PowerShell Community

How to Make Use Of PowerShell Profile Files

September 21, 2021 Sep 21, 2021 09/21/21

Thomas L

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 can I be notified any time a service goes down?

August 10, 2021 Aug 10, 2021 08/10/21

Faris M

Q: How can I be notified any time a service goes down? A: The short quick answer to utilizing WMI and PowerShell 7. You use PowerShell to create temporary event monitoring using WMI. Then WMI monitors any service changes and generates an alert once it detects a change. Basic Requirement To achieve this, you need Windows ...

How to Update or Add a Registry Key Value with PowerShell

July 30, 2021 Jul 30, 2021 07/30/21

Thomas L

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 21, 2021 Jun 21, 2021 06/21/21

Thomas L

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 13, 2021 Jun 13, 2021 06/13/21

Thomas L

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 24, 2021 May 24, 2021 05/24/21

Thomas L

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 7, 2021 May 7, 2021 05/7/21

Thomas L

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 ...

Sending data to the Clipboard from PowerShell

May 1, 2021 May 1, 2021 05/1/21

Sean K

Q: Hey I have a fun question! I remember reading a while back about using VBScript to paste to the clipboard. Are we able to do that with PowerShell? A: Why yes, yes we can! It is far often a much quicker solution if we start with PowerShell! Pasting content to the clipboard, the old VBScript method Before we show the quick and easy ...

Borrowing a built-in PowerShell command to create a temporary folder

April 21, 2021 Apr 21, 2021 04/21/21

Sean K

Q: Hey I have a question for you. It seems silly and I know I could probably put something together with Get-Random. But can you think of another way to create a temporary folder with a random name in PowerShell? Ideally, I'd like it to be in a user's own "Temporary Folder" is possible. A: We sure can! If Doctor Scripto was sitting here ...

Is a User a Local Administrator?

April 15, 2021 Apr 15, 2021 04/15/21

Thomas L

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! ...