@DoctorDNS, Author at PowerShell Community

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How to Make Use Of PowerShell Profile Files

September 21st, 2021

Q: I would like to personalize the way that PowerShell works. I have heard that I can use a thing called a profile to do this, but when I try to find information about profiles, I come up blank. There is no New-Profile cmdlet, so I do not see how to create such a thing. Can you help me, please? A: Profiles are a powerful part of PowerShell ...

How to Update or Add a Registry Key Value with PowerShell

July 30th, 2021

Q: I am having a problem trying to update the registry. I am using the New-ItemProperty cmdlet, but it fails if the registry key does not exist. I added the –Force parameter, but it still does not create the registry key. The error message says that it cannot find the path because it does not exist. Is there something I am not doing? I ...

How to Change the Start Page for the Edge Browser

June 21st, 2021

Q: How can I change the Edge startup page? A: You can change the start page easily using PowerShell. Edge and It's Start Page I am basing this article on the latest incarnation of the Edge browser, aka Edge Chromium. The settings in this article seem to work fine on the latest versions of Windows 10 and Server 2022. Other browsers can have ...

How to rename a NIC

June 13th, 2021

Q: Is there a simple way to rename a NIC, especially inside a Hyper-V VM? A: You can change the name of any Windows NIC using PowerShell - whether the NIC is in a physical host or a Hyper-V VM. NICS and NIC names One thing that can quickly become confusing when using Hyper-V with multiple VMs and VM Switches is how fast the network adapters...

How to send output to a file

May 24th, 2021

Q: Is there an easy way to save my script output to a text file rather than displaying it on screen? A: Of course - there are multiple ways to do just that! PowerShell and Output One of PowerShell's great features is the way it automatically formats output. You type a command - PowerShell gives you the output it thinks you want. If the ...

How Do I Discover Changes to an AD Group’s Membership

May 7th, 2021

Q: Is there an easy way to detect and changes to important the membership of AD Groups? A: Easy using PowerShell 7, WMI, and the CIM Cmdlets. WMI Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) is an important component of the Windows operating system. WMI is an infrastructure of both management data and management operations on Windows-based ...

Is a User a Local Administrator?

April 15th, 2021

Q: Some of the things we do in our logon scripts require the user to be a local administrator. How can the script tell if the user is a local administrator or not, using PowerShell 7. A: Easy using PowerShell 7 and the LocalAccounts module Local Users and Groups The simple answer is of course, easily. And since you ask, with PowerShell 7! ...

Testing the connection to computers in the Active Directory

April 2nd, 2021

Q: As an administrator, I often have to do a lot of reporting on the servers in my domain. Is there a simple way to test the connection to every server in my domain or every server or client host in a specific OU? A: Of course you can do this with PowerShell! You can use the Active Directory cmdlets and Test-Connection, although it is not as ...

Can I Enable the Caps Lock Key?

March 24th, 2021

Q: I have a script where users enter some information. This information needs to be entered in all capital letters, so my instructions say, “Please make sure the Caps Lock key is on before entering the information.” They don’t always do that, however. Is there a way to turn the Caps Lock key on and off using a script? A: I don't know ...

Reading a text file bottom up

March 5th, 2021

Q: I have a log file in which new data is appended to the end of the file. That means the most recent entries are at the end of the file. I’d like to be able to read the file starting with the last line and then ending with the first line, but I can’t figure out how to do that. A: There are loads of ways you can do this. A simple way is ...

Thomas Lee

PowerShell Evangelist, PowerShell Community Blog