Once again, the fine forum members at ScriptingAnswers.com come through and help get my PowerShell idea engine revving. The latest post posed this basic question: “I need to query my servers and find all services using a specific service account.” The poster thought this would be a good opportunity to learn PowerShell and I wholeheartedly [...]

Some of you know my relationship with the a command prompt goes back a long, long way. Naturally I became very adept at using the DIR command, fully taking advantage of its switches to tease out hidden information or to quickly get just the information I wanted. When PowerShell first came out, I made the [...]

I trust by now you are realizing how valuable Windows PowerShell  is as a management tool. With a one line command you can accomplish an extraordinary amount of work. Sometimes this work may be long running, which is where background jobs come in handy. Or you may simply kick off a long running script and [...]

If you are thinking about what conferences to attend next year, I hope you’ll consider joining me in Orlando for the Spring TechMentor show. The show runs March 8-12, 2010 in sunny Orlando, FL. This is a great show where you can take away a ton of information that you can put to work immediately. [...]

The first chapter of my new eBook from RealTime is now available online. The Executive Guide to Service Management in an Uncertain Economy is a 4 part series on developing an effective service management strategy. The series is intended to demonstrate what steps you can take to align IT and business goals, cut costs, [...]

SAPIEN Press is now taking pre-orders for the latest edition of the popular Windows PowerShell: TFM. The new version, Windows PowerShell 2.0: TFM is really the 3rd edition of our original book. Don Jones and I have worked very hard to make this the most comprehensive PowerShell resource you can have on your book [...]

Keith Hill posted a bit of PowerShell code a few days ago that piqued my interest. I knew that in PowerShell, the $profile variable would list your current profile. PS C:\> $profile C:\Users\Jeff\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 This is handy because it makes it easy to call up my script editor if I need to make a change. But Keith showed that [...]

Some days the week just seems to drag on and on and on….Like many of you, I can’t wait for the end of the work day on Friday afternoon. But how much longer is it until I can say, in a cliche ridden fashion, “TGIF!” Fortunately I have PowerShell to give me a pretty accurate [...]

PowerShell MVP Oisin Grehan posted a very promising PowerShell module the other day. He calls it the PModem File Transfer Protocol. It is based on the old bulletin board file transfer protocols of the late 20th century, which I have to admit I fondly remember using. Of course Oisin’s work intrigued me and after playing [...]

If you are an active member of the PowerShell community you may have already seen this announcement, but just in case you haven’t, Quest Software and the guys behind PowerGUI are running their annual PowerPack challenge. You could win a $1000 Amazon gift card. The contest ;runs from October 19, 2009 until November 15th 2009, [...]

Way, way back in the day professionals would hang out a painted shingle indicating they were open for business. Even if your literacy skills were lacking you could distinguish between a doctor and an undertaker. Although I think sometimes he did both, but that’s another story. I thought I should officially hang out my “shingle”. [...]

I wasn’t completely satisfied with the updated version of my Get-NumberedContent function. You should still refer to the earlier post for details on how to use the function. But I had some issues with the previous version and realized there were a few bugs. I’ve since updated the Get-NumberedContent function. Many of my PowerShell v2.0 scripts [...]

I think Out-Printer is a very handy cmdlet, and one that doesn’t get used much. Pipe any cmdlet to it and the output will be printed to your default printer. You use it the same way you would Out-File except output is printed instead of saved to a file. The cmdlet also has a parameter [...]

  I recently came across an article describing a very intriguing product that is a combination of tablet computer and netbook. Its called the Touchbook and it is offered by a company called Always Innovating. This small device, about 3 lbs with the keyboard, brags a 10 hour battery life. What I find most intriguing [...]

In thinking about some of my recent posts, I realize I should make clear that these scripts and functions are not necessarily good PowerShell examples. They don’t take advantage of objects and the pipeline. They are single purpose and one-dimensional. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. My recent examples, and the one I have [...]

As much fun as the original Get-NumberedContent function was after using it for awhile I realized I had imposed some limitations. I also realized it needed to be more flexible. What if someone wanted to specify a different color or use a different comment character such as a ; in an ini file? I also [...]

One of the reasons I enjoy Twitter is that it exposes me to PowerShell ideas and enthusiasts beyond my immediate circle. I came across a blog post from David Longnecker about a short function to display file content in a numbered format. Basically taking Get-Content and adding a line number to the output. Well I’m [...]

In case you didn’t see the Technet article 77 Windows 7 Tips I hope you’ll take a few minutes to check it out. Hopefully you’ll pick up at least one new tip. I bet you’ll find more than that. I didn’t write it, but did contribute a number of tips. There really is a great deal [...]

I got some great comments and suggestion on my original version of Out-Notepad, which should work just find on PowerShell v1.0 or 2.0. However, because v2.0 has such terrific features I decided to rework my function into a PowerShell v2.0 only version that also incorporates a few new features. The function now includes help, which [...]

Maybe this isn’t the most earth shattering PowerShell function you’ll ever come across, but it saves me a few keystrokes. There are times when I want to see the results of PowerShell expression but the console output is insufficient. I want to see the results in a text file opened in Notepad so I can easily scroll, search or whatever.