Summary<\/b>: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about using Windows PowerShell to start a process at random intervals.<\/p>\n
![\"Hey,](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2019\/02\/q-for-powertip.jpg\")
Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a rather unusual request. I am testing a new monitoring application, and I need a script that will start processes at random intervals so I can check the effectiveness of the solution. Is this something you can help me with?<\/p>\n
—BB<\/p>\n
![\"Hey,](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2019\/02\/a-for-powertip.jpg\")
Hello BB,<\/p>\n
Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. This morning I am sitting on the porch, sipping a nice cup of green tea with orange flavorings in it. The tea is called Orange Cream, and it tastes exactly like the old Dreamsicles I used to eat when I was a kid. It is a different way to start the morning. I am cooling off after spending an hour in the gym. I have my Surface Pro 3 that the Scripting Wife got for me for my birthday (it was an early birthday present…I have had it for awhile now), and I am catching up with email sent to scripter@microsoft.com<\/a> and Facebook. I don’t know about you, but lately, it seems like I am always multitasking. I find it hard to sit and do just one thing at a time anymore. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.<\/p>\n BB, there are many ways to write a Windows PowerShell script that will generate new processes at random intervals. But when I hear this requirement, I think that I will need the following:<\/p>\n Because I did a good job analysis, and I know pretty much all of the commands I am going to use in the script, writing the script does not take me very long at all. In fact, here is the script I wrote:<\/p>\n Note <\/b> Using While ($true)<\/b> puts the script into an infinite loop. To stop the loop, press the red square (stop button) in the Windows PowerShell ISE.<\/p>\n # StartProcessesAtRandomTimes.ps1<\/p>\n $prog = "notepad.exe"<\/p>\n while ($true)<\/p>\n {<\/p>\n $rnd = Get-Random -Minimum 1 -Maximum 5<\/p>\n Start-Sleep -Seconds $rnd<\/p>\n start-process -FilePath $prog -WindowStyle Minimized}<\/p>\n To test the script, I load it in the Windows PowerShell ISE, press the green triangle, and then wait for a while. Nothing appears, and nothing appears to happen. But, at least on my laptop, I see the screen flash every once in a while, and on my task bar, I see several Notepads stacked up. So I press the red square, and stop the script. Still nothing appears to have happened—at least not from looking at the Windows PowerShell ISE. Here is the screenshot:<\/p>\n In the interactive pane, I use Get-Process<\/b> to find all the Notepad processes. As shown here, there were quite a few generated:<\/p>\n That is cool. Now I want to see if my randomizer is working—that is, at what time were the Notepad processes generated. That is easy enough. I use the StartTime<\/b> property. It is probably best to also sort them. So I use the following script:<\/p>\n PS C:\\> Get-Process notepad | Select StartTime | sort -Descending<\/p>\n The problem is that it does not sort properly. It looks like it is sorted, but I try the ascending and the descending sorts, and I see the order does not change. Dude.<\/p>\n I then realize that I need to expand the DateTime<\/b> object (that is contained in the StartTime<\/b> property) so I can specify WHAT I want to sort on. Obviously, I am interested in the TimeOfDay<\/b>. So I revise my command to the following:<\/p>\n Get-Process notepad | select -expand StartTime | sort timeofday <\/p>\n Now I try it, and I see that it is working. In fact, I am getting random offsets between the process starts. This is shown here:<\/p>\n BB, that is all there is to using Windows PowerShell to create processes at random intervals. Process Week will continue tomorrow when I will talk about launching random processes at random times.<\/p>\n I invite you to follow me on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com<\/a>, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.<\/p>\n Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy<\/b> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about using Windows PowerShell to start a process at random intervals. Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a rather unusual request. I am testing a new monitoring application, and I need a script that will start processes at random intervals so I can check the effectiveness of the solution. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[41,31,60,87,3,4,45],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-monitoring","tag-operating-system","tag-performance","tag-processes","tag-scripting-guy","tag-scripting-techniques","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":" Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about using Windows PowerShell to start a process at random intervals. Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a rather unusual request. I am testing a new monitoring application, and I need a script that will start processes at random intervals so I can check the effectiveness of the solution. […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","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\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/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=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Picking out tools<\/h2>\n
\n
Writing the script<\/h2>\n
Testing the script<\/h2>\n
![\"Image](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2019\/02\/hsg-9-15-14-01.png\" "\\"Image")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2019\/02\/hsg-9-15-14-02.png\" "\\"Image")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2019\/02\/hsg-9-15-14-03.png\" "\\"Image")
<\/a><\/p>\n