Scripting Blog

A place to learn about PowerShell and share stories of automation

How Can I Tell Whether a Value Exists in the Registry?

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I tell whether a value exists in the registry on a remote computer?-- AL Hey, AL. Full disclosure time: even though we go by the name The Scripting Guys, we don’t claim to know everything there is to know about scripting. This question is a good example of that. When we first read it we thought, “Well, ...

How Can I Create a CSV File?

Hey, Scripting Guy! How can I create a CSV file?-- LF Hey, LF. For those of you who aren’t up on your acronyms, CSV is short for comma-separated-values file, a text file in which individual elements are separated by commas. For example, say you have a CSV file consisting of user first names, last names, and job titles; that file might ...

How Can I Change the Screensaver Timeout Value?

Hey, Scripting Guy! Can I use a script to change the timeout value for the screensaver on a computer?-- JN Hey, JN. For some reason, Microsoft’s scripting technologies come up a little short any time you’re talking about Windows settings and components, things like screensavers, wallpaper, the Taskbar, the Start menu, etc. You can use ...

Hey, Scripting Guy! Can I Retrieve Just Failure Events from the Security Event Log?

Hey, Scripting Guy! Is there a way to retrieve just Failure Audit events from the Security event log?-- KA Hey, KA. Interesting, isn’t it: any time the subject is failure, people turn to the Scripting Guys. What makes you think we know anything about failure? Ok, you’re right: silly question. As far as your question goes, it’s very ...

How Can I Send Data from One Script to Another?

Hey, Scripting Guy! A while back you showed how we could use the InputBox function to prompt a user to enter a value we could then use in our script. What I’d like to know is, is there any way I can take that value and use it in another script?-- JW Hey, JW. We’re guessing here, but apparently you’d like to have a script that, among ...