A number of years ago I published my version of a Start-Demo script. In my version, I can create a text file with all of the commands I want to run. It might look like this: Get-Date get-ciminstance win32_logicaldisk | select DeviceID,Size,Freespace :: get-service | where {$_.status -eq ‘running’} | Select Name,Status | Format-Table -autosize…
Tag: PowerShell
SQL Database Report Revised
Last year I wrote an article that explained how to use the SQLSERVER PSDrive to create an HTML report highlighting some server and database information. If you want a refresher you can find that article here. In short, you can install the SQL Server PowerShell module on your client desktop and use it to manage…
VMDK to VHDX PDQ
I have a very old VMware ESXi server that has outlived its useful life. The hardware is at least 5 years old and my VMware license has expired. I can still bring up the server and see the virtual machines, but that’s about it. I still keep the box so I can run the PowerCLI…
Friday Fun: A Better PSEdit
In the PowerShell ISE, there is a built-in function called PSEdit. You can use this function to easily load a file in to the ISE directly from the ISE command prompt. Psedit c:\scripts\myscript.ps1 You can also load multiple files, but not as easily as you might like. I find myself wanting to do this: As…
Converting Timespans to Repetition Patterns
Over on Petri.com, I’ve recently published a followup article about creating daily or weekly scheduled PowerShell jobs that support a repetition interval. The short answer is to use the Scheduled Tasks cmdlets. In the Petri article I talk about needing to use a special string format for the timespan. It is documented on MSDN. It…
Friday Fun: A PowerShell Macro
Today’s Friday Fun is a little different in that it showcases two things I use almost every day: Microsoft Word and PowerShell. I am writing new articles and material almost daily and of course very often the content is PowerShell related. Usually I use the blog post template in Word to make it easier to…
Friday Fun: I Can Run that Command in 3 Letters
If you have been using PowerShell for any length of time, I’m sure you are familiar with aliases. An alias is an alternative name to a PowerShell cmdlet. They are intended to serve as transition aids (like dir and ls) and as a means to keep interactive typing to a minimum. Although with tab completion,…
PowerShell for Newbies
As you might imagine I get a lot of questions about how to get started with PowerShell, especially what books and material they can get their hands on. While I earn living creating books, training videos and offering live training, I’m aware that many people are on a budget so if you are looking for…
PowerShell Play by Play with Don Jones
I’m very excited to tell you about this latest effort from Pluralsight. A few months ago I sat down with Don Jones, and we recorded a live course on getting started with PowerShell. The finished product has finally been released. Over the course of about an hour we talk about taking an idea or task…
More Fun Getting PowerShell User Groups
A few days ago I posted a PowerShell function to retrieve information about PowerShell user groups. That function returned basic group information like this. Each group on the site has its own page which is what that Link property is for. So it didn’t take much work to use the same techniques as my original…
Friday Fun: Get PowerShell User Groups
The other day Don Jones tweeted about find a PowerShell user group. In case you didn’t know, just about every user group associated with PowerShell can be found online at http://powershellgroup.org. This is a terrific resource for finding a user group near you. Of course, Twitter being what it is someone joked about the lack…
PSBlogWeek Ebook and PDF Available
We really appreciate the interest in our PowerShell Blog Week experiment. It was a lot of fun and it seems many of you got something useful out of it as well. I wouldn’t be too surprised if you don’t see another event later this year, most likely with even more contributors. In the mean time,…
Practicing PowerShell in Helsinki
I am very happy to announce that in addition to my appearance at the MVP-AllStars conference on 9 June 2015 in beautiful Helsinki, Finland but that I will be following it with a 2 day, intense PowerShell workshop aimed at Järjestelmänvalvojat (system administrators or IT Pros). I think this is going to be a blast…
Friday Fun: What’s My IP
Today’s Friday Fun is a “quick and dirty” solution to the question, “What is my public IP address?” There are plenty of web sites and services you can visit that will display that piece of information. Naturally I want an easy way to get this in PowerShell. Recently I came across a reference to a…
PowerShell Blogging Week: Supporting WhatIf and Confirm
We hope you are enjoying this experiment in community blogging. In today’s contribution I want to demonstrate how you can add support for WhatIf and Confirm to your advanced PowerShell functions. It is actually quite easy, especially if your function is simply calling other PowerShell commands that already support –Whatif and –Confirm. The recommended best…