Lessons Learned
My drop-site for interesting snippets and tips. If it's useful to you as well, great!
Getting User Names for Processes
Sometimes, I am in awe at the PowerShell team. Other times, I am stunned, but at their...
Author: timdunn Date: 08/08/2013
PowerShell Integration with Visual Studio 12
Author: timdunn Date: 08/05/2013
Enabling and Disabling Users
All good things must come to an end. Sometimes, users become ex-users. Here’s a...
Author: timdunn Date: 07/30/2013
Exporting Event Logs in Server 2003
I still have to support a smattering of boxes that run Server 2003 (yes, it’s EOLed. No,...
Author: timdunn Date: 07/05/2013
Why Use Approved Verbs?
PowerShell has a list of approved verbs such as Get, New, Test, and so forth. But, what if I wanted...
Author: timdunn Date: 07/03/2013
More Fun with Passwords
Given the sad frequency with which web sites get their password stores leaked, using the same...
Author: timdunn Date: 06/11/2013
Rehash: Testing for a 302 Redirect
This blog, like any journal, tracks my own personal growth. This means I get to revisit and rehash...
Author: timdunn Date: 06/10/2013
Rehash: Testing Web Pages Once More
I seem to be rehashing a lot of stuff. The reason is that I’m trying to capture what I...
Author: timdunn Date: 06/03/2013
Setting Font in PowerShell.exe Window, Sort Of…
To change the font in the current PowerShell.exe window, copy-and-paste all but the last line from...
Author: timdunn Date: 05/31/2013
Importing and Removing Certificates
We knew it had to come to this. All these posts about examining .cer files, scanning for...
Author: timdunn Date: 05/29/2013
DFS (Distributed File System) Mountpoints Across Sites
DFS (Distributed File System) is a very use feature. By normalizing the naming and presenting...
Author: timdunn Date: 05/28/2013
Getting Network Adapter Speed
TIMTOWTDI (pronounced ‘tim-toady’) is the Perl dictum, “There is more than one way...
Author: timdunn Date: 05/17/2013
Getting OCS 2007 Certs through WMI Revisited
Back in August 2012, I posted about getting certificates bound to Office Communication Server 2007...
Author: timdunn Date: 04/29/2013
Number of Processors vs. Number of Cores Revisited
Back in July 2011, I posted about getting the number of processors and cores and gave passing...
Author: timdunn Date: 04/26/2013
Certificate Chains
I seem to spend a lot of time typing about SSL certificates, don’t I? Well, I seem to spend a...
Author: timdunn Date: 04/23/2013
Hack(saw)ing the Surface Pro
I'm taking a break from PowerShell goodness to brag about my new MS Surface Pro. It's an amazing...
Author: timdunn Date: 04/12/2013
RDCman Config Files (*.rdg)
RDCMan is a godsend if you have to jump on multiple machines. It's a wrapper for mstsc.exe, the...
Author: timdunn Date: 03/25/2013
Futzing With System Variables
$Env:PATH is a common bane - you have a hundred machines, and you end up with fifty different...
Author: timdunn Date: 03/22/2013
Stopping Services Remotely and Recursively (But Without Recursion)
This one is actually fun because it reminded me of my Comp Sci. 101 days (the actual course number...
Author: timdunn Date: 03/21/2013
Adding a Timestamp to a Pipeline of Strings
If I'm doing something long-running, and I want it to know when various lines of output are...
Author: timdunn Date: 03/20/2013
Batch-Getting BIOS Serial Numbers
Our lab maps hosts to KVM Ports based on, not hostname, not IP address, but the BIOS Serial Number....
Author: timdunn Date: 03/19/2013
Batch-Getting IP Addresses
Let's say you have a list of hostnames and need IP addresses for them. "You have a list of...
Author: timdunn Date: 03/18/2013
When Were These Computers Last Rebooted?
Here's a short one. We want to know when this box was last rebooted. Sure, it's in the...
Author: timdunn Date: 03/15/2013
Removing Monitoring Agents (Not Really)
Thanks to my coworker Keith Munson for the core logic. This post is written around the task of...
Author: timdunn Date: 03/14/2013
Getting Computer Memory Usage
Here’s a quick spot-check on the memory usage on remote computer (or a few dozen computers). ...
Author: timdunn Date: 03/13/2013
Fun with PSCredentials
Back in October of 2012, I posted Securely Storing a Password, which showed the key commands to...
Author: timdunn Date: 03/08/2013
Converting PsCustomObject To/From Hashtables
PsCustomObjects are effectively a superset of Hashtables. Hashtables have name-value pairs. The...
Author: timdunn Date: 03/05/2013
AppWiz.cpl in PowerShell
Every so often, I need to find an installed program. Until now, I’ve just been typing...
Author: timdunn Date: 03/04/2013
PSH V1 Get-Tail
In PSH V2, Get-Content –Tail 10 –Wait will display the last 10 lines of a file, then...
Author: timdunn Date: 03/01/2013
Get-FileVersion
With an endless stream of daily builds, it is essential that a test lab run the latest...
Author: timdunn Date: 02/28/2013
Getting An SSL Web Page’s Certificate
When it comes time to rolling SSL certificates on web servers, nothing beats checking the server to...
Author: timdunn Date: 02/27/2013
SQL Fun(ctions)
To start with, a disclaimer: I’m not a SQL person. No, not at all. I just find myself...
Author: timdunn Date: 02/20/2013
Removing Null Values
How many times have you gotten a WMI-Object and had to scroll through screens of null values? Here's...
Author: timdunn Date: 12/03/2012
Another Way to Create NoteProperty Entries
We've seen the Select-Object synthetic property method and the Add-Member -name AddNoteProperty...
Author: timdunn Date: 11/21/2012
Securely Storing a Password
Here's the scenario: You have a script that needs to access a static password which has to be stored...
Author: timdunn Date: 10/24/2012
Why Semi-Colons?
Sorry, no code here. Just a quick thought. Q: Why should I put semi-colons at the end of lines?...
Author: timdunn Date: 08/13/2012
Laziness and XML: New-XmlElement
I love structured data. I love how orderly it is, how logical. However, I do not like the...
Author: timdunn Date: 08/09/2012
Out-Error, the User-friendlier Write-Error
Write-Error is a pretty daunting cmdlet. It dumps some pretty useful information to screen. Useful,...
Author: timdunn Date: 08/08/2012
One-Liner: Dotting in vs. Running a Script
PowerShell scripts are a collection of functions and procedural code, right? So often, I find myself...
Author: timdunn Date: 08/07/2012
Getting OCS 2007 Certs through WMI
We recently had an interesting adventure where we needed to do an audit of the certificates used by...
Author: timdunn Date: 08/06/2012
Creating a Multi-Host Cert MMC
MMCs are a mixed blessing at best. The saved .msc files aren't human-editable (read: not XML) so I...
Author: timdunn Date: 07/30/2012
Dumping ILO (and Other DHCP Addresses)
Here's a quick-n-dirty script that dumps ILO address from the DHCP server. function Get-Ilo { param...
Author: timdunn Date: 07/25/2012
RSA Authentication Manager User Auditing
RSA Authentication Manager exports the list of users and SecurID fobs in a text format with...
Author: timdunn Date: 07/06/2012
Clock Skew and You
We had an issue where the clocks on various hosts got offset beyond the margin allowed by an...
Author: timdunn Date: 02/15/2012
Set-ExecutionPolicy Fun
Hm, I'm surprised this isn't included Out-Of-The-Box. Let's say I have a new deployment of machines...
Author: timdunn Date: 02/14/2012
Batch-Unzipping Files
Thanks to https://serverfault.com/questions/18872/how-to-zip-unzip-files-in-powershell/201604#201604...
Author: timdunn Date: 11/05/2011
Displaying an OCS Proxy Server's List of Trusted Servers
Yesterday, we covered how to dump an OCS Edge Server's list of trusted servers, including using...
Author: timdunn Date: 11/03/2011
Certificates Owned by a Service
PowerShell gives you access to certificates in many ways. You can read it in from a file, or look at...
Author: timdunn Date: 11/01/2011