When creating new scripts follow this best practice advice before you write a single line of code and you will be ahead of the game. Technorati Tags:Scripting
Category: Scripting
Techmentor Las Vegas 2006 Demo CD
I’ve posted the ISO for my demo CD from Techmentor Las Vegas 2006. This 160MB CD has all of my demos (including video demos), updated slides, web links. Be sure to install the VMWare Video codec (included) before you try to view any of the AVI files. For right now, or until bandwidth becomes an…
Logon Script Generator 1.1
While testing some Techmentor demos with the Logon Script Generator, I found a few bugs. The tool allows you to use %username% in a file UNC (like \\file03\%username% and it substitutes the appropriate VBScript to get the username. What I didn’t take into account is if you wanted to have that be a hidden share…
New Opportunities
Beginning in November, I will be working for SAPIEN Technologies as a Scripting Guru. I’ll be spending a lot of time writing. There are plans for several new books through SAPIEN Press that I’ll be responsible for. I’ll also be much more active in the forums at ScriptingAnswers.com and other places around the Net. I’ll…
Writing the Registry in PowerShell
Last month I showed you how to read the registry in PowerShell. I went through a script that would read the registered owner and organization. Now I’ll show you how to change those properties in PowerShell. Here’s the script, which is also available for download from my script library. Here’s the script, then we’ll go…
Background jobs in PowerShell
The *nix world has always had the ability to run jobs in the background. Now it’s possible to do that in PowerShell. There is a terrific post on this at: http://jtruher.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!7143DA6E51A2628D!130.entry You’ll need to copy some scripts and functions from the entry and save them locally. You also might need to tweak things if you…
Reading the Registry in PowerShell
One of the great PowerShell features is that it treats the registry like any other location or directory. In PowerShell you can connect directly to the registry and navigate the key hierarchy just as if it as a logical drive with folders. I have a very brief demonstration script you can run to find the…
New Script Search Engine
SAPIEN has rolled out a new search site devoted to administrative scripting. The search engine is tuned to find scripts and information related to scripting. Right now it’s hand tuned to known specific sites with script libraries and the like. Their official announcement can be found here:SAPIEN Technologies – The Official Blog :: New Search…
Advanced VBScript Text Stats
Amazon is always coming up with new ways to look at books and buying habits. The latest I came across are text stats. For books where they have access to the content, Amazon will process the text and come up with stats for things like complexity and readability. Because Amazon has the entire Advanced VBScript…
More free scripting tools
SAPIEN Technologies has released some free tools for scripters at http://www.primalscript.com/freetools/. One of them is the PowerShell help viewer I discussed a few posts back. This is great when you’re in PowerShell and can’t remember a cmdlet’s syntax. They also have a nifty WMI explorer. This tool lets you browse all WMI namespaces on your…
Printing from PowerShell
PowerShell has a slick feature that allows you to send the output from a cmdlet or expression directly to a printer. Pipe the output to the Out-Printer cmdlet and it will print out on the default printer: get-process | out-printer If you have other printers installed you can use the printer name. For example, I…
Introduction to WMIC
WMIC – An IntroductionWindows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is an extremely powerful technology that provides tremendous detail on how a computer system is configured and operating. What makes WMI so attractive to Windows administrators is that you don’t have to be a programmer to leverage it. WMI is available as a scripting option. There are many…
Use Internet Explorer in PowerShell
Here’s a PowerShell Script that demonstates how to create COM objects in PowerShell, in this case an Internet Explorer instance. The script then takes the output of the Get-Service cmdlet and writes the results to the IE window. # IEServiceList.ps1# Jeffery Hicks# http://jdhitsolutions.blogspot.com# http://www.jdhitsolutions.com# May 2006#Display all running services in an Internet Explorer window new-variable…
Create Timestamp log in PowerShell
Very often in administrative scripting you will want to create a log file where the filename is a timestamp like 200605201912.log. Since PowerShell is based on .NET Framework objects, we can take advantage of the DateTime object which is obtained by using the Get-Date cmdlet: PS C:\> get-dateSunday, May 21, 2006 6:47:03 PMIf we create…
Logon Script Generator
I’ve developed a new and free HTA, in the “scriptomatic” philosophy, that generates logon scripts. You can pick your drive and print mapping combinations, including checking group membership, and create a working VBScript logon script without having to write a single line of code. The tool reads in lists of available drive and printer UNCs…