stadlmair submitted:Oct 14 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

15 Useful PowerShell Scripts to Audit Office 365 Activities (o365reports.com)
Auditing plays a vital role in monitoring activities performed in the Microsoft 365 organization.

Office 365 audit reports will be helpful to identify security events, monitor user activities, track file sharing, investigate forensic events, etc. Most admins prefer PowerShell over [.]

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By: Kathy Cooper submitted:Oct 14 2022

Easy way to send emails using Microsoft Graph API (Office 365) with PowerShell (evotec.xyz)
When you're using Office 365 and want to send an email, you have two choices SMTP or Microsoft Graph

API, which is a "new" kid on the block. For some time, I've used Microsoft Graph exclusively to send emails in favor of SMTP as it's much easier to manage and generally works over HTTPS.

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By: Przemyslaw Klys submitted:Oct 14 2022

PowerShell QR Code Generator for WIFI Networks (sid-500.com)
If you use QR codes instead of passwords, you increase the user experience. Did you know that you

can create such a QR code with PowerShell without any 3rd party tools? No? [.]

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By: Patrick Gruenauer submitted:Oct 14 2022

PSSecretScanner (github.com)
Share code not secrets
By: Björn Sundling submitted:Oct 14 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

Cross-Platform PowerShell with Daniel Silva (powershellpodcast.podbean.com)
In this episode, Daniel shares his experience with PowerShell. We discussed his experiences with

Raspberry Pi's, IOT, and how that played a role with his getting involved in the PowerShell community. Daniel shares his thoughts on learning, teaching, and accidentally defines Yak Shaving for us.

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By: The Powershell Podcast submitted:Oct 14 2022

Getting GPS coordinates with PowerShell (youtube.com)
You can see how can we get the GPS coordinate like latitude and longitude in PowerShell
By: Parveen Prajapati submitted:Oct 14 2022

Fun

A fancy version of Clear-Host (reddit.com)
I made this module just for fun but wanted to share in case anyone likes it. It clears your

PowerShell host display with some text animations. Well.. it's useless but at least clears the host

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By: u/mdgrs-mei submitted:Oct 14 2022

Don’t store credentials in PowerShell scripts! (twitter.com)
Title ?
By: Heiko Brenn submitted:Oct 14 2022

PowerShell Basics (youtube.com)
Any awesome playlist of some PowerShell fundementals.
By: Adam Driscoll submitted:Oct 14 2022

What do you do for a living? (reddit.com)
An interesting read
By: u/Ecrofirt submitted:Oct 14 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.

October 7, 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Azure Bastion: Upgrade Basic SKU to Standard SKU with Azure PowerShell (wmatthyssen.com)
This blog post will show you how you can upgrade Azure Bastion from the Basic SKU to the Standard

SKU (Tier) via PowerShell

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By: wmatthyssen submitted:Oct 7 2022

Building PowerShell Azure Functions with VS Code [Series] (adamtheautomator.com)
Running PowerShell in Azure Functions gives your scripts infinite resources and flexibility. Learn

how to cloudify your PowerShell scripts with Azure Functions!

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By: Adam Bertram submitted:Oct 7 2022

Events with PowerShell Automation (blog.smallfoxx.com)
If you're looking for a PowerShell script to help you plan out or schedule your event, this is not

the post you're looking for; maybe another time.

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By: smallfoxx submitted:Oct 7 2022

How to Execute PowerShell Azure Functions with HTTP Triggers (adamtheautomator.com)
Learn how to execute and test Azure Functions in PowerShell via HTTP using both the Azure Portal and

PowerShell's Invoke-RestMethod cmdlet.

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By: Adam Bertram submitted:Oct 7 2022

How to Use Microsoft PowerShell Core on Linux Virtual Machines (techgenix.com)
PowerShell was designed as a Windows management tool, but Microsoft has created cross-platform

versions of PowerShell. That way, you can use a standard command line interface to manage a variety of system types. This article explains how to install PowerShell on a Linux virtual machine as well as the differences between PowerShell and PowerShell Core.

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By: Brien Posey submitted:Oct 7 2022

Two Exchange Server vulns veer dangerously close to ProxyShell (news.sophos.com)
A chained pair of vulnerabilities, plus PowerShell, affects the Microsoft messaging platform well in

advance of Patch Tuesday; Sophos customers are protected

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By: Angela Gunn submitted:Oct 7 2022

Use the Azure Arc Managed Identity with Azure PowerShell (thomasmaurer.ch)
In this blog post we are going to have a look at how you can use the Azure Arc provided Azure Active

Directory (Azure AD) managed identity (MSI) to authenticate in Azure PowerShell on your on-premises Linux and Windows Server machines. The moment you want to run some automation directly on your servers, you often .

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By: Thomas Maurer submitted:Oct 7 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

PSTimesheets (github.com)
Read, parse, and aggregate timesheet files
By: Shane O'Neill submitted:Oct 7 2022

Updating and setting primary attributes in SuccessFactors with PowerShell (blog.darrenjrobinson.com)
Approximately five years ago I rolled through a number of Identity and Access lifecycle management

projects that used SAP SuccessFactors as the source of authority for user data. It isn't uncommon to use a HRM solution to source identity data, but it is never a one way street.

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By: Darren Robinson submitted:Oct 7 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

Capitalizing on Opportunity with Mikey Lombardi (powershellpodcast.podbean.com)
In the episode, Mikey Lombardi explains how his involvement in the PowerShell community has opened

opportunities throughout his career. We discuss how imposter syndrome can prevent you from even trying for a fantastic opportunity and how much growth can come from being brave in those moments. We learned the reasons behind his PowerShell course, pwshop, and why he has made it free. We also cover, cross-domain learning, documentation, biggest mistakes, and more.

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By: The Powershell Podcast submitted:Oct 7 2022

Fun

Favorite PowerShell modules that I use (powershellisfun.com)
During the course of time, you add modules to your system, some are crucial for the things you work

on and some were used only once 😉 In this blog post, I will show you my current list of modules and tell you why I use(d) them...

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By: Harm Veenstra submitted:Oct 7 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 30, 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

At what point does a script become a module? (reddit.com)
I'm currently writing a Powershell GUI that will handle everything from AD, parts of SCCM, and

pulling some data from other sources.

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By: u/Anti_Alphabet submitted:Sep 30 2022

Encrypting Sensitive Data for Transit or Rest with PowerShell (smsagent.blog)
This blog is about how you can use the .Net cryptography model to encrypt and decrypt sensitive

information such as passwords with PowerShell. It is specifically for the encryption in transit and encryption at rest scenarios, where, for example, you may be sending data to a backend service and securely storing it in that service.

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By: Trevor Jones submitted:Sep 30 2022

How to make my powershell script reference the current user account who is running it? (reddit.com)
Part of my script involves making yourself a site admin for OneDrive data (set-spouser), then adding

the manager, then removing yourself. Since I've always been the only one using this script, I've hardcoded my username into the script. However, other people will be using this script.

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By: u/PaidByMicrosoft submitted:Sep 30 2022

Internet Explorer Automation – Pt.1 Removing IE (shankuehn.io)
With Internet Explorer finally retiring after a lengthy 27 year career, it came time for removal

within the servers I maintain for demos. I actually thought a security update would've removed the browser, but after applying updates for June, July, and August, I realized it would be up to me to remove the browser.

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By: Shannon Kuehn submitted:Sep 30 2022

Introduction to the Microsoft Graph Powershell SDK (practical365.com)
A Unified Approach to Microsoft 365 management The Microsoft Graph API has been around for some time

now and Microsoft is moving more management functions (such as License Management for Azure AD Accounts) to the platform. When Microsoft transitions a function to the Graph, organizations might have to update PowerShell scripts.

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By: Sean McAvinue submitted:Sep 30 2022

List all logged on Users with quser.exe and PowerShell (sid-500.com)
In this short article I will show how to list all logged on local users with the quser.exe tool.

Quser displays information about logged on users on the local computer and on

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By: Patrick Gruenauer submitted:Sep 30 2022

Synchronizing PowerShell scripts – allow only one instance at a time (itconstructors.com)
This is a first article from a short series about synchronizing PowerShell scripts in Windows

environment. Today I'll explain how to allow only one instance of a script at a time.

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By: Wiktor Mrówczyński submitted:Sep 30 2022

Test if Microsoft services TCP ports are accessible (powershellisfun.com)
In a previous blog post, I showed a way to retrieve all the Microsoft Services FQDNs, ports, and

IP-Addresses. Nice to know those in secure environments where not everything is allowed to go onto the internet, but how can you test if they are accessible? This blog post will show how to test most of these services using PowerShell.

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By: Harm Veenstra submitted:Sep 30 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

Foil 0.2.0 (powershellgallery.com)
A PowerShell Crescendo wrapper for Chocolatey
By: Ethan Bergstrom submitted:Sep 30 2022

SpeculationControl 1.0.17 (powershellgallery.com)
This module provides the ability to query the speculation control settings for the system.
By: Matt Miller submitted:Sep 30 2022

Updated my scripts (powershellisfun.com)
Sometimes you look back at your scripts and think... Hmmm, why did I use that ?! So I looked back at

some scripts, changed a few things, and updated some of the blog posts. Check them out if you haven't already 😉 (Check the sidebar for categories)

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By: Harm Veenstra submitted:Sep 30 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

Patterns and Projects in PowerShell with Chris Bergmeister (powershellpodcast.podbean.com)
In this episode, we learn more about how Christopher, a traditionally trained .NET developer,

approaches PowerShell patterns and projects. He shares with us a wealth of wisdom that he's learned throughout his career. From discussing the learning opportunities that a Pull Request gives, all the way to getting started with open source and the role it played in getting his Microsoft MVP status. Chris also shared with us the meaning and importance of KISS.

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By: The Powershell Podcast submitted:Sep 30 2022

What’s new in PowerShell 7 – Steve Lee (youtube.com)
As we get closer to a release candidate for PowerShell 7.3, learn about the new capabilities and

features in PowerShell 7 to be more productive.

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By: PowerShell Conference EU submitted:Sep 30 2022

Fun

Pixel Art for PowerShell (shaunlawrie.com)
While procrastinating about setting up this blog I wanted to create a favicon in a pixel art style.

Instead of creating the icon I got carried away spaghetti coding a pixel art editor for the terminal in PowerShell...

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By: Shaun Lawrie submitted:Sep 30 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 23, 2022

Announcements!

PowerShell Community Textbook Update: To be released this weekend! (reddit.com)
Gday Everyone,
By: u/PowerShellMichael submitted:Sep 23 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Configure Windows Firewall Rules For Remote Access | PowerShell (faun.pub)
Suppose, your firewall is enabled on your Windows server, but you want to access your server using

"Remote Desktop"

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By: Mohammed Shamim submitted:Sep 23 2022

Exchange PowerShell without basic auth? (alexholmeset.blog)
On October 1st Microsoft states in this doc that they are starting to randomly disable Basic Auth in

tenants. They even started to disable it last year for tenants that had not used it. It's a good thing they are taking this step to make our tenants more secure. The big questions though is,

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By: Alexander Holmeset submitted:Sep 23 2022

Get all Microsoft IP and FQDNs for their services (powershellisfun.com)
When you are in an environment with strict internet access, you need to figure out what to open to

what destination for Microsoft services like Exchange Online, Teams, Endpoint Manager, and so on. Microsoft publishes this on their website but in the blog post, I would like to show you a nice way of outputting

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By: Harm Veenstra submitted:Sep 23 2022

Installing Git – 14 days of Git (techielass.com)
As part of my 14 days of Git learning journey it's time to get Git installed on my desktop. I walk

you though the manual installation process, and configuration of Git.

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By: Sarah Lean submitted:Sep 23 2022

Invoke-AKSH and easily manage your local lab (ellitedevs.in)
Having worked on AKSH (my Discord bot) and witnessing how easy it made deploying and managing a lab

on AWS, I wanted something similar for my local lab as well. On my local machines I use VMWare Workstation to create and manage virtual labs. Even though it has an intuitive GUI, it lacks a mechanism to perform actions (start, stop, snapshot, revert etc.) on multiple virtual machines via single click (maybe that's where vSphere comes in!). However, to compensate for that, it exposes a command line interface (vmrun.exe) that can aid in automating actions on multiple virtual machines.

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By: Uday Mittal submitted:Sep 23 2022

PowerShell Community Textbook Update: To be released this weekend! (reddit.com)
Gday Everyone,
By: u/PowerShellMichael submitted:Sep 23 2022

PowerShell Prompt: Functionality (sqladm.in)
Some handy tips to add extra functionality to your PowerShell session
By: Jeff Hill submitted:Sep 23 2022

PowerShell Registry Monitor (devblogs.microsoft.com)
How to set up a simple registry key monitor with PowerShell
By: Francisco Nabas submitted:Sep 23 2022

This is why you don’t store credentials in your scripts: Uber Hack (reddit.com)
Great discussion on a great topic in this thread.
By: u/Trakeen submitted:Sep 23 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

Introduction to Microsoft Graph PowerShell (learn.microsoft.com)
Characterize the types of business processes that Microsoft Graph PowerShell can automate. Describe

the commands and permissions needed to automate processes with Microsoft Graph PowerShell.

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By: Microsoft Learning submitted:Sep 23 2022

PowerShell Community Textbook Update: To be released this weekend! (reddit.com)
Gday Everyone,
By: u/PowerShellMichael submitted:Sep 23 2022

PowerShell, PipeScript, and the Future James Brundage (youtube.com)
PowerShell is a great language, it can be better. Check out the future of PowerShell?
By: New York PowerShell Meetup submitted:Sep 23 2022

Shy Bairns Get Nowt with Brett Miller (powershellpodcast.podbean.com)
In this episode, we discuss Brett's unusual path to IT. He discusses how his contributions to the

community have changed over the years. We discuss the similarities in problem-solving between daily tasks and coding. Jordan learns that listing yak shaving in Twitter bios is not a secret language between the PowerShell community but is a common expression. Last, we discussed his trip to South Hampton to attend a PowerShell user group, where he was able to catch up with several people from the PowerShell community.

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By: The Powershell Podcast submitted:Sep 23 2022

Fun

Help With Spelling Bee Script (reddit.com)
So for years, I've been struggling to find a Spelling Bee app to help my kids prep for their school

spelling bee that does what I want it to do, so I've attempted to make my own by piecing together things I've found online for text-to-speech and creating forms in PowerShell - both of which I have no experience with. While it's ugly, I think it does everything I want it to do now. I'm starting with words.csv which has the word, how it's spelled, and a sentence:

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By: u/2PhatCC submitted:Sep 23 2022

Script w/ GUI to Prevent Computer Inactivity (reddit.com)
This is a little script I use to prevent messenger software from marking me as inactive. It presses

Scroll Lock once a minute while running. I added a time window, for example you can set it to only keep you active between 8:00AM - 5:00PM. It runs the job in the background, so it will continue to run until you click Turn Off even if the tool is closed. I created a shortcut to run the tool and pinned it to my taskbar.

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By: u/TheCallOfAsheron submitted:Sep 23 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 16, 2022

Announcements!

PowerShellGet 3.0 Preview 17 (devblogs.microsoft.com)
We are excited to announce that an update to our preview of PowerShellGet 3.0 is now available on

the PowerShell Gallery!

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By: Sydney Smith submitted:Sep 16 2022

Windows Terminal Preview 1.16 Release (devblogs.microsoft.com)
The Windows Terminal team is back with another release for you! This release introduces version 1.16

to Windows Terminal Preview and updates Windows Terminal to version 1.15 with these new features. As always, you can install Windows Terminal and Windows Terminal Preview from the Microsoft Store,

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By: Kayla Cinnamon submitted:Sep 16 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Audit Events in Your Azure Subscription with PowerShell (smsagent.blog)
Update! v.1.1 released fixing a bug where the most recent events were not being returned

(2022-09-13) A quick post - I just published a new script for retrieving activity log events for an Azure subscription as the current options for searching and retrieving events didn't satisfy me.

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By: Trevor Jones submitted:Sep 16 2022

Automating scripts without saving credentials on the server (reddit.com)
My org has decided to disable the saving of network passwords on servers, so I can no longer use

Task Scheduler to run my Powershell scripts.

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By: u/xylog submitted:Sep 16 2022

Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell with an Azure Managed Identity (thelazyadministrator.com)
Recently the Exchange Online Module v2 came out with support for connecting to Exchange Online via a

managed identity. The module has several parameters:

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By: Brad Wyatt submitted:Sep 16 2022

Create an Azure Arc Service Principal with longer expiration date using PowerShell (thomasmaurer.ch)
When you are onboarding at scale of Azure Arc enabled servers or Azure Arc enabled Kubernetes

clusters, you want to use service principals for automated authentication during the onboarding process for Azure Arc resources. Microsoft provides you with an option in the Azure portal to create that service principal. When you use this, you can set .

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By: Thomas Maurer submitted:Sep 16 2022

Does PowerShell DSC have any concept of a ‘handler’ like Ansible does? (reddit.com)
So for those unaware, a 'handler' in Ansible is basically a task that executes upon a specific

condition, such as a file being changed on the system. You can 'notify' the handler task, in which case Ansible knows that at the end of your playbook, it will execute that task regardless of where in the playbook you currently are, but **only if the notifying task has caused a change to the system**.

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By: u/Marquis77 submitted:Sep 16 2022

How to Report High-Priority Azure AD App Permissions That Hackers Might Exploit (practical365.com)
Microsoft 365 tenants usually include many Azure AD apps. These apps hold permissions, including

permissions that hackers like to exploit. This article explains how to use PowerShell to detect apps with high-priority permissions and report them to administrators for review.

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By: Tony Redmond submitted:Sep 16 2022

Power On HPE Server Using PowerShell (adminknowhow.wordpress.com)
You may need to download the HP iLO Cmdlets for Windows PowerShell (x64) from HPE support portal and

install it on the server/machine you wish you execute the PowerShell command. COMMAND Below is the PowerShell command to power on/off the server.

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By: Jimmy Liew submitted:Sep 16 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

Monitor Network Connectivity with PowerShell 7 (Successful Pings) (sid-500.com)
Recently, I have created a script that returns a beep sound when the connection is re-established. I

would like to share this script here on my website.

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By: Patrick Gruenauer submitted:Sep 16 2022

PSMDE 0.5.7 (powershellgallery.com)
Provides a PowerShell functions to interact with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE)
By: Jan-Henrik Damaschke submitted:Sep 16 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

Exploring AutomatedLab and DSC with Raimund Andrée (powershellpodcast.podbean.com)
In this episode, we revisit AutomatedLab with the other primary maintainer, Raimund Andrée. Raimund

teaches us about DSC and shares details of the DSCWorkshop project, which is a great way to go about learning more about DSC in a hands-on manner. We also learned about Cattle vs. Pets and how that applies to your servers. You can hear all of this, plus more in this companion episode to our first AutomatedLab episode.

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By: The Powershell Podcast submitted:Sep 16 2022

Fun

Set-WallpaperClock 1.3.1 (powershellgallery.com)
A PS Module that sets your desktop background to show the current time.
By: Psychosapien submitted:Sep 16 2022

Text-To-Speech using PowerShell (powershellisfun.com)
Just a little fun thing for a Friday, text-to-speech! We used this many years ago at the office,

sending this to the laptop of a colleague and having fun while he's trying to figure out where the voice is coming from ?? How it works There is a System.Speech assembly which can be used to

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By: Harm Veenstra submitted:Sep 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 9, 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Adding color to bracket pairs (devblogs.microsoft.com)
When dealing with deeply nested brackets in Visual Studio, it can be hard to figure out which

brackets match and which do not. For people with color blindness or other optic maladies, the problem can be even worse. By color-coding bracket pairs,

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By: Mads Kristensen submitted:Sep 9 2022

Creating a Microsoft 365 Automated Off-boarding Process with SharePoint, Graph API, and PowerShell (thelazyadministrator.com)
In this write-up I will be creating a basic off-boarding automation that uses SharePoint as the

front end, and PowerShell, the Graph API, and Azure Runbooks as the back-end.

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By: Brad Wyatt submitted:Sep 9 2022

Different ways of gaining remote computer access (4sysops.com)
Technical support personnel, engineering teams, and security teams often need access to a remote

computer involving both servers and workstations, using a variety of techniques. Three of the most common tools in a Windows environment are Microsoft Remote Desktop (RDP), VMware Console access, and Microsoft Management Console (MMC), but we can also use SMB shares, PowerShell remoting, and PsExec. This article will you give an overview of the most popular ways gaining remote computer access, along with some tips of what you can do if the remote connection fails.

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By: Dan Greenhaus submitted:Sep 9 2022

Enable BitLocker with PowerShell (4sysops.com)
BitLocker is a volume encryption technology that was first introduced in Windows Vista and Windows

Server 2008. Like other Microsoft products, it also suffers from certain glitches, but many people around the globe rely on BitLocker Drive Encryption (BDE) to protect their data at rest.

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By: Surender Kumar submitted:Sep 9 2022

How do I Un-Join, Reboot then Join my Domain via Powershell? (reddit.com)
My question is, how can I convert these steps to Powershell? Once I enter the correct code and press

Enter, will I be prompted for MyAdmin password? I saw a few examples but they don't seem to be quite what I'm looking for. I would be performing this on an individual station, therefore I don't think I would need to specify a computer name.

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By: u/mudderfudden submitted:Sep 9 2022

How does Powershell deal with processing/storing massive objects in terms of memory management? (reddit.com)
I deal with a lot of massive log analysis and reporting. I often am worried about resource

utilisation when scripts are running on remote/customer servers that need to process millions of lines. Instead of variables I would just write everything off to a file. However, with things like invoking commands in parallel this doesn't work well as there is a need for mutexes where a thread aware collection would work so much better.

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By: u/cazmajor submitted:Sep 9 2022

PowerShell Solution: AGPM unable to take control of a GPO (blog.ehmiiz.tech)
If you enjoy the principle of least privileges, version control and doing big infrastructural

changes in a safe manner, Advanced Group Policy Management or AGPM, is an amazing tool.

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By: Emil Larsson submitted:Sep 9 2022

Run PowerShell Scripts with Azure Automation Hybrid Workers on-premises using Azure Arc (thomasmaurer.ch)
If you want to automate your on-premises environment Azure Arc enabled Server is a great offering to

onboard Azure management services such as Azure Monitor, Defender for Cloud, and many others. One of the integrations is with Azure Automation Hybrid Worker. This allows you to run Azure Automation PowerShell or Phyton runbooks on-premises directly on .

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By: Thomas Maurer submitted:Sep 9 2022

Updating Extension Attributes for Azure AD Registered Devices with the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK (office365itpros.com)
Azure AD registered devices have 15 extension attributes that tenants can use for their own

purposes. In this article, we explore how to use the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK to update extension attributes for registered devices, and even better, access the content in the extension attributes afterward.

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By: Tony Redmond submitted:Sep 9 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

Azure AD Exporter (github.com)
The Azure AD Exporter is a PowerShell module that allows you to export your Azure AD and Azure AD

B2C configuration settings to local .json files.

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By: Microsoft submitted:Sep 9 2022

Get-MsIdUnredeemedInvitedUser (github.com)
Are you monitoring your Azure AD tenant for external users the business invites but are not actually

redeemed? Here is a quick example PowerShell cmdlet using MS Graph API to enumerate them by creation date and either delete or disable them as you wish

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By: Jef Kazimer submitted:Sep 9 2022

IT and user support GUI made with XAML and Powershell (joseespitia.com)
It's been a while since my last post but I just wanted to share something that I have been working

on. Lately I have been trying to migrate all of my WinForms to WPF with Powershell and since I have started learning how to create WPF forms , I wanted to share a tool that I created called "About Me". This tool will give your users common information that support would need to assist them. If Outlook is installed, it will give users the ability to draft an email automatically with the information that is displayed in the tool. I also have included a "Tools" section that has some shortcuts to commonly used utilities in the OS.

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By: Jose Espitia submitted:Sep 9 2022

PowerShell Script to Simplify Send-MgUserMail (powershellcenter.com)
Okay, Microsoft Graph API is cool, but sometimes it's boring to deal with all these hashtables and

arrays. The Send-MgUserMail is a great graph cmdlet to send Emails using the Graph API endpoint, this post is fully explained in the Send-MgUserMail BodyParameter Explained. But going through these hashtables is a challenge, and its more complicated.

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By: Faris Malaeb submitted:Sep 9 2022

Report Scheduled Tasks on servers that have local or domain accounts configured (powershellisfun.com)
For one of our customers, I needed to create a report of all Scheduled Tasks on their servers with a

local or domain account configured. They needed this report because they are switching to more strict Group Policies and they needed to know what user accounts should have the "Log on as a batch job"

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By: Harm Veenstra submitted:Sep 9 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

Forensic cases suited for using PowerShell (eforensicsmag.com)
This video tutorial shows forensic cases suited for using PowerShell.
By: Agata Staszelis submitted:Sep 9 2022

Introducing AutomatedLab with Jan (powershellpodcast.podbean.com)
In this episode, we get an initial introduction to AutomatedLab by one of the primary maintainers,

Jan-Hendrik Peters. We learned about what AutomatedLab is used for and how you can benefit from it. We also got to hear about his observations from teaching PowerShell over the years. All this, plus our usual foolishness, is included. We also talk about how tech is always changing.

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By: The Powershell Podcast submitted:Sep 9 2022

PowerShell for DBAs (github.com)
I don't want to build a product or module. I want to provide a proof of concept, a tutorial, a code

example, maybe a guide or a source of ideas for your own implementation. This is about using publicly available software (like database clients or NuGet packages) and a few lines of PowerShell code to show database administrators how to work with PowerShell.

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By: Andreas Jordan submitted:Sep 9 2022

Fun

PowerShell Prompt: Colors and Icons (sqladm.in)
Tips and Tricks to improve your PowerShell experience
By: Jeff Hill submitted:Sep 9 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 2, 2022

Announcements!

PowerShell Extension for Visual Studio Code August 2022 Update (devblogs.microsoft.com)
We are excited to announce that the August update to the PowerShell Extension for Visual Studio Code

is now available on the extension marketplace.

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By: Sydney Smith submitted:Sep 2 2022

Blogs, Articles, and Posts

Alas Kaizala, All is Lost (practical365.com)
On August 26, Microsoft announced that they will retire Kaizala in August 2023. The Kaizala

retirement is not big news because it's been coming for a while. If you want to get ahead of the game, you can remove the Kaizala service plans from the Office 365 licenses assigned to user accounts. We explain how to do the job in an example PowerShell script.

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By: Tony Redmond submitted:Sep 2 2022

Automating Azure Abuse Research – Part 2 (posts.specterops.io)
In this second and final part of this series, we are going to dive into the BloodHound Attack Research Kit (BARK). We will explain how the BloodHound Enterprise team uses BARK to perform so-called “continuous abuse primitive validation”. We will also explain how BARK can make your own Azure abuse research easier, faster, and more accurate.
By: Andy Robbins submitted:Sep 2 2022

CISO Wants To Block PowerShell But Open to Ideas (reddit.com)
Yes. you read it right. Just for starters, I have read this:
By: u/CuriousJazz7th submitted:Sep 2 2022

Create a report on local DNS lookups using PowerShell (powershellisfun.com)
When troubleshooting a system, you sometimes need to know what DNS lookups are being done. This will

give you a good insight into traffic from the systems to the local network or internet. You can do this with DNS auditing on your Windows server or in your local Pihole server, but that's not always available

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By: Harm Veenstra submitted:Sep 2 2022

Learn Everything About PowerShell Start-Transcript (adamtheautomator.com)
Save your code, and your sessions, by learning everything you need to know about the PowerShell

Start-Transcript command!

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By: Nicholas Xuan Nguyen submitted:Sep 2 2022

Lessons Learned from Using Azure Automation with PowerShell Scripts (office365itpros.com)
I've spent some time investigating Azure Automation PowerShell recently. In this article, I discuss

three learnings that might be of interest to others. Debugging, cost, and tracking the use of Azure Automation PowerShell might not interest everyone, but they've certainly helped me to understand how the platform works.

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By: Tony Redmond submitted:Sep 2 2022

Query Azure AD logs with KQL from Powershell (learningbydoing.cloud)
Kusto Query Language (KQL) is a powerfull tool to query Azure AD log entries from Log Anayltics in

Azure. See how you can query log data using Powershell.

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By: Stian A. Strysse submitted:Sep 2 2022

Questions from a PowerShell.org Forums User (thedavecarroll.com)
A PowerShell.org Forums user asked me a few questions about my PowerShell journey and here are my

answers.

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By: Dave Carroll submitted:Sep 2 2022

Send MDM commands without an MDM service using PowerShell (oofhours.com)
Sometimes you run into something completely by accident; other times, it's more of a building

process based on work that you've done in the past.

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By: Michael Niehaus submitted:Sep 2 2022

what are you guys using for emails? (reddit.com)
Hey everybody, Ive been using send-mailmessage for years and just realized Microsoft docs don't

recommend it anymore. What are your guys thoughts on this?

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By: u/x180mystery submitted:Sep 2 2022

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

AzBobbyTables (powershellgallery.com)
A module that wraps the Azure Data Tables SDK. +1 just for the name alone!
By: Emanuel Palm submitted:Sep 2 2022

Easy removal of preinstalled bloatware using PowerShell (doitpsway.com)
Recently I came into a situation where I needed to provision new Dell Precision laptops for our

employees. This laptop comes with a lot of preinstalled applications (bloatware) so I was looking for some simple but efficient way to silently remove them. And by efficient I mean avoiding the need to manually find an uninstall command for each preinstalled application.

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By: Ondrej Sebela submitted:Sep 2 2022

PSLog (powershellgallery.com)
Redirects stanard Write-* cmdlets to a log and offers some basic tracing functions
By: AutomatedLab submitted:Sep 2 2022

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

Toasting Git with Cory Knox (powershellpodcast.podbean.com)
In this episode, we chat with Cory Knox. We talked all about the PowerShell discord and how it's

grown over the years and is a great resource to connect with the community and have your questions answered. Cory and Jordan find common ground in their experiences with Toastmasters. Cory also talks to us about Git, how to get started using Git for PowerShell projects, an awesome PowerShell module to enhance your Git console experience, and more.

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By: The Powershell Podcast submitted:Sep 2 2022

Upcoming Events

PSConfEU MiniCon (psconf.eu)
September 27th 2022, 5PM CEST
By: PSConfEU submitted:Sep 2 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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