{"id":6261,"date":"2015-05-04T09:06:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-04T09:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2015\/05\/04\/cool-powershell-conversations-at-ignite\/"},"modified":"2019-02-18T10:29:40","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T17:29:40","slug":"cool-powershell-conversations-at-ignite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/cool-powershell-conversations-at-ignite\/","title":{"rendered":"Cool PowerShell Conversations at Ignite"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/strong>: Ed Wilson talks about some Windows PowerShell conversations at the Scripting Guys booth.<\/p>\n

One of the cool things about getting together with a bunch of people at the Scripting Guys booth is that I learn stuff. The conversations are great. Here is a case in point: Windows PowerShell MVP, Steve Murawski, stopped by the booth this morning. At the same time Microsoft PFEs, Gary Siepser, Brian Wilhite, and Jason Walker were here. Here is a picture:<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/a><\/p>\n

Ayway, while I was talking to Steve, I mentioned a conversation I had yesterday with a guy at lunch. I was talking about the importance of using –Whatif<\/strong> on a regular basis. In fact, I mentioned a story about the time I deleted my RAS certificate accidently. It happened because I knew what the command would do, and then…oops, my RAS certificate went into the bit bucket.<\/p>\n

So, as I was talking to Steve, I had a great idea: Why don’t I use A$PSDefaultParameterValues<\/strong> and set any cmdlet that uses –Whatif<\/strong> to $true. This means that any cmdlet that had –Whatif<\/strong> as a parameter would automatically prompt with "What if." Here is an example:<\/p>\n

PS C:\\Users\\ed> $PSDefaultParameterValues = @{"*:whatif"=$true}
PS C:\\Users\\ed> New-Item c:\\fso -ItemType directory
What if: Performing the operation "Create Directory" on target "Destination: C:\\fso".
PS C:\\Users\\ed> New-Item c:\\fso -ItemType directory -WhatIf:$false<\/p>\n

    Directory: C:\\<\/p>\n

Mode                LastWriteTime     Length Name
—-                ————-     —— —-
d—-          5\/4\/2015  11:23 AM            fso<\/p>\n

I was like really excited, and I told Gary, Brian, and Jason to come over, and see what I had done. I said, “Dude, this is cool!"<\/span><\/p>\n

Gary looked at it for a few minutes, shook his head and said, “Why didn’t you just set the $WhatIfPreference<\/strong> variable to $true.<\/p>\n

I looked at him and said, “Because I didn’t know about it.” It seems that the $WhatIfPreference<\/strong> variable has been in Windows PowerShell since at least version 2. Hmmmm…I must have missed that one. So here is how to set it:<\/p>\n

PS C:\\Users\\ed> $WhatIfPreference
False
PS C:\\Users\\ed> $WhatIfPreference = $true
PS C:\\Users\\ed> $WhatIfPreference
True<\/p>\n

Now any cmdlet that has a –WhatIf<\/strong> parameter will prompt. This is shown here:<\/p>\n

S C:\\Users\\ed> $WhatIfPreference = $true
S C:\\Users\\ed> Remove-Item c:\\fso
hat if: Performing the operation "Remove Directory" on target "C:\\fso".
S C:\\Users\\ed><\/p>\n

But if I want to override it, here is the code I would use:<\/p>\n

PS C:\\Users\\ed> Remove-Item c:\\fso -WhatIf:$False
PS C:\\Users\\ed><\/p>\n

As it turns out, I might not want the prompt every time I use Set*<\/strong> or New*<\/strong>. It might become annoying. Maybe all I really want is protection from Remove<\/strong>* cmdlets. I can go back to my $DefaultParameterValues<\/strong> that I began this post with, and modify it as shown here:<\/p>\n

PS C:\\Users\\ed> $PSDefaultParameterValues = @{"Remove*:whatif"=$true}
PS C:\\Users\\ed> Remove-Item c:\\fso
What if: Performing the operation "Remove Directory" on target "C:\\fso".
PS C:\\Users\\ed> Remove-Item c:\\fso -WhatIf:$false
PS C:\\Users\\ed> New-Item c:\\fso -ItemType directory<\/p>\n

    Directory: C:\\<\/p>\n

Mode                LastWriteTime     Length Name
—-                ————-     —— —-
d—-          5\/4\/2015  12:02 PM            fso<\/p>\n

Cool! This is what happens when a bunch of Windows PowerShell people congregate.<\/p>\n

~Ed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: Ed Wilson talks about some Windows PowerShell conversations at the Scripting Guys booth. One of the cool things about getting together with a bunch of people at the Scripting Guys booth is that I learn stuff. The conversations are great. Here is a case in point: Windows PowerShell MVP, Steve Murawski, stopped by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":597,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[191,51,580,377,4],"class_list":["post-6261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-community","tag-getting-started","tag-ignite","tag-powershell","tag-scripting-techniques"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Summary: Ed Wilson talks about some Windows PowerShell conversations at the Scripting Guys booth. One of the cool things about getting together with a bunch of people at the Scripting Guys booth is that I learn stuff. The conversations are great. Here is a case in point: Windows PowerShell MVP, Steve Murawski, stopped by the […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/597"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}