Yesterday I shared a few PowerShell functions for configuring the Windows 10 taskbar to auto-hide. This works great in my virtual desktop when recording my Pluralsight courses. But even when hidden I would still get an annoying white sliver from the search box. So I got rid of that as well. Here are some PowerShell…
Category: Registry
Managing the Windows 10 Taskbar with PowerShell
When I’m working on a Pluralsight course, I tend to setup a virtual machine for recording. Although, 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…
Get Installed PowerShell Versions
As is the norm for a typical day, I was working on one thing when I was distracted by a shiny rabbit hole (to mix some metaphors). Half a day later I have a new PowerShell function that not only might you find useful, but I think it has some nice scripting features you might…
Building More PowerShell Functions
In a recent post I discussed the the process you might go through in developing a PowerShell function. By the end, I not only had a new tool for my PowerShell toolbox, but I had a function outline that I could re-use. If you read the previous article then you should recognize the idea of…
Export Registry Printer Information I came…
Export Registry Printer Information I came across this post http://www.oncallpros.com/2011/11/02/powershell-export-your-print-configuration-from-registry/ on exporting printer information from the registry in PowerShell. I wanted to offer some constructive suggestions but could find no way to comment so I'll do so here. First, the article introduces some good PowerShell concepts. I like that he is using Test-Path. Although I'd…
TechEd Atlanta – Managing the Registry with PowerShell
My second TechEd talk was about managing the registry with Windows PowerShell. If you were in the session you know that I stressed heavily using the PowerShell provider and cmdlets. For remote computers, leverage PowerShell’s remoting infrastructure. But I also discussed using the “raw” .NET classes as well as WMI (if you are really desperate…
Get Registry Size and Age
I’m not sure why the registry has been on my mind lately. I probably need a vacation to get out more. But I put together a relatively simple Windows PowerShell function to retrieve registry statistics that you might find useful. My Get-Registry function will return information about the size of a registry as well as…
Importing and Exporting Registry Items
A while ago I posted a function to export registry items to either a CSV or XML file. Recently I had a question on Twitter about importing, which I assumed meant from my exported file. The import is actually pretty easy as I’ll show you, although it did require a change to the original Export-Registry…
Export Registry
Over the last week or so I’ve posted some functions for testing whether a given registry item exists or not, or even validating its value. To round this out, today I have an advanced function that makes it easier to export parts of the registry on the local computer.
Test Registry Item Revisited
I got some nice feedback on my original Test-RegistryItem function. I had been mulling some enhancements anyway and now have a more robust version that looks at individual values, accepts pipelined input and more The new version now lets you test if a given registry item exists as well as if the value meets some…
TechMentor Orlando 2010 Decks and Demos
I had a great time in Orlando at the TechMentor conference. The crowd was enthusiastic and asked good questions. As promised, here are my slide decks and demos. My sessions tend to be heavy on demonstration so I can’t promise you’ll get a ton of value from the decks alone. You’ll simply have to attend…
Power Up your R2 Server Core Shell
I’ve recently started using the Server Core option for my test servers, especially for things like domain controllers. I can get by with smaller disk and memory requirements. Once you get the server configured, there’s very little you have to do that actually requires logging on to the server. Which is good because all you…
Get-Printer
I think Out-Printer is a very handy cmdlet, and one that doesn’t get used much. Pipe any cmdlet to it and the output will be printed to your default printer. You use it the same way you would Out-File except output is printed instead of saved to a file. The cmdlet also has a parameter…