/\/\o\/\/ PowerShelled

Moving to ThePowerShellGuy.com

2006-12-24T18:43:00.000+01:00

as you might have seen in last testpost

I started a new blog here : The PowerShell Guy ( http://ThePowerShellGuy.com )

the Feeds you can find here :

Starting with this first entry : PowerShell : Generating RTF Help from XML help files I will no longer post on this blog.

the content on this blog will not be removed

Enjoy,

Greetings,/\/\o\/\/
Tags : PowerShell

PowerShell Code formatting test for my new Blog

2006-12-23T03:17:00.000+01:00

I'm testing my new blog The PowerShell guy,

I post the same testpost here to compare

Testing codesamples for viewing and copying (do not link here, I will post this item again later after testing , in its final version with a permanent link)

I'm testing with IE7 and Bloglines, if you have problems pasting in the code on the old or new blog please leave a comment,

at the moment it looks like the The PowerShell guy

blog does not have the formatting problems I have here

convert number to Roman notation

Function as PowerShell code (Pre tag CodeHTMLer)

# Convert Int to Roman notation
# /\/\o\/\/ 2006

function format-Roman ($num  ) {  

    $M = [math]::truncate($num / 1000) 
    $num -= $M * 1000 
    $D = [math]::truncate($num / 500) 
    $num -=  $D * 500 
    $C = [math]::truncate($num / 100) 
    $num -=  $C * 100 
    $L = [math]::truncate($num / 50) 
    $num -=  $L * 50 
    $X = [math]::truncate($num / 10) 
    $num -=  $x * 10 
    $V = [math]::truncate($num / 5) 
    $num -=  $V * 5
    
    $Roman = "M" * $M
    $Roman += "D" * $D
    $Roman += "C" * $C
    $Roman += "L" * $L
    $Roman += "X" * $X
    $Roman += "V" * $V
    $Roman += "I" * $num
    
    $roman = $roman.replace('DCCCC','CM') # 900
    $roman = $roman.replace('CCCC','CD') # 400
    $roman = $roman.replace('LXXXX','XC') # 90
    $roman = $roman.replace('XXXX','XL') # 40
    $roman = $roman.replace('VIIII','IX') # 9
    $roman = $roman.replace('IIII','IV') # 4
    
    Return $Roman

}

Commandline example (Block Quote)

PoSH>format-Roman 1987
MCMLXXXVII
PoSH>format-Roman 1999
MCMXCIX
PoSH>Update-TypeData C:\PowerShell\TypeData\TypedataInt32.ps1xml
PoSH>(32).toroman()
XXXII

format an Integer in Roman notation

Type extension as XML (convert whitespace, codehtmler)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>  
<Types>  
    <Type>  
        <Name>System.Int32</Name>  
        <Members>  
            <ScriptMethod>  
                <Name>ToRoman</Name>  
                 <Script>  
                    $num = $this 

                    $M = [math]::truncate($num / 1000)  
                    $num -= $M * 1000  
                    $D = [math]::truncate($num / 500)  
                    $num -=  $D * 500  
                    $C = [math]::truncate($num / 100)  
                    $num -=  $C * 100  
                    $L = [math]::truncate($num / 50)  
                    $num -=  $L * 50  
                    $X = [math]::truncate($num / 10)  
                    $num -=  $x * 10  
                    $V = [math]::truncate($num / 5)  
                    $num -=  $V * 5 
                     
                    $Roman = "M" * $M 
                    $Roman += "D" * $D 
                    $Roman += "C" * $C 
                    $Roman += "L" * $L 
                    $Roman += "X" * $X 
                    $Roman += "V" * $V 
                    $Roman += "I" * $num 
                     
                    $roman = $roman.replace('DCCCC','CM') # 900 
                    $roman = $roman.replace('CCCC','CD') # 400 
                    $roman = $roman.replace('LXXXX','XC') # 90 
                    $roman = $roman.replace('XXXX','XL') # 40 
                    $roman = $roman.replace('VIIII','IX') # 9 
                    $roman = $roman.replace('IIII','IV') # 4 
                     
                    Return $roman 
                </Script>  
            </ScriptMethod>  

        </Members>  
    </Type>  
</Types>

* Edit * Added script again formatted by PowerShell analyzer

# Function Format-Roman
# /\/\o\/\/ 006
# http://ThePowerShellGuy.com

# HTML Formatting Generated with PowerShell Analyzer

function format-Roman ($num ) {  

    $M = [math]::truncate($num / 1000) 
    $num -= $M * 1000 
    $D = [math]::truncate($num / 500) 
    $num -=  $D * 500 
    $C = [math]::truncate($num / 100) 
    $num -=  $C * 100 
    $L = [math]::truncate($num / 50) 
    $num -=  $L * 50 
    $X = [math]::truncate($num / 10) 
    $num -=  $x * 10 
    $V = [math]::truncate($num / 5) 
    $num -=  $V * 5
    
    $Roman = "M" * $M
    $Roman += "D" * $D
    $Roman += "C" * $C
    $Roman += "L" * $L
    $Roman += "X" * $X
    $Roman += "V" * $V
    $Roman += "I" * $num
    
    $roman = $roman.replace('DCCCC','CM') # 900
    $roman = $roman.replace('CCCC','CD') # 400
    $roman = $roman.replace('LXXXX','XC') # 90
    $roman = $roman.replace('XXXX','XL') # 40
    $roman = $roman.replace('VIIII','IX') # 9
    $roman = $roman.replace('IIII','IV') # 4
    
    Return $roman

}

Enjoy, Greetings /\/\o\/\/

PowerShell Code formatting test for my new Blog

2006-12-23T02:24:00.000+01:00

I'm testing my new blog The PowerShell guy,

I post the same testpost here to compare

Testing codesamples for viewing and copying (do not link here, I will post this item again later after testing , in its final version with a permanent link)

I'm testing with IE7 and Bloglines, if you have problems pasting in the code on the old or new blog please leave a comment,

at the moment it looks like the The PowerShell guy

blog does not have the formatting problems I have here

convert number to Roman notation

Function as PowerShell code (Pre tag CodeHTMLer)

# Convert Int to Roman notation
# /\/\o\/\/ 2006

function format-Roman ($num  ) {  

    $M = [math]::truncate($num / 1000) 
    $num -= $M * 1000 
    $D = [math]::truncate($num / 500) 
    $num -=  $D * 500 
    $C = [math]::truncate($num / 100) 
    $num -=  $C * 100 
    $L = [math]::truncate($num / 50) 
    $num -=  $L * 50 
    $X = [math]::truncate($num / 10) 
    $num -=  $x * 10 
    $V = [math]::truncate($num / 5) 
    $num -=  $V * 5
    
    $Roman = "M" * $M
    $Roman += "D" * $D
    $Roman += "C" * $C
    $Roman += "L" * $L
    $Roman += "X" * $X
    $Roman += "V" * $V
    $Roman += "I" * $num
    
    $roman = $roman.replace('DCCCC','CM') # 900
    $roman = $roman.replace('CCCC','CD') # 400
    $roman = $roman.replace('LXXXX','XC') # 90
    $roman = $roman.replace('XXXX','XL') # 40
    $roman = $roman.replace('VIIII','IX') # 9
    $roman = $roman.replace('IIII','IV') # 4
    
    Return $Roman

}

Commandline example (Block Quote)

PoSH>format-Roman 1987
MCMLXXXVII
PoSH>format-Roman 1999
MCMXCIX
PoSH>Update-TypeData C:\PowerShell\TypeData\TypedataInt32.ps1xml
PoSH>(32).toroman()
XXXII

format an Integer in Roman notation

Type extension as XML (convert whitespace, codehtmler)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>  
<Types>  
    <Type>  
        <Name>System.Int32</Name>  
        <Members>  
            <ScriptMethod>  
                <Name>ToRoman</Name>  
                 <Script>  
                    $num = $this 

                    $M = [math]::truncate($num / 1000)  
                    $num -= $M * 1000  
                    $D = [math]::truncate($num / 500)  
                    $num -=  $D * 500  
                    $C = [math]::truncate($num / 100)  
                    $num -=  $C * 100  
                    $L = [math]::truncate($num / 50)  
                    $num -=  $L * 50  
                    $X = [math]::truncate($num / 10)  
                    $num -=  $x * 10  
                    $V = [math]::truncate($num / 5)  
                    $num -=  $V * 5 
                     
                    $Roman = "M" * $M 
                    $Roman += "D" * $D 
                    $Roman += "C" * $C 
                    $Roman += "L" * $L 
                    $Roman += "X" * $X 
                    $Roman += "V" * $V 
                    $Roman += "I" * $num 
                     
                    $roman = $roman.replace('DCCCC','CM') # 900 
                    $roman = $roman.replace('CCCC','CD') # 400 
                    $roman = $roman.replace('LXXXX','XC') # 90 
                    $roman = $roman.replace('XXXX','XL') # 40 
                    $roman = $roman.replace('VIIII','IX') # 9 
                    $roman = $roman.replace('IIII','IV') # 4 
                     
                    Return $roman 
                </Script>  
            </ScriptMethod>  

        </Members>  
    </Type>  
</Types>

* Edit * Added script again formatted by PowerShell analyzer

# Function Format-Roman
# /\/\o\/\/ 006
# http://ThePowerShellGuy.com

# HTML Formatting Generated with PowerShell Analyzer

function format-Roman ($num ) {  

    $M = [math]::truncate($num / 1000) 
    $num -= $M * 1000 
    $D = [math]::truncate($num / 500) 
    $num -=  $D * 500 
    $C = [math]::truncate($num / 100) 
    $num -=  $C * 100 
    $L = [math]::truncate($num / 50) 
    $num -=  $L * 50 
    $X = [math]::truncate($num / 10) 
    $num -=  $x * 10 
    $V = [math]::truncate($num / 5) 
    $num -=  $V * 5
    
    $Roman = "M" * $M
    $Roman += "D" * $D
    $Roman += "C" * $C
    $Roman += "L" * $L
    $Roman += "X" * $X
    $Roman += "V" * $V
    $Roman += "I" * $num
    
    $roman = $roman.replace('DCCCC','CM') # 900
    $roman = $roman.replace('CCCC','CD') # 400
    $roman = $roman.replace('LXXXX','XC') # 90
    $roman = $roman.replace('XXXX','XL') # 40
    $roman = $roman.replace('VIIII','IX') # 9
    $roman = $roman.replace('IIII','IV') # 4
    
    Return $roman

}

Enjoy, Greetings /\/\o\/\/

PowerShell Community Extensions V1.0

2006-12-14T19:57:00.000+01:00

On CodePlex there is released a major update to PSCX (PowerShell Community Extensions) that I think folks will find very useful.

be sure to Check it out !!

PowerShell Community Extensions is a PowerShell Snapin that provides a
number of widely useful cmdlets. PSCX is not affliated with Microsoft
or the Windows PowerShell team at Microsoft. We are a few (at the moment)
passionate PowerShell users who wanted more cmdlets than Micorsoft was
able to deliver in v1.0. So we have taken it upon ourselves to create
some of those cmdlets and make them available to the community.

You can download it from:
http://www.codeplex.com/PowerShellCX/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx
If you run into problems please report them here:
http://www.codeplex.com/PowerShellCX/WorkItem/List.aspx
The readme and about_pscx help topic you can find on the download page also, for you to check out what
is new in version 1.0.

Enjoy!
--
The PSCX crew (Keith Hill, Alex Angelopoulos, Mabster, DBMsW, and MoW)
P.S. If you are passionate about PoSh and can contribute by writing C#
cmdlets, let us know. We're looking for more help.

Greetings,/\/\o\/\/
Tags : PowerShell

PowerShell : Access remote eventlogs

2006-12-05T21:42:00.000+01:00

Jeffery Hicks did a 2 part series on his blog about accessing evenlogs in PowerShell

PowerShell Event Log Filtering ,

Remote Event Log Filtering

in the second part he did use WMI to acces remote eventlogs, I posted an example in the comments using .NET for it.

PoSH>$logs = [System.Diagnostics.EventLog]::GetEventLogs('Server')
PoSH>$logs[0]
Max(K) Retain OverflowAction Entries Name
------ ------ -------------- ------- ----
20,480 7 OverwriteOlder 829 Application
PoSH>$logs[0].machinename
Server
PoSH>$logs[0].entries | where `
>> {($_.EntryType -eq "Warning" -OR $_.EntryType -eq "Error") `
>> -AND ($_.TimeWritten -ge $recent)}

As an reaction to Remote Event Log Filtering in my comment Here where I did the example in the first part PowerShell Event Log Filtering again but then using the .NET object directly, he posted about powershell users not (yet) knowing the .net objects :

but a good thing about this they allready did learn about then using the CMDlet get-eventlog, as this is merely a wrapper for the .NET objects, as the examples below will show, the output and objects will be the same, only in this case you can use it agains remote computers, also you as you can see in the last example you can even "Switch" to a remote computer using only the PowerShell get-EventLog -list command, so you can see that you actualy did allready learn how to use it in the first part of Jeffery Hicks 's series only you might not know it yet ;-).

Get-EventLog -list is actualy the same as System.Diagnostics.EventLog]::GetEventLogs() :

PoSH>Get-EventLog -list
Max(K) Retain OverflowAction Entries Name
------ ------ -------------- ------- ----
20,480 7 OverwriteOlder 829 Application
...
PoSH>[System.Diagnostics.EventLog]::GetEventLogs()
Max(K) Retain OverflowAction Entries Name
------ ------ -------------- ------- ----
20,480 7 OverwriteOlder 829 Application
...

As you can find out like this

[System.Diagnostics.EventLog] | gm -s | fl *

in the output from that you will find that the latter method takes also a machinename parameter :

...

TypeName : System.Diagnostics.EventLog
Name : GetEventLogs
MemberType : Method
Definition : static System.Diagnostics.EventLog[] GetEventLogs(), static System.Diagnostics.EventLog[] GetEventLogs(Str
ing machineName)
...

Also $al = get-eventlog Application is almost the same as $al = new-object System.Diagnostics.EventLog('Application')

only here you can see that here also the result is alsmost the same, only the latter method it not completely the same, as get-eventlog CMDlets allready calls the entries() method

PoSH>$al = get-eventlog Application
PoSH>$al
Index Time Type Source EventID Message
----- ---- ---- ------ ------- -------

PoSH>$al = new-object System.Diagnostics.EventLog('Application')
PoSH>$al
Max(K) Retain OverflowAction Entries Name
------ ------ -------------- ------- ----
20,480 7 OverwriteOlder 829 Application
PoSH>$al.Entries
Index Time Type Source EventID Message
----- ---- ---- ------ ------- -------
# Remote
PoSH>new-object System.Diagnostics.EventLog('Application','foo')
Max(K) Retain OverflowAction Entries Name
------ ------ -------------- ------- ----

As again this method has more overloads :

PoSH>[System.Diagnostics.EventLog].GetConstructors() |% {"$_"}
Void .ctor()
Void .ctor(System.String)
Void .ctor(System.String, System.String)
Void .ctor(System.String, System.String, System.String)

in this case (no Enums all strings ) that is not that helpfull but we have help here, same as in the example in yesterdays post about the VbScript to PowerShell converting guide online, me (and Others) did this before for MSDN

/\/\o\/\/ PowerShelled: MSH Get-MSDN Function

PoSH>Function Get-MSDN ($type = "default") {
>> (new-object -com shell.application).Open("http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/$type.aspx")
>> }
>>
PoSH>Get-MSDN System.Diagnostics.EventLog

So again after connecting using the .NET object for the rest it is also the same and you can still use the eventlog methods as with the indexing into the getEventlogs() method in the first example $logs[0] this can even be handy

PoSH>$al = new-object System.Diagnostics.EventLog('Application')
PoSH>$al | Get-Member -membertype Method
TypeName: System.Diagnostics.EventLog
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------

PoSH>$al.WriteEvent
MemberType : Method
OverloadDefinitions : {System.Void WriteEvent(EventInstance instance, Params Object[] values), System.Void WriteEvent(E
ventInstance instance, Byte[] data, Params Object[] values)}
TypeNameOfValue : System.Management.Automation.PSMethod
Value : System.Void WriteEvent(EventInstance instance, Params Object[] values), System.Void WriteEvent(Ev
entInstance instance, Byte[] data, Params Object[] values)
Name : WriteEvent
IsInstance : True

Even a more nice example for this is the following example we use the get-eventlog -list command to get the eventlogs and then switch to another machine by changeing the machinename property as that is get / set

So it is not even needed to use the .NET Object to work agains remote computers :

PoSH>$logs = Get-EventLog -list
PoSH>$logs[0]
Max(K) Retain OverflowAction Entries Name
------ ------ -------------- ------- ----
20,480 7 OverwriteOlder 829 Application
PoSH>$logs[0].machinename = "foo"
PoSH>$logs[0]
Max(K) Retain OverflowAction Entries Name
------ ------ -------------- ------- ----
Application

So while you use get-member and use the Cmdlets in the background you also learn to know the .NET object,

so this is a good glidepath to using the .net classes when you are in need for the extra power they can give you (e.g. remoting, other functionality and /or Speed), I hope this post will also help by showing it is not that different from using the CMDlets as you get back the same .NET objects.

I think this is a good middle way ;-)

Enjoy,

Greetings,/\/\o\/\/
Tags : PowerShell

Windows PowerShell Scripting Sweepstakes!

2006-12-04T22:01:00.000+01:00

as you can read here PowerShell Scripting Contest - 2 weeks left, here Don't miss the Microsoft PowerShell Contest, here PowerShell Scripting Contest, herePowerShell Scripting Contest and here PowerShell Scripting Contest - 2 weeks left , there is still some time left te enter in the

Windows PowerShell Scripting Sweepstakes!

November 1 – December 15, 2006

What also can help is the excelent:

VbScript to Windows PowerShell translation guide

for looking up VbScript commands, or inspiration, for example yo could write a function to do a quick lookup in it

for example you can write a function to do that from the PowerShell console so yo cando :

PoSH>convert-VbScript
PoSH>convert-VbScript inputbox
PoSH>convert-VbScript getObject

to start internet explorer to do a quick lookup in that guide to get help on how to translate the VbScript command you remember to PowerShell, that could be as simple as this :

# Use the Scripting Guy's VbScript to Windows PowerShell translation guide 
# for help to convert vbScript commands 

Function convert-VbScript ($Command = "default") {  
  (new-object -com shell.application).Open("http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/topics/winpsh/convert/$command.mspx")  
}

Started without the commandname it starts the index otherwise it will bring you directly to the page about the command given

or one to remind how much time long you still have

PoSH>function get-TimeLeftToEnterPowerShellContest {(get-date -date "12/15/2006 23:55").Subtract((get-date))}
PoSH>get-TimeLeftToEnterPowerShellContest
Days : 11
Hours : 2
Minutes : 21
Seconds : 43
Milliseconds : 719
Ticks : 9589037192755
TotalDays : 11.0984226767998
TotalHours : 266.362144243194
TotalMinutes : 15981.7286545917
TotalSeconds : 958903.7192755
TotalMilliseconds : 958903719.2755

hope this guide and the examples get you started with an script for the contest,

Enjoy,

Greetings,
/\/\o\/\/
Tags : PowerShell

PowerShell : making Custum Enums

2006-12-04T20:06:00.000+01:00

In PowerShell you often see the use of enum's

for some info , examples of Enums and there usage see :

/\/\o\/\/ PowerShelled: Exploring .NET types, classes and Enums ...,

/\/\o\/\/ PowerShelled: Get SpecialFolder Locations in Monad,

/\/\o\/\/ PowerShelled: Adding a Simple AccesRule to a file ACL in MSH

as you can see in the Special Forder function this is very handy for some parameters :

It is not possible yet to create Enums and classes directly in PowerShell, but there is a way by using Reflection :

# Make a Custom Enum in PowerShell

$cd = [AppDomain]::CurrentDomain

$an = new-object System.Reflection.AssemblyName('Mow')
$ab = $cd.DefineDynamicAssembly($an,'RunAndSave')
$mb = $ab.DefineDynamicModule($an.Name, "$($an.Name).dll")
$eb = $mb.DefineEnum("Fruit",'Public', [int])

& {
  $eb.DefineLiteral('Apple',1)
  $eb.DefineLiteral('strawberry',2)
  $eb.DefineLiteral('Banana',3)
} | out-null

$t = $eb.CreateType()

It might not look that way, but this is "Fasten your Seatbells (c) Jeffrey Snover" - Code (you can even create complete classes this way but that's outside my "Scope" (@ reading developers : but this would be real cool material for a CMDlet *Wink* *Wink* )),

Hence, I won't go into the workings to much, to get an impression after runnin the code try :

$cd,$an,$mb,$eb | gm

but the code as is, is easy to customize, e.g. to add a Kiwi to the list with number 4 add a line like this

$eb.DefineLiteral('Kiwi',4)

As you can see here this is handy for custom functions :

...

PoSH>$t = $eb.CreateType()

PoSH>[fruit]

IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType
-------- -------- ---- --------
True True Fruit System.Enum
PoSH>[enum]::GetNames([fruit])
Apple
strawberry
Banana

PoSH>function new-FruitShake ([fruit]$f) {"Here is your $f Shake"}

PoSH>new-FruitShake Apple
Here is your Apple Shake

PoSH>new-FruitShake chocolate
new-FruitShake : Cannot convert value "chocolate" to type "Fruit" due to invalid enumeration values. Specify one of the
following enumeration values and try again. The possible enumeration values are "Apple, strawberry, Banana".
At line:1 char:15
+ new-FruitShake <<<< chocolate

If you have my custom tabcompletion

/\/\o\/\/ PowerShelled: PowerShell : Tabcompletion Part 5 or

/\/\o\/\/ PowerShelled: PowerShell Tab Completion Part 4

you can even tabcomplete on it :

[fruit]A[tab]

[fruit]Apple

Enjoy,

Greetings /\/\o\/\/

Tags : PowerShell

TechNet Webcast: An Overview of Windows PowerShell

2006-11-30T01:31:00.000+01:00

For the PowerShell calendar :

TechNet Webcast: An Overview of Windows PowerShell (Level 200)

Presenter: Don Jones, Scripting Guru, Author, SAPIEN Technology

Event Name: TechNet Webcast: An Overview of Windows PowerShell (Level 200)
Start Date: 12/19/2006
Start Time: 1:00 PM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada)
End Date: 12/19/2006
End Time: 2:00 PM (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada)

Enjoy,

Greetings,
/\/\o\/\/
Tags : PowerShell

"Windows PowerShell: TFM" goes "Gold"

2006-11-29T01:57:00.000+01:00

One question/remark I did hear very often at the IT Forum is about available books for PowerShell and about Editors for PowerShell .

Don Jones, from Sapiens, well know from the script Editor PrimalScript . (PrimalScript 4.1 introduces support for Microsoft's Windows PowerShell! and did go RTM at the same time as PowerShell, at the IT Forum.!!)

But they do much more, as giving Scripting Training (also PowerShell) and Publishing (SAPIEN Press)

Also they cover a lot of PowerShell material online : - A blog http://sapien.eponym.com/blog, - Scripting / PowerShell Forums :ScriptingAnswers.com and a search engine with PowerShell support: SearchScripting.com

Today Don Jones also did announce that the book he was writing Windows PowerShell: TFM has gone Gold,

See the following message I got from him :

Jeff Hicks and I are very pleased to announce that Windows PowerShell: TFM is now “gold,” meaning the manuscript is complete and should be off to the printer’s sometime this week. We’re just waiting on the cover design to be completed. The manuscript checked in at 470 pages, including the index, meeting our target for a highly on-topic book that administrators will find approachable and comfortable to read.
Pre-orders are available on Amazon.com, and our first official sample chapters are posted, along with a complete table of contents (all in one PDF) on www.SAPIENPress.com/powershell.asp. The book’s sample scripts are also available now as a free download for one and all, whether they’ve purchased the book or not.
We hope to announce shipping and general availability dates in December.
Some quick facts:
- Almost 500 pages of Windows PowerShell-flavored goodness
- Walks a Windows admin through the PoSH learning process from the ground up
- Focuses on task completion, helping admins get the job done faster
- Chosen by more than 50% of Amazon.com customers shopping for a PoSH title
- Currently in the top 100,000 books on Amazon.com
- Book is supported personally by the authors through a forum on www.ScriptingAnswers.com.

I did not read the book yet,only the preview chapter I did post about before, but when I do, I will do another post about my impression of the book but I'm very sure it will be a great read and this will be another "Must have" Book about PowerShell, from the sample chapters, seeing all the PowerShell coverage and support they provide online, and of course the writer Don Jones,who did write very good scripting books before.

I had the pleasure to meet Don Jones 2 times, at TechEd Boston and on the IT forum, on both events he also did give some impressive Demos of the PowerShell support in PrimalScript.He is a great guy, a real Scripting and PowerShell Guru, a good presenter and very good in explaining and teaching.

Hence, I'm sure I can recommend this book for learning PowerShell.

I also got the opportunity to, and did review the book from Bruce Payette that is available in the :Windows PowerShell in Action - EARLY ACCESS EDITION program, I finished reading it in my vacation, and I really loved this book, it is well written, good examples, and lots of inside and background information, the book does focus on the language itself and how PowerShell is structured and why ,starting at the core, as there are some advanced concepts that lay at the base of how PowerShell works,.

The PowerShell in Action book is a "must Read" , I think it is a great book, one of the best technical books I did read ever , More in a later post

the RTM book is a different format and from another viewpoint, so it could be good combination, a more in a later post when I also did read TFM.

So next to the excellent documentation (getting started and UserGuide) that does come with the PowerShell installation (if you did not do that yet, be sure to check it out !, it is really great !!! )

There are, next to the books about Monad and MSH beta s :

Monad (PowerShell Beta) see :/\/\o\/\/ PowerShelled: Series about Monad on Computerworld ,
and Lee holmes (who is Member of the PowerShell team and also has a great powerShell blog ) wrote O'Reilly PowerShell Quick Reference (see also his Blog O'Reilly PowerShell Quick Reference Now Available )
and also we have the Free E-book Don Jones did before See /\/\o\/\/ PowerShelled: Powershell links and free E-book :

Now allreay two very books, to learn more about PowerShell (release), that you can get your hands on, and there are much more in the pipeline ,amongs others : Professional Windows from Andrew Watt ,

Andrew Watt is a MVP and also is very active on the Newsgroup : microsoft.public.windows.powershell NewsGroup and also has a PowerShell blog : PowerShell Ponderings

Enjoy,

Greetings,
/\/\o\/\/
Tags : PowerShell

PowerShell : Advanced renaming of files

2006-11-25T17:09:00.000+01:00

On the NewsGroup microsoft.public.windows.powershell ,

there was a Question about : Advanced renaming directly in Powershell?

The Question was about doing advanced file renaming, to rename a set of files like this :

file.ex2
file.ext
file_1.ex2
file_1.ext
file_2.ext

to the following format, Giving a base number and then rename the files and use the _3 as an offset to the number

file12.ex2
file12.ext
file13.ex2
file13.ext
file14.ext

Now the rename-object commandlet in PowerShell is very powerfull for this, some basic renaming might be a bit hard at first see also /\/\o\/\/ PowerShelled: PowerShell : How Can I Rename Files Using ... (a CSV file) and commments on this post Upgrading MSH, My first Windows PowerShell Commands about renaming *.msh to *.ps1,

But as the -NewName parameter takes a ScriptBlock as a parameter it is very handy to use some more advanced logic to rename file as you also can use the Power of the -Match and -Replce Operators RegEx support.

I Came up with this oneliner for this task :

PoSH>$num = 12
PoSH>ls file*.ex* | rename-item -newname {if($_.name -match '_(\d)'){$num = $num + $matches[1]};$_.name -replace "file.*\.", "file$num."} -WhatIf
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file.ex2 Destination: C:\PowerShell\file12.ex2".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file.ext Destination: C:\PowerShell\file12.ext".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file_1.ex2 Destination: C:\PowerShell\file13.ex2".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file_1.ext Destination: C:\PowerShell\file13.ext".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file_2.ext Destination: C:\PowerShell\file14.ext".

As there is happening a lot in this one line of code I'm going to work it out a bit more in this post.

lets first make the files and list them :

PoSH>sc file.ext 'a'
PoSH>sc file.ex2 'a'
PoSH>sc file_1.ex2 'a'
PoSH>sc file_1.ext 'a'
PoSH>sc file_2.ext 'a'
PoSH>ls file*.ex*
Directory: Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\FileSystem::C:\PowerShell
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
---- ------------- ------ ----
-a--- 11/25/2006 1:55 PM 3 file.ex2
-a--- 11/25/2006 1:54 PM 3 file.ext
-a--- 11/25/2006 1:55 PM 3 file_1.ex2
-a--- 11/25/2006 1:55 PM 3 file_1.ext
-a--- 11/25/2006 2:15 PM 3 file_2.ext

Now that we have listed the files we want to act upon ( al files starting with file and ending with .ex* )

we can pipe them to rename object :

PoSH>ls file*.ex* | rename-item -newname {$_.name} -WhatIf

What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file.ex2 Destination: C:\PowerShell\file.ex2".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file.ext Destination: C:\PowerShell\file.ext".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file_1.ex2 Destination: C:\PowerShell\file_1.ex2".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file_1.ext Destination: C:\PowerShell\file_1.ext".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file_2.ext Destination: C:\PowerShell\file_2.ext".

Note that in the scriptblock I provided to the -newname parameter I have access to the complete File Object in the $_ variable, I just use it to get the name property and do not do any processing yet, also note that I added the -WhatIf parameter so no changes are made and I we can test freely till we got it right without messing up your testfiles.

Now lets start by adding the Base Number for it, in this case 12 that I put in the variable $num

PoSH>$num = 12

PoSH>ls file*.ex* | rename-item -newname {$_.name -replace "file.*\.", "file$num." } -WhatIf

What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file.ex2 Destination: C:\PowerShell\file12.ex2".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file.ext Destination: C:\PowerShell\file12.ext".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file_1.ex2 Destination: C:\PowerShell\file12.ex2".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file_1.ext Destination: C:\PowerShell\file12.ext".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file_2.ext Destination: C:\PowerShell\file12.ext".

In this first step we use the -replace operator to insert the basenumber given into the filename by replacing everything between the word file and the extension.

note that -replace uses RegEx expressions not wildcards so the expression looks like this : "file.*\." first the word file, then we need to use a dot . before the * that means any character and we need to escape the last (literal) dot by escaping it \.

but as you can see in the following steps this makes it much more powerfull as also the -mach operator uses the regular expression engine, so we can use the full RegEx power.

Next we need to raise the number for filesnames that do contain an _ with the number that is behind it.

we can use the mach operator to do this (note again that we use -WhatIf so are free just to return anything we want) :

PoSH>ls file*.ex* | rename-item -newname {$_.name -match '_' } -WhatIf

What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file.ex2 Destination: C:\PowerShell\False".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file.ext Destination: C:\PowerShell\False".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file_1.ex2 Destination: C:\PowerShell\True".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file_1.ext Destination: C:\PowerShell\True".
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: C:\PowerShell\file_2.ext Destination: C:\PowerShell\True".

The -Mach operator returns $True or $False , but does more it also fills the $maches variable, lets look at this with a single filename to look how this works :

PoSH>"file_1.ex2" -match '_'
True
PoSH>$matches
Name Value
---- -----
0 _
PoSH>"file_1.ex2" -match '_\d'
True
PoSH>$matches[0]
_1

You can see here that the $matches variable does contain the Capture found, in the second example I did add \d that means any digit.

but as with a fullBlown [regex] object also the -match operator supports subCaptures, so we can get the Number :

PoSH>$matches
Name Value
---- -----
1 1
0 _1
PoSH>$matches[1]
1

So now we can combine the $true returned by -match and the capture made in $matches with an If statement to do the Math :

PoSH>if ("file_1.ex2" -match '_(\d)'){$matches[1]}
1
PoSH>if ("file_2.ex2" -match '_(\d)'){$matches[1]}
2
PoSH>if ("file_2.ex2" -match '_(\d)'){$num + $matches[1]}
14

and all can be combined the the one-liner I did post on the NewGroup, what also could be written like this in PowerShell to make it a bit more readable and you can still just past it into the PowerShell console

$num = 12

Dir file*.ex* |

  rename-item -newname {

    if($_.name -match '_(\d)'){
      $num = $num + $matches[1]
    }

    $_.name -replace "file.*\.", "file$num."

  } -WhatIf

I hope this post makes it clear how easy it is to make and test advanced rename jobs interactivly on the console by using -WhatIf and command history, and then while ready format as a script, and how powerfull the RegEx support of -match and -Replace is.

Enjoy,

Greetings,
/\/\o\/\/
Tags : PowerShell

PowerShell : Playing with LeapYears

2006-11-24T18:52:00.000+01:00

On Rob van der Woude's Scripting Pages, there is an excelent PowerShell section,

with some good links and some examples.

one of the examples is how to test a year if it is a leap year.

this script did look a bit for such a trivial task in powerShell, as I did Know that the .NET [dateTime] class did have some handy methods, I started out like this :

PoSH>[datetime]::IsLeapYear(2006)
False
PoSH>[datetime]::IsLeapYear(2008)
True

but ofcourse this was not the only thing the script did do if you look at the original script we just replaced one line

# Check if the specified year is a leap year

[boolean]$leapyear = ( [boolean]!( $year % 4 ) -and [boolean]( $year % 100 ) ) -or [boolean]!( $year % 400 )

Read some info from the host

PoSH>[datetime]::IsLeapYear((read-host "Year:"))
Year:: 2006
False
PoSH>[datetime]::IsLeapYear((read-host "Year"))
Year: 8
True

Add some formatting

PoSH>function get-leapYear ($year = (read-host "Year")){"$year = Leapyear : {0}" -f [datetime]::IsLeapYear($Year)}
PoSH>get-leapyear 2008
2008 = Leapyear : True

Combine asking the year and providing default value

PoSH>function get-leapYear ($year = (read-host "Year")) {if(! $year) {$year = (get-date).year} ; "$year = Leapyear : {0}
" -f [datetime]::IsLeapYear($Year)}
PoSH>get-leapYear
Year: 2008
2008 = Leapyear : True
PoSH>get-leapYear
Year:
2006 = Leapyear : False
PoSH>get-leapYear 12
12 = Leapyear : True

Gotha with 2 digit years

PoSH>(get-date -year 12).year -lt (get-date).year
True
PoSH>(get-date -year 2012).year -lt (get-date).year
False

below 30 use 2000 rangle

PoSH>[datetime]::ParseExact("12","yy",$null).year
2012

so to solve that :

PoSH>function get-leapYear ($year = (read-host "Year")) {if(! $year) {$year = (get-date).year} ; if ($year -lt 100){$yea
r = [datetime]::ParseExact($year,"yy",$null).year};"$year = Leapyear : {0}" -f [datetime]::IsLeapYear($Year)}
PoSH>get-leapYear 12
2012 = Leapyear : True

Formatting of the past, present or future

PoSH>switch ((get-date -year 2007).year - (get-date).year){0 {"is"} default {if ($_ -gt 0){"will be"} else {"was"}}}
will be
PoSH>switch ((get-date -year 2005).year - (get-date).year){0 {"is"} default {if ($_ -gt 0){"will be"} else {"was"}}}
was
PoSH>switch ((get-date -year 2006).year - (get-date).year){0 {"is"} default {if ($_ -gt 0){"will be"} else {"was"}}}
is

So complete :

PoSH>function get-leapYear ($year = (read-host "Year")) {if(! $year) {$year = (get-date).year} ; if ($year -lt 100){$yea
r = [datetime]::ParseExact($year,"yy",$null).year};"$year {0} a Leap Year" -f $(switch ((get-date -year $year).year - (g
et-date).year){0 {"is {0}"} default {if ($_ -gt 0){"will {0} be"} else {"was {0}"}}}) -f $(if ( ![datetime]::IsLeapYear(
$Year)){"NOT"})}
PoSH>get-leapYear 2005
2005 was NOT a Leap Year
PoSH>get-leapYear 2006
2006 is NOT a Leap Year
PoSH>>get-leapYear 2007
2007 will NOT be a Leap Year
PoSH>get-leapYear 2008
2008 will be a Leap Year
PoSH>get-leapYear 12
2012 will be a Leap Year

So you can see the sample was not that bad except for not using the [dateTime]::IsLeapYear() function .

but I hope you see from above examples how flexible you can work in PoSH, bu handling the input and formatting in different ways as I tested this all as onliners interactively.

now ofcourse some whitespace an variables would be handy.

Enjoy,
Greetings,
/\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad PowerShell

Download PowerShell 1.0 RTM

2006-11-15T18:37:00.000+01:00

as said in last post, PowerShell did RTM yesterday
as anounced on the IT Forum

due to Time differences, the RTW was a bit later but here is the link

Download Windows PowerShell 1.0

Enjoy,

Greetings,

/\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad PowerShell

PowerShell goes RTM

2006-11-14T11:41:00.000+01:00

I just came from the Keynote of the IT Forum,
and did hear the great news that PowerShell goes RTM today.

More info later.

Enjoy,
Greetings, /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad PowerShell

Windows PowerShell Week on ScriptCenter

2006-10-20T17:33:00.000+02:00

On the scriptcenter on Technet, you can find information about the Windows PowerShell Week

by the Scripting Guy , a series of webcasts about PowerShell, to be held November 6-10.

Don't miss it !

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad PowerShell

PowerShell : How Can I Split a String Only on Specific Instances of a Character?

2006-10-19T22:10:00.000+02:00

Hey PowerShell Guy : How Can I Split a String Only on Specific Instances of a Character?

PoSH>[regex]::Split("aaa&bbb&ccc&aamp;ddd","&(?!amp)")
aaa
bbb&ccc
aamp;ddd

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad PowerShell

PowerShell : How Can I Tell Whether a Number is Even or Odd?

2006-10-19T21:32:00.000+02:00

Hey PowerShell Guy : How Can I Tell Whether a Number is Even or Odd?

Function check-even ($num) {[bool]!($num%2)}

PoSH>check-even 12
True
PoSH>check-even 13
False

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad PowerShell

PowerShell : 99-bottles-of-beer

2006-10-19T09:12:00.000+02:00

I came at this page : 99-bottles-of-beer.net ,

I could not resist making and submitting a PowerShell example to it.
I came to this example :

# 99-bottles-of-beer 

99..1 |% {("{0} bottle{1} of beer on the wall, {0} bottle{1} of beer. 
Take one down and pass it around, {2} bottle{3} of beer on the wall.`n" -f  
$_,$(if ($_ -ne 1){"s"}),($_ -1),$(if ($_ -ne 2){"s"})).replace(' 0',' No more')}

Note, this sample does handle the bottle(s) and 0 = No More, to keep it at least a bit of a chalenge in PowerShell ;-).

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad PowerShell

PowerShell : Tabcompletion Part 5

2006-10-18T18:33:00.000+02:00

I realy added a lot on my TabCompletion :

this function realy makes PowerShell fly for me :

***

*Edit* I made beter version of this script on my new
blog : The PowerShell Guy ( http://ThePowerShellGuy.com )
As it comes with an installer its much more easy to
setup,
and it uses one database for all data, it works mostly the
same as this one
Just download the PowerTab.ZIP file from the overview page here :

http://thepowershellguy.com/blogs/posh/pages/powertab.aspx

run PowetTabSetup.Ps1 and you are ready to go

***

I will Post my current TabCompletion below, I contains a lot of additions I realy like and the GUI selecting of items in a list I think is handy also as

GUI support
WMI Support
Alias Support
Function Support
History support
() Support (Take Care as all will be executed on Tab)
Custom additions
Loading and saving of Configuration

Some of the additions in this version might be to specific, could be constructed better or are not consistent, but this version is my own current version as it has grown I and might need some cleaning up, but I posted this version for trying out and to tweak it to your need or to get some ideas and to get you started on Custom tab completion, or just use it as is .

As I think*Note* this script is also on Codeplex in : PowerShell Utility scipts as my last version this works as is.

For this version to work you need some preparement as it needs some utility scripts and a XML file to work, the code to make the XML file is needed only once, the loading of it needs to be done every time a new shell is started, so it is best placed in your profile: (for testing if you past in all of the codeblocks your also ready to go),

Utility Functions (to be called in profile)

# Custom Tab Completion Helper Functions
 
Function add-tabCompletion ([string]$filter,[string]$Text,[string]$type){
  $global:dsTabCompletion.Tables['CustomTabExpansion'].Rows.Add($filter,$text,$type)
}

Function Save-tabCompletion {
  $global:dsTabCompletion.WriteXml("$PSHome\TabCompletion.xml")
}

Function Load-tabCompletion {
  $global:dsTabCompletion = new-object data.dataset
  $global:dsTabCompletion.ReadXml("$PSHome\TabCompletion.xml")
}

Function Get-tabCompletion {
  $global:dsTabCompletion.tables['CustomTabExpansion']
}

Function New-tabCompletion {
  $global:dsTabCompletion = new-object data.dataset

  $global:dtCustomTabExpansion = new-Object data.datatable
  [VOID]($global:dtCustomTabExpansion.Columns.add('Filter',[string]))
  [VOID]($global:dtCustomTabExpansion.Columns.add('Text',[string]))
  [VOID]($global:dtCustomTabExpansion.Columns.add('Type',[string]))
  $global:dtCustomTabExpansion.tablename = 'CustomTabExpansion'
  $global:dsTabCompletion.Tables.Add($global:dtCustomTabExpansion)
}

Function find-tabCompletion ([string]$filter) {
  $global:dsTabCompletion.Tables['CustomTabExpansion'].select("filter like '$filter'") % {$_}
}

Function Refresh-TabCompletionAlias {
  $global:dsTabCompletion.Tables['CustomTabExpansion'].select("Type = 'Alias'") % {$global:dsTabCompletion.Tables['CustomTabExpansion'].rows.remove($_)}
  Get-Alias % {add-tabCompletion $_.name $_.Definition 'Alias'}
}

Function Refresh-TabCompletionFunction {
  $global:dsTabCompletion.Tables['CustomTabExpansion'].select("Type = 'Function'") % {$global:dsTabCompletion.Tables['CustomTabExpansion'].rows.remove($_)}
  Get-Command -commandType "Function"% {add-tabCompletion $_.name $_.name $_.CommandType}
}

Then you need to build the Tab Completion DataBase for first use.

Build XML file (one time only needed)

# Create Initial Tab-Completion DataBase

New-tabCompletion

Get-Alias % {add-tabCompletion $_.name $_.Definition 'Alias'}

Get-Command -commandType "Function, Filter, Cmdlet"% {add-tabCompletion $_.name $_.name $_.CommandType}

add-tabCompletion '%' ' foreach-object {}' 'Custom'
add-tabCompletion '?' ' Where-object {}' 'Custom'

Save-tabCompletion

Load-tabCompletion

as you can see here, after we did initial fill it we can use the functions to customize it and then save it again,.I also added 2 functions to update the Alias and Function list.

Also as te Tabcompletion function uses a GUI you need to load this help function also :

Out-DataGridView needed loaded for tabcompletion (profile)

*edit* needed formas library :

[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.windows.forms")

# Function out-datagridView
#
# shows piplineinput in a GUI using a datagridView
# and returns the given field on double-Click or Enter
#
# /\/\o\/\/ 2006 
# http:mow001.blogspot.com 

Function out-dataGridView ([String]$ReturnField){ 

  # Make DataTable from Input 

  $dt = new Data.datatable 
  $First = $true 
  foreach ($item in $input){ 
    $DR = $DT.NewRow() 
    $Item.PsObject.get_properties()  foreach { 
      If ($first) { 
        $Col =  new-object Data.DataColumn 
        $Col.ColumnName = $_.Name.ToString() 
        $DT.Columns.Add($Col)       } 
      if ($_.value -eq $null) { 
        $DR.Item($_.Name) = "[empty]" 
      } 
      ElseIf ($_.IsArray) { 
        $DR.Item($_.Name) =[string]::Join($_.value ,";") 
      } 
      Else { 
        $DR.Item($_.Name) = $_.value 
      } 
    } 
    $DT.Rows.Add($DR) 
    $First = $false 
  } 

  # show Datatable in Form  

  $form = new-object Windows.Forms.form  
  $form.Size = new-object System.Drawing.Size @(1000,600)  
  $DG = new-object windows.forms.DataGridView 
  $DG.DataSource = $DT.psObject.baseobject  
  $DG.Dock = [System.Windows.Forms.DockStyle]::Fill
  $dg.ColumnHeadersHeightSizeMode = [System.Windows.Forms.DataGridViewColumnHeadersHeightSizeMode]::AutoSize
$dg.SelectionMode = 'FullRowSelect'
  $dg.add_DoubleClick({
    $script:ret = $this.SelectedRows % {$_.DataboundItem["$ReturnField"]}
    $form.Close()
  })
 
  $form.text = "$($myinvocation.line)" 
$form.KeyPreview = $true
$form.Add_KeyDown({
  if ($_.KeyCode -eq 'Enter') {
    $script:ret = $DG.SelectedRows % {$_.DataboundItem["$ReturnField"]}
    $form.Close()
  }
  ElseIf ($_.KeyCode -eq 'Escape'){
    $form.Close()
  }
}) 
 
  $form.Controls.Add($DG) 
  $Form.Add_Shown({$form.Activate();$dg.AutoResizeColumns()}) 
  $script:ret = $null 
  [void]$form.showdialog() 
  $script:ret
} 

And after that ofcourse load the TabCompletion replacement : TabCompletion Function (load in profile)

# TabExpansion.ps1 
# RC2 Version 0.5 
# Replacement of default TabExpansion function 
# /\/\o\/\/ 2006 
# www.ThePowerShellGuy.com


#$global:dtAssemblies = $null
#$global:dtWmiClasses = $null

function TabExpansion { 

    # This is the default function that gets called for tab expansion. 
    # Edited by /\/\o\/\/ from the original to handle : 
    #  - Cached tab completion on types (janel / mow). 
    #  - Methods and properties of types 
    #  - shows get_ methods 
    #  - MultiLevel variable Tab Completion 
    #  - Bracet Removal        
    # Edited by DBMwS: Added Progressbar and Scoped variable name expansion 
    # /\/\o\/\/ added WMI Tab completion win32_[tab]/cim_[tab]/msft_[tab]
    # expansion on aliases / custom aliases
    # simple () expansion
    # history expansion
    # GUI Expansion
  
    param($line, $lastWord) 
  
        $_Method = [Management.Automation.PSMemberTypes] 'Method,CodeMethod,ScriptMethod,ParameterizedProperty' 
        $_ScopeNames = @("global", "local", "script", "private") 

        switch -regex ($line)  {
                # Handle property and method expansion on simple () blocks( added /\/\o\/\/)... 
                '^\((.+)\)\.(.*)' { 
                  $val = "($($matches[1]))"
                  invoke-expression "Get-Member -inputobject $val" ? {$_.name -like "$($matches[2])*"}  foreach { 
                         if ($_.MemberType -band $_method) 
                         { 
                       
                             # Return a method... 
                             $lastword.Substring(0,$lastword.LastIndexOf('.')) + '.'  + $_.name + '(' 
                         } 
                         else { 
                            # Return a property... 
                           $lastword.Substring(0,$lastword.LastIndexOf('.')) + '.'  + $_.name
                         } 
                    } 
                    break; 
                } 
}

        switch -regex ($lastWord)  {

                # GUI Shortcuts 

                'w_(.*)' {$global:dtWmiClasses.Select("name like 'win32_$($matches[1])%'","name")  out-dataGridView name}
                'A_(.*)' {$global:dtAssemblies.Select("name like '%$($matches[1])%'","name")  out-dataGridView name}
                'f_' {ls function:  select name  out-dataGridView name}
                'd_' {ls   select Mode,LastWriteTime,Length,Name,fullname  out-dataGridView fullname}
                'e_' {"@{e={};Name=}"}
                'h_(.*)' {Get-History -count 900  ? {$_.CommandLine -like "$($matches[1])*"}  foreach-object {$_.CommandLine}}
                'g_' {Get-History -Count 100  out-dataGridView Commandline}
                'c_(.*)' {$global:dsTabCompletion.Tables['CustomTabExpansion'].select("filter like '$($matches[1])%'","text")  out-dataGridView text}

                # WMI completion                

               '(win32_.*cim_.*MSFT_.*)' {
                  # First time fill list

                  if (!($global:dtWmiClasses)) {

                     $global:dtWmiClasses = new data.datatable
                     [VOID]($global:dtWmiClasses.Columns.add('name',[string]))
                     [VOID]($global:dtWmiClasses.Columns.add('Description',[string]))

                     $WmiClass = [WmiClass]'' 

                     # Set Enumeration Options 

                     $opt = new-object system.management.EnumerationOptions 
                     $opt.EnumerateDeep = $True 
                     $opt.UseAmendedQualifiers = $true 

                     $i = 0 ; write-progress "Adding WMI Classes" "$i"
                     $WmiClass.psBase.GetSubclasses($opt)  foreach {
                     $i++ ; if ($i%10 -eq 0) {write-progress "Adding WMI Classes" "$i"} 
                          [void]$global:dtWmiClasses.rows.add($_.name,($_.psbase.Qualifiers ? {$_.Name -eq 'description'} % {$_.Value}))
                     }
                     write-progress "Adding WMI Classes" "$i" -Completed
                   }


                   $global:dtWmiClasses.select("name like '$($matches[1])%'") % {$_.name}
                   break;
               }

                # Handle property and method expansion on simple () blocks( added /\/\o\/\/)... 
                '^\((.+)\)\.(.*)' { 
                  $val = "($($matches[1]))"
                  invoke-expression "Get-Member -inputobject $val" ? {$_.name -like "$($matches[2])*"}  foreach { 
                         if ($_.MemberType -band $_method) 
                         { 
                       
                             # Return a method... 
                             $val + '.' + $_.name + '(' 
                         } 
                         else { 
                            # Return a property... 
                           $val + '.' + $_.name 
                         } 
                    } 
                    break; 
                } 
                # Handle property and method expansion (MultiLevel added /\/\o\/\/)... 
                '\$(.+)\.(.*)' { 
                    $variableName =  $matches[1] 
                    $val = '$' + $matches[1] 
                    $level = $matches[2].split('.').count 
                    if ($level -gt 1) { 
                        $ofs = '.';$val = '$' + $variableName + ".$($matches[2].split('.')[0..($level -2)])" 
                    } 
                    $pat = $matches[2].split('.')[($level -1)] + '*' 
                    # /\/\o\/\/ removed : -and $n -notmatch '^[ge]et_' 
                    # to get get_ methods on WMI and AD objects 
                    invoke-expression "Get-Member -inputobject $val"  where {$n = $_.name; $n -like $pat }  foreach { 
                         if ($_.MemberType -band $_method) 
                         { 
                            # Return a method... 
                             $val + '.' + $_.name + '(' 
                         } 
                         else { 
                            # Return a property... 
                           $val + '.' + $_.name 
                         } 
                    } 
                    break; 
                } 
 
            # Remove Brackets from typename (/\/\o\/\/) 
               '(\[.*\])=(\w*)' { 
                   "new-Object $($matches[1].replace('[','').replace(']',''))" 
                   break; 
               } 

            # Handle Static methods of Types (/\/\o\/\/).. 
            '(\[.*\])::(\w*)' { 
                invoke-expression "$($matches[1])  gm -static"  where {$_.name -like "$($matches[2])*"} % { 
                    if ($_.MemberType -band $_Method) { 
                        "$($matches[1])::$($_.name)" + '(' 
                    } Else { 
                        "$($matches[1])::$($_.name)" 
                    } 
                } 
                break; 
            } 

           # Handle methods of Types (/\/\o\/\/).. 
            '^(\[.*\]).(\w*)' { 
                invoke-expression "$($matches[1])  gm"  where {$_.name -like "$($matches[2])*"} % { 
                    if ($_.MemberType -band $_Method) { 
                        "$($matches[1]).$($_.name)" + '(' 
                    } Else { 
                        "$($matches[1]).$($_.name)" 
                    } 
                } 
                break; 
            } 


  
            # Cache and Handle namespace and TypeNames (/\/\o\/\/) .. 
            '^\[(.*)' { 
                $matched = $matches[1] 
                # only the first time Fill a DataTable with Typenames,namespaces and dotCount (level) 
                if (!($global:dtAssemblies)) { 
                    $global:dtAssemblies = New-Object System.Data.Datatable 
                    [VOID]($global:dtAssemblies.Columns.add('name',[string])) 
                    [VOID]($global:dtAssemblies.Columns.add('DC',[int])) 
                    [VOID]($global:dtAssemblies.Columns.add('NS',[string])) 
                    $assemblies = [appdomain]::CurrentDomain.getassemblies() 
                    [void] ($assemblies  % {$i = 0} { 
                        $i++; 
                        [int]$assemblyProgress = ($i * 100) / $assemblies.Length 
                        write-progress "Adding Assembly $($_.getName().name):" "$assemblyProgress" -perc $assemblyProgress 
                         $types = $_.GetTypes() ? {$_.IsPublic -eq $true}
                        $types % {$j = 0} { 
                            $j++; 
                            if (($j % 200) -eq 0) { 
                                [int]$typeProgress = ($j * 100) / $types.Length 
                                write-progress  "Adding types percent complete :" "$typeProgress" -perc $typeProgress -id 1 
                            } 
  
                            $dc = $_.fullName.split(".").count - 1 
                            $ns = $_.namespace 
                            $global:dtAssemblies.rows.add("$_",$dc,$ns) 
                        } 

                        # Stubs added 
                        $dtAssemblies.rows.add('windows stub',2,'System.Windows')
                        write-progress "Adding types percent complete :" "100" -perc 100 -id 1 
                    }) 
                } 
  
                # actual tab completion 
                $dots = $matches[1].split(".").count - 1 
                switch ($dots) { 
                    0 {"[System","[Microsoft","[IronPython"} 
                    Default { 
                        $res = @() 
                        $res += $global:dtAssemblies.select("ns like '$($matched)%' and dc = $($dots + 1)")   
                            select -uni ns % {"[$($_.ns)"}; 
                        $res += $global:dtAssemblies.select("name like '$($matched)%' and dc = $dots") % {"[$($_.name)]"} 
                        $res 
                    } 
                } 
                break; 
            } 
 


  

 

  
            # Handle expansions for both "Scope Variable Name" and "Type Variable Names" (DbmwS) 
            '(.*^\$)(\w+):(\w*)$' { 
                $type = $matches[2];        # function, variable, etc.. that are not scopes 
                $prefix = $matches[1] + $type;  # $ + function 
                $typeName = $matches[3];            # e.g. in '$function:C', value will be 'C' 
             
                if ($_ScopeNames -contains $type) { 
                    # Scope Variable Name Expansion 
                    foreach ($scopeVariable in 
                        (Get-Variable "$($typeName)*" -Scope $type  Sort-Object name)) { 
                        $prefix + ":" + $scopeVariable.Name 
                    } 
                } else { 
                    # Type name expansion($function:, $variable, $env: ,etc) 
                    foreach ($t in (Get-ChildItem ($type + ":" + $typeName + '*')  Sort-Object name)) { 
                        $prefix + ":" + $t.Name 
                    } 
                } 
                break; 
            } 
  
            # Handle variable name expansion (original)... 
            '(.*^\$)(\w+)$' { 
                $prefix = $matches[1] 
                $varName = $matches[2] 
                foreach ($v in Get-Childitem ('variable:' + $varName + '*')) { 
                    $prefix + $v.name 
                } 
                break; 
            } 
  
            # Do completion on parameters (original) ... 
            '^-([\w0-9]*)' { 
                $pat = $matches[1] + '*' 
  
                # extract the command name from the string 
                # first split the string into statements and pipeline elements 
                # This doesnt handle strings however. 
                $cmdlet = [regex]::Split($line, '[;]')[-1] 
  
                #  Extract the trailing unclosed block 
                if ($cmdlet -match '\{([^\{\}]*)$') { 
                    $cmdlet = $matches[1] 
                } 
  
                # Extract the longest unclosed parenthetical expression... 
                if ($cmdlet -match '\(([^()]*)$') { 
                    $cmdlet = $matches[1] 
                } 
  
                # take the first space separated token of the remaining string 
                # as the command to look up. Trim any leading or trailing spaces 
                # so you dont get leading empty elements. 
                $cmdlet = $cmdlet.Trim().Split()[0] 
  
                # now get the info object for it... 
                $cmdlet = @(Get-Command -type 'cmdlet,alias' $cmdlet)[0] 
  
                # loop resolving aliases... 
                while ($cmdlet.CommandType -eq 'alias') { 
                    $cmdlet = @(Get-Command -type 'cmdlet,alias' $cmdlet.Definition)[0] 
                } 
  
                # expand the parameter sets and emit the matching elements 
                foreach ($n in $cmdlet.ParameterSets  Select-Object -expand parameters) { 
                    $n = $n.name 
                    if ($n -like $pat) { '-' + $n } 
                } 
                break; 
            } 

            # Custom additions

            '(.*)' { 
                  $global:dsTabCompletion.Tables['CustomTabExpansion'].select("filter like '$($matches[1])'") % {$_.text} #  AND type = 'Alias'"
            } 
            '(.*)%' { 
                  $global:dsTabCompletion.Tables['CustomTabExpansion'].select("filter like '$($matches[1])%'","text") % {$_.text}
            } 
            '(.*-.*)' { 
                  $global:dsTabCompletion.Tables['CustomTabExpansion'].select("filter like '$($matches[1])%'","text") % {$_.text}
            } 

        }       # EO switch 
}  

now you are free to edit your tabcompletion
try this now

# Alias
PoSH> gwmi[tab]
PoSH> Get-WmiObject win32_sh[tab]
Posh> Get-WmiObject Win32_Share
# Function + CmdLet (on -)
PoSH> get-t[tab]
PoSH>Get-tabCompletion
# Function + CmdLet (on %)
PoSH>ref%[tab]
PoSH>Refresh-TabCompletionAlias
# GUI tabcompletion :
PoSH>w_sh[tab]
PoSH>f_[tab]
PoSH>w_ [tab]
# Custom
PoSH>ls %[tab]
PoSH>ls foreach-object {}
# () resolving
PoSH>(LS).[tab]
PoSH>(gwmi win32_share).[tab]

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad PowerShell

PowerShell : Calendar Function (GUI)

2006-10-12T20:26:00.000+02:00

I often have a need for a quick Calendar to look up some dates or Week numbers ,

you can double click the clock in the systray to do a quick lookup (I often used it for that) but you need to be an Admin to do so, so it is not available on my own workstation using my normal account , also it shows no week numbers and I often need those also

So this trick did help me out on several occasions, but still this is not a really ideal solution.

Hence I made this small PowerShell function that does show a Calendar with WeekNumbers in a Form that closes again on hitting [Enter], that I load in my profile and alias to Cal to keep it ready for a quick lookup of some dates, as you will be surprised how often it comes handy.

(note the dot-space to load in global scope, and the loading forms library in profile (needed for function)

to test you can also just past the code into the PowerShell console to load the function, and start using the function:

[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.windows.forms")

. c:\PowerShell\Functions\GetCalendar.ps1

and here is the script : (formatted by the html export function from PowerShell Analyzer a great PowerShell editor, if you not know it yet be sure to try it out)

# Function Get-Calendar
# Shows a calendar with WeekNumbers in a Form
# /\/\o\/\/ 2006
# www.ThePowerShellGuy.com

Function get-Calendar { 

  $form = new-object Windows.Forms.Form 
  $form.text = "Calendar" 
  $form.Size = new-object Drawing.Size @(656,639) 

  # Make "Hidden" SelectButton to handle Enter Key

  $btnSelect = new-object System.Windows.Forms.Button
  $btnSelect.Size = "1,1"
  $btnSelect.add_Click({ 
    $form.close() 
  }) 
  $form.Controls.Add($btnSelect ) 
  $form.AcceptButton =  $btnSelect

  # Add Calendar 

  $cal = new-object System.Windows.Forms.MonthCalendar 
  $cal.ShowWeekNumbers = $true 
  $cal.MaxSelectionCount = 356
  $cal.Dock = 'Fill' 
  $form.Controls.Add($cal) 

  # Show Form

  $Form.Add_Shown({$form.Activate()})  
  [void]$form.showdialog() 

  # Return Start and end date 

  return $cal.SelectionRange
} 

set-alias cal get-Calendar

* Update *As the PSA formatting if the Script gives formatting and pasting problems, I'm looking into this, I also will place the script here in the "old" formatting

# Function Get-Calendar 
# Shows a calendar with WeekNumbers in a Form 
# /\/\o\/\/ 2006 
# www.ThePowerShellGuy.com 

Function get-Calendar {  

  $form = new-object Windows.Forms.Form  
  $form.text = "Calendar"  
  $form.Size = new-object Drawing.Size @(656,639)  

  # Make "Hidden" SelectButton to handle Enter Key 

  $btnSelect = new-object System.Windows.Forms.Button 
  $btnSelect.Size = "1,1" 
  $btnSelect.add_Click({  
    $form.close()  
  })  
  $form.Controls.Add($btnSelect )  
  $form.AcceptButton =  $btnSelect 

  # Add Calendar  

  $cal = new-object System.Windows.Forms.MonthCalendar  
  $cal.ShowWeekNumbers = $true  
  $cal.MaxSelectionCount = 356 
  $cal.Dock = 'Fill'  
  $form.Controls.Add($cal)  

  # Show Form 

  $Form.Add_Shown({$form.Activate()})   
  [void]$form.showdialog()  

  # Return Start and end date  

  return $cal.SelectionRange 
}  

set-alias cal get-Calendar

So if you are need a quick calendar, you just need ro do a quick cal[enter], in the PowerShell console ..and there you go :

PoSH>cal
End Start
--- -----
10/12/2006 12:00:00 AM 10/12/2006 12:00:00 AM

and you can select a timeframe in the calendar to return.

I added a "hidden" button (size 1 by 1) , to handle the [enter] key to close the Form and return the start and end date, to make the calendar more handy to use, as a quick enter will close the form after use and you do not need to use X to close the form, and I still can use fill on the Calendar control. also you can select a range of days in the Calendar and the function will return the Start and the End date of that period to the PowerShell console when it is closed.

PoSH>$vacation = cal
PoSH>$vacation.end
Sunday, November 05, 2006 12:00:00 AM
PoSH>$vacation.start
Saturday, October 14, 2006 12:00:00 AM
PoSH>$vacation.end - $vacation.start
Days : 22
Hours : 0
Minutes : 0
Seconds : 0
Milliseconds : 0
Ticks : 19008000000000
TotalDays : 22
TotalHours : 528
TotalMinutes : 31680
TotalSeconds : 1900800
TotalMilliseconds : 1900800000

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad PowerShell

PowerShell : WMI Support in RC2 : Privileges and connection settings (Series part 3)

2006-10-11T01:04:00.000+02:00

For some actions in WMI you need to enable privileges , for example for the SetDateTime method of win32_operatingsystem,

and how you can use the GUI again to edit settings, and change Classes , and also see posible values of properties also with the searcher you can do the same as we did see in (" PowerShell : WMI Support in RC2 (Series part 2) "," PowerShell : WMI Support in RC2 (Series part 1) ","

[WmiSearcher]$roq | opg

as I did get a question by G/\/\E on the second part of this series, I did this quick post about this *Remark* I did not see the blog item he did make about this, about this when I started this

to see about that strange timeformat see second example, More information about calling methods in next post

PoSH>$win32_Operatingsystem = gwmi win32_Operatingsystem
PoSH>$win32_Operatingsystem.SetDateTime("20061010234615.000000+120")
Exception calling "SetDateTime" : "Access denied "
At line:1 char:35
+ $win32_Operatingsystem.SetDateTime( <<<< "20061010234615.000000+120")
PoSH>$win32_Operatingsystem.psbase.Scope
IsConnected Options Path
----------- ------- ----
True System.Management.ConnectionOptions \\localhost\root\cimv2
PoSH>$win32_Operatingsystem.psbase.Scope.options
Locale :
Username :
Password :
Authority :
Impersonation : Impersonate
Authentication : Unchanged
EnablePrivileges : False
Context : {}
Timeout : 10675199.02:48:05.4775807

PoSH>$win32_Operatingsystem.psbase.Scope.options.EnablePrivileges = $true
PoSH>$win32_Operatingsystem.SetDateTime("20061010234615.000000+120")
__GENUS : 2
__CLASS : __PARAMETERS
__SUPERCLASS :
__DYNASTY : __PARAMETERS
__RELPATH :
__PROPERTY_COUNT : 1
__DERIVATION : {}
__SERVER :
__NAMESPACE :
__PATH :
ReturnValue : 0

Here you can see that you can also use the out-PropertyGrid to Edit and test those Settings as I showed in former posts about queries (Change properties and query will be automatically changed), *Note* you need to change to WmiClass eg to win32_share and back Note the changing of paths in the GUI, to reconnect and enable the privileges, note that you have a complete WMI browsel like this,

also I show the use of a added utility property added to a WMI class in RC2 to get a WMI dateTime, a bit more about methods in next post

PoSH>$win32_Operatingsystem = gwmi win32_Operatingsystem

PoSH>$win32_Operatingsystem.ConvertfromDateTime("10/10/2006 23:26:15")
20061010232615.000000+120

PoSH>$win32_Operatingsystem.SetDateTime("20061010232615.000000+120")
Exception calling "SetDateTime" : "Access denied "
At line:1 char:35
+ $win32_Operatingsystem.SetDateTime( <<<< "20061010232615.000000+120")
PoSH>$win32_Operatingsystem | opg
Cancel
PoSH>$win32_Operatingsystem | opg
Cancel

PoSH>$win32_Operatingsystem.SetDateTime("20061010232615.000000+120")

__GENUS : 2
__CLASS : __PARAMETERS
__SUPERCLASS :
__DYNASTY : __PARAMETERS
__RELPATH :
__PROPERTY_COUNT : 1
__DERIVATION : {}
__SERVER :
__NAMESPACE :
__PATH :
ReturnValue : 0

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad PowerShell

PowerShell : WMI Support in RC2 (Series part 2)

2006-10-02T22:10:00.001+02:00

In last post PowerShell : WMI Support in RC2 (Series part 1) , I started out translating the first WMI post, about more advanced WMI queries, and the helperObjects ( RelatedObjectQuery and RelationshipQuery ) you could use as helpers for creating this kind of Queries .

Also I did show that you could use out-PropertyGrid to Edit and test those queries (Change properties and query will be automatically changed)

This is a great help in doing that advanced queries, but might be a step to much if you are just starting out with PowerShell and/or WMI

In this post I take a step back, and will first cover the different ways to get to just one WMI object / Class, and go on from the Lanman example in last post.

After that I will cover Next post I did on my blog also in October last year the WMI viewer script WMI viewer script for MSH (GUI) .

As I already made a out-DataGrid function here : PowerShell out-DataGrid update and more Dataset utilities that can take all sorts of input and show it in a GUI Form with a DataGrid that is a more generic solution, and can also combine datasources , (See Screendumps here : MSH GUI Viewer for Dataset Example ,) , Hence we do not really need it anymore, and also I could replace the whole first Part with "gwmi $WmiClass | "

PS C:\PowerShell> gwmi win32_service | out-DataGrid
Cancel
PS C:\PowerShell> gwmi win32_service | select [a-z] | out-DataGrid
Cancel

but I did still update the script and did put it at the end of this post as it uses the next change in RC2 getting to a static Class, and can take it as input, getting to static classes is much easier in RC2 but more about that in next post.

(we going to use that also in next post about using methods in RC2)

take a note about how I changed the input Parameter to [WmiClass] so it gets more flexible, it will not only take a string but anything it can translate to an WmiClass, so you can also pass it an (Variable with) WMI Class as input, also see I use a Class to get Instances from them not needed in this example but in next post I will show some more examples about using this :

PS C:\PowerShell> get-WMIDatagrid win32_share
Cancel
PS C:\PowerShell> [WmiClass]'win32_share'
Win32_Share
PS C:\PowerShell> $WmiClass = [WmiClass]'win32_share'
PS C:\PowerShell> get-WMIDatagrid $WmiClass
Cancel
PS C:\PowerShell>

For More information about working with DataSets and Tables see my CSV series :

working with CSV files in MSH (part one)

/\/\o\/\/ PowerShelled: working with CSV files in MSH (part two)

/\/\o\/\/ PowerShelled: more Monad scripts, and a bit more CSV

And for using datasets with other datasources see these posts :

Access :
scripting games Last Day MSH answers for event 7 and 8
Excel :
Using ADO to get data from Excel to Dataset in Monad.
SQL (SQL Provider)
Getting and Working With SQL Server data in Monad

But to go on with WMI here are some way's to to get to an instance of a WMI class, I will show how to use get-WmiObject and also the new ways in PowerShell RC2 using [WMI] (name or Path) or [WmiSearcher] use a WQL query.

As last example I show using [WmiClass] like in the script, as I can only filter client site this is not a good way to do this, but I added it as an first example of the [WmiClass] (see also how it is used in the Updated script, to make the input more flexible and note other ways to do it)more in next post.

# Use get-WmiObject

PS C:\PowerShell> get-wmiObject win32_service -filter "Name = 'lanmanserver'"
ExitCode : 0
Name : lanmanserver
ProcessId : 1580
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK
# a More Short way
PS C:\PowerShell> gwmi win32_service -f "Name = 'lanmanserver'"
ExitCode : 0
Name : lanmanserver
ProcessId : 1580
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK
# Using [WMI] and a Path
PS C:\PowerShell> [WMI]'\\.\root\cimv2:Win32_Service.Name="lanmanserver"'
ExitCode : 0
Name : lanmanserver
ProcessId : 1580
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK
# only the Name of the Class
PS C:\PowerShell> [WMI]'Win32_Service.Name="lanmanserver"'
ExitCode : 0
Name : lanmanserver
ProcessId : 1580
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK
# Using a [WMISearcher] for using a WQL query to get to the Object
PS C:\PowerShell> [wmiSearcher]"Select * from Win32_Service where Name='lanmanserver'"
Scope : System.Management.ManagementScope
Query : System.Management.ObjectQuery
Options : System.Management.EnumerationOptions
Site :
Container :
PS C:\PowerShell> ([wmiSearcher]"Select * from Win32_Service where Name='lanmanserver'").get()
ExitCode : 0
Name : lanmanserver
ProcessId : 876
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK
# Note that you can use get-Services in PowerShell but this uses .NET not WMI
PS C:\PowerShell> get-service lanmanserver
Status Name DisplayName
------ ---- -----------
Running lanmanserver Server
PS C:\PowerShell> get-service lanmanserver | gm
TypeName: System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------
Name AliasProperty Name = ServiceName
PS C:\PowerShell> [wmiClass]'win32_service'
Win32_Service
# Using WmiClass (filter client site not efficient)
PS C:\PowerShell> $win32_service = [wmiClass]'win32_service'
PS C:\PowerShell> $win32_service.psbase.GetInstances() |? {$_.name -eq 'lanmanserver'}
ExitCode : 0
Name : lanmanserver
ProcessId : 1580
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK

You can see that RC2 makes you very flexible, Here the updated script using [wmiClass] directlyin the Parameter set.

for the Rest I only added a couple of PsBases and changed the topmost hack .

# WmiDatagrid.PS1 
# Shows Instances of WMIClass in Datagrid  
# PowerShell RC2 Update 
# 
# /\/\o\/\/ 2006  
# http://www.ThePowerShellGuy.com 

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.windows.forms")  

function get-WMIDatagrid {  
  Param ([wmiCLass] $WmiClass = {Throw "No WMIClass given"})  

  $MOC = $WmiClass.PSBase.GetInstances()  

  trap{"Class Not found";break}  

  $DT =  new-object  System.Data.DataTable  
  $DT.TableName = $wmiClass  

  $i = 0  
  $MOC | foreach {  
    $MO = $_  

    # Make a DataRow  
    $DR = $DT.NewRow()  

    $MO.PSBase.properties | foreach {  

      $prop = $_  

      If ($i -eq 0)  {  
        # Only On First Row make The Headers  

        $Col =  new-object System.Data.DataColumn  
        $Col.ColumnName = $prop.Name.ToString()  
        $prop.PSBase.get_Qualifiers() | foreach {  
          If ($_.Name.ToLower() -eq "key") {  
            $Col.ColumnName = $Col.ColumnName + "*"  
          }  
        }  
        $DT.Columns.Add($Col)   
      }  

      #fill dataRow   

      if ($prop.value -eq $null) {  
        $DR.Item($prop.Name) = "[empty]"  
      }  
      ElseIf ($prop.IsArray) {  
        $DR.Item($prop.Name) =[string]::Join($prop.value ,";")  
      }  
      Else {  
        $DR.Item($prop.Name) = $prop.value  
        #Item is Key try again with *  
        trap{$DR.Item("$($prop.Name)*") = $prop.Value.tostring();continue}  
      }  
    }  
    # Add the row to the DataTable  
    $DT.Rows.Add($DR)  
    $i += 1  
  }  
     
  $form = new-object "System.Windows.Forms.Form"  
  $form.Size = new-object System.Drawing.Size @(800,400)  
  $DG = new-object "System.windows.forms.DataGrid"  
  $DG.CaptionText = "$wmiClass $($DT.Count)"  
  $DG.AllowSorting = $True  
  $DG.DataSource = $DT  
  $DG.Dock = [System.Windows.Forms.DockStyle]::Fill  

  #show the Form  

  $form.text = "$wmiCLass"  
  $form.Controls.Add($DG)  
  $Form.Add_Shown({$form.Activate()})  
  $form.showdialog()  
}  

set-alias gwd get-WMIDatagrid 

More very cool RC2 WMI stuff in next part of this series about calling WMI Methods !!, there the real power of the changes made in WMI will show !

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad PowerShell

PowerShell : WMI Support in RC2 (Series part 1)

2006-10-01T02:10:00.000+02:00

As the WMI Support in PowerShell as also changed in RC2,

I will start a new WMI series by translating former WMI posts on my blog to PowerShell RC2, and I will show what has changed,

Opposed to what I think about the new Active Directory Support See : PowerShell RC2 and Active Directory Part 2 ,

In this Case I think the wrapper does add value, here also a bit more PSBase is needed, but the added functional in this case I think is much more as what the ADSI wrapper does and I has much less impact on working interactively ,

So for now I decided I like it, or working with it and the translating of older WMI post in this series, does bring up some hidden problems,

I will start with the First WMI example I did on my blog (Lets Query WMI from MSH) in the first Month October 2005 about RelatedObjectQuery 's in WMI,

as I was just starting then with Monad (Codename for PowerShell at that time), and did go on from a VbScript Example, I did copy the old post and will follow it in RC2 in this re-post and I will translate the scripts inbetween the old text adding comments and changes to it (Italic)., also I will show the use of out-PropertyGrid PowerShell : out-PropertyGrid that is very handy for editing the WMI Queries in a GUI Form (load windows forms library first see example).

here is the edited post :

Lets Query WMI from MSH

*Original text*

ls, as I was answering a post in the NG, about a vbscript to get dependent services the (corrected) script looks like this :

Dim UnArgs
Set UnArgs = WScript.Arguments.Unnamed
WScript.Echo UnArgs(0)

strComputer = "."
 Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
     & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
 Set colServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Associators of " _
     & "{Win32_Service.Name='" & UnArgs(0) & "'} Where " _
         & "AssocClass=Win32_DependentService " & "Role=Antecedent" )

 for each s in  colServiceList
  WScript.Echo s.name
next

this is a bit more as the standard WMI get propery, and involves more than 1 WMI-class. I decided to make it in MSH also :. at first I came with this :

Function GetDep {
  $mos = (new-object system.management.ManagementObjectSearcher)
  $mos.Query = "Associators of {Win32_Service.Name='" + $Args[0] + "'} Where AssocClass=Win32_DependentService Role=Antecedent"
  $mos.get()
}

* Update *

As you can see, if you past this script into the PowerShell RC2 Console it still works :

PS C:\PowerShell> Function GetDep {
>> $mos = (new-object system.management.ManagementObjectSearcher)
>> $mos.Query = "Associators of {Win32_Service.Name='" + $Args[0] + "'} Where AssocClass=Win32_DependentService Role=A
ntecedent"
>> $mos.get()
>> }
>>
PS C:\PowerShell> getdep 'lanmanserver'
ExitCode : 0
Name : Browser
ProcessId : 876
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK
ExitCode : 0
Name : Dfs
ProcessId : 1264
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK
ExitCode : 0
Name : Netlogon
ProcessId : 432
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK

But in PowerShell RC2 we can use the [WmiSearcher] "intrinsic type" (From Release notes) , so I did started out testing interacive in the PowerShell Conole

PS C:\PowerShell> [wmiSearcher]("Associators of {Win32_Service.Name='" + $Args[0] + "'} Where AssocClass=Win32_DependentService Role=Antecedent")
Scope : System.Management.ManagementScope
Query : System.Management.ObjectQuery
Options : System.Management.EnumerationOptions
Site :
Container :
PS C:\PowerShell> ([wmiSearcher]"Associators of {Win32_Service.Name='lanmanserver'} Where AssocClass=Win32_DependentService Role=Antecedent").get()
ExitCode : 0
Name : Browser
ProcessId : 876
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK
ExitCode : 0
Name : Dfs
ProcessId : 1264
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK
ExitCode : 0
Name : Netlogon
ProcessId : 432
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK

also I would do some things a bit different now, here is the translated script for PowerShell RC2 :

# PowerShell RC2 Function to get Services that depent on the given ServiceName

Function Get-DependentService ([String]$ServiceName) {

$WmiSearcher = [wmiSearcher]"Associators of {Win32_Service.Name='$ServiceName'} Where AssocClass=Win32_DependentService Role=Antecedent"
$WmiSearcher.get()

}

You can See I changed to a Named Parameter for the service Name to make things more clear, opposed the $Args[0] I did use in the Monad examples , and I did a make use of the Variable handling of PowerShell that will expand in double quoted strings but both where possible at that time also (You can see that I was using a more VbScript way as I was just starting out with PowerShell at that time and still did "think VbScript" as I was less used to PowerShell) ,

The Difference in RC2 is the [WmiSearcher] "intrinsic type" , so it is not needed anymore to use new-object system.management.ManagementObjectSearcher to get the .NET object , also the next remark in the Original is Covered in RC2 :

PS C:\PowerShell> [WMI]'\\MOWDC001\root\cimv2:Win32_Service.Name="lanmanserver"'
ExitCode : 0
Name : lanmanserver
ProcessId : 876
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK

the rest is all still working only you need to use PSBase as with the [adsi] wrapper, but this time the wrapper shows the Methods of the Win32_Share class and we can invoke them directly, we see the methods of the WMIclass in the Get-Member and have Tab Completion for them and this is very handy

As we needed to Invoke them in PowerShell before RC2 , and could not see them, so in this case the wrapper has much more added value.

PS C:\PowerShell> (get-wmiObject win32_service -filter "Name = 'lanmanserver'") | gm
TypeName: System.Management.ManagementObject#root\cimv2\Win32_Service
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------
Change Method System.Management.ManagementBaseObject Change(System.String DisplayName, System...
ChangeStartMode Method System.Management.ManagementBaseObject ChangeStartMode(System.String StartMode)
InterrogateService Method System.Management.ManagementBaseObject InterrogateService()
PauseService Method System.Management.ManagementBaseObject PauseService()
ResumeService Method System.Management.ManagementBaseObject ResumeService()
StartService Method System.Management.ManagementBaseObject StartService()
StopService Method System.Management.ManagementBaseObject StopService()
UserControlService Method System.Management.ManagementBaseObject UserControlService(System.Byte ControlCode)
...

PS C:\PowerShell> (get-wmiObject win32_service -filter "Name = 'lanmanserver'").PsBase | gm
TypeName: System.Management.Automation.PSMemberSet
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------
add_Disposed Method System.Void add_Disposed(EventHandler value)
Clone Method System.Object Clone()
CompareTo Method System.Boolean CompareTo(ManagementBaseObject otherObject, Compariso...
CopyTo Method System.Management.ManagementPath CopyTo(ManagementPath path), System...
CreateObjRef Method System.Runtime.Remoting.ObjRef CreateObjRef(Type requestedType)
Delete Method System.Void Delete(), System.Void Delete(DeleteOptions options), Sys...
Dispose Method System.Void Dispose()
Equals Method System.Boolean Equals(Object obj)
Get Method System.Void Get(), System.Void Get(ManagementOperationObserver watcher)
GetHashCode Method System.Int32 GetHashCode()
GetLifetimeService Method System.Object GetLifetimeService()
GetMethodParameters Method System.Management.ManagementBaseObject GetMethodParameters(String me...
GetPropertyQualifierValue Method System.Object GetPropertyQualifierValue(String propertyName, String ...
GetPropertyValue Method System.Object GetPropertyValue(String propertyName)
GetQualifierValue Method System.Object GetQualifierValue(String qualifierName)
GetRelated Method System.Management.ManagementObjectCollection GetRelated(), System.Ma...
GetRelationships Method System.Management.ManagementObjectCollection GetRelationships(), Sys...
GetText Method System.String GetText(TextFormat format)
GetType Method System.Type GetType()
...

I will cover the Methods in more detail in later posts in this Series, for the following examples we need to add PSBase at some places, for the rest it works the same only we can start the Query we constucted much easier , see next update below following the original text how the use the Query in RC2 , here is how it looks in RC2 with PSbase before the method, but first the example on how the change the original code :.

PS C:\PowerShell> (get-wmiObject win32_service -filter "Name = 'lanmanserver'").PSBase.GetRelated($null,"Win32_DependentService",$null,$null,$null,"Antecedent",$false,$null)
ExitCode : 0
Name : Browser
ProcessId : 876
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK
ExitCode : 0
Name : Dfs
ProcessId : 1264
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK
ExitCode : 0
Name : Netlogon
ProcessId : 432
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK

*Original text*

(you can not use a Moniker to connect to WMI as in VBscript) But after that I thought .. this may be correct but not realy MSH. Hence, I did look at the get-WMIObject function. first how to get only the wanted Class. the get-WMIObject uses - filter for this :

get-wmiObject win32_service -filter "Name ="lanmanserver"

then how to get the related class

a Get-Method on the Object revealed the GetRelated Property

hence ,

Function GetServiceDeps {($s = get-wmiObject win32_service -filter "Name = '$($args[0])'").GetRelated("win32_service")}

And Ready ..

Much more Clean, shorter and more MSH

but then again .....maybe NOT..... (c) LSL

I did forget the Role-part this does not matter for "lanmanserver" so I did not see it at first but this will give also the relations the service is dependend on.

OK, lets look again at that Method :

MSH G:\Monad> (get-wmiObject win32_service -filter "Name = 'lanmanserver'").GetRelated.OverloadDefinitions
System.Management.ManagementObjectCollection GetRelated()
System.Management.ManagementObjectCollection GetRelated(String relatedClass)
System.Management.ManagementObjectCollection GetRelated(String relatedClass, String relationshipClass, String relationshipQualifier, String relatedQualifier,String relatedRole, String thisRole, Boolean classDefinitionsOnly, EnumerationOptions options)

(I left out the ASync Methods)

Oops, IMNSHO that is not a nice Overload !!!

(Quiz Question : You know them All  well enough to fill the 3th overload ?)

I do now ;-) (see later in post) and it seems that you can keep the ones you don't need empty.

it is :

MSH G:\Monad> (get-wmiObject win32_service -filter "Name = 'lanmanserver'").GetRelated($null,"Win32_DependentService",$null,$null,$null,"Antecedent",$false,$null)

But then I did not know what to fill in, but I saw another Method called

GetRelationShips.

after playing a bit I stopped at :

 ((($s = get-wmiObject win32_service -filter "Name = 'lanmanserver'").GetRelationships("win32_Dependentservice"))  foreach {$_.dependent}).split("=")[1]

What do you think ? , In this case I would more like the ".NET" solution ;-) But.. help was on the way ;-) while searching SDK's etc for the WQL language specs, I stumbled upon System.Management.RelationshipQuery after playing with it (more about how later) I could only make a

references of -query.

So I needed his brother-class : System.Management.RelatedObjectQuery(System.Management.RelatedObjectQuery is related to GetRelated and RelationshipQuery to GetRelationships)

.So ... and what can we do with thos 2 classes ?

Translate WQL Query's to Properties and Back !!!

MSH G:\Monad> $roq = new-object System.Management.RelatedObjectQuery
MSH G:\Monad> $roq.QueryString = "associators of {Win32_Service.name='lanmanserver'} where resultclass = win32_service role = Antecedent"
MSH G:\Monad> $roq


IsSchemaQuery         : False
SourceObject          : Win32_Service.name='lanmanserver'
RelatedClass          : win32_service
RelationshipClass     :
RelatedQualifier      :
RelationshipQualifier :
RelatedRole           :
ThisRole              : Antecedent
ClassDefinitionsOnly  : False
QueryLanguage         : WQL
QueryString           : associators of {Win32_Service.name='lanmanserver'} wher
e resultclass = win32_service role = Antecedent

So, Now you know How I filled in that 3th Overload of GetRelated ;-) but at the End, I don't know if i want to, because you can get put the RelatedObjectQuery into a ManagementObjectSearcher directly. (see last "bonus"-script.) so until you need more as only the relatedClass (1st/2nd Overload of GetRelated) get-wmiObject is nice but after that I prefer the "system.management"-Way And .. as final "Bonus" - script to learn the WMI Queries, I coupled to on my Objectviewer-script, to get a GUI WQL-Querytool :

$roq = new-object System.Management.RelatedObjectQuery
ov($roq)
$mos = new-object system.management.ManagementObjectSearcher($roq)

In the MSHObjectviewer you can change the Properties (or the Query), and you will see the effect in the Query(or the properties). You have to change to another field to see the reaction. I think now you have enough tools to get some more heavy work done in WMI Doe er iets leuks mee (have Fun) gr /\/\o\/\/ PS IF you do not have OV(MSHObject-Viewer), go here : MSH Object Viewer for more info about WQL queries go to : http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/wql_sql_for_wmi.asp?frame=true

* Update *

Also for the .NET Query helper classes I did show how to use in the original post above, you can use them with [WmiSearcher] in RC2 so you do not need to make the object yourself,

Also I show that you can also use a GUI using the function out-datagrid to get a kind of Query Generator,

You can find that function here :

powershell-out-propertygrid-msh-view.html

that is an updated version of the MSH object viewer mentioned. that can be used to configure the WMI queries in A GUI

PS C:\PowerShell> # make the Query
PS C:\PowerShell>
PS C:\PowerShell> $roq = new-object System.Management.RelatedObjectQuery
PS C:\PowerShell> $roq.QueryString = "associators of {Win32_Service.name='lanmanserver'} where resultclass = win32_service role = Antecedent"
PS C:\PowerShell> $roq
IsSchemaQuery : False
SourceObject : Win32_Service.name='lanmanserver'
RelatedClass : win32_service
RelationshipClass :
RelatedQualifier :
RelationshipQualifier :
RelatedRole :
ThisRole : Antecedent
ClassDefinitionsOnly : False
QueryLanguage : WQL
QueryString : associators of {Win32_Service.name='lanmanserver'} where resultclass = win32_service role = Antecedent
PS C:\PowerShell>
PS C:\PowerShell> # Execute the Query in RC2 :
PS C:\PowerShell>
PS C:\PowerShell> ([WmiSearcher]$roq).get()
ExitCode : 0
Name : Browser
ProcessId : 876
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK
ExitCode : 0
Name : Dfs
ProcessId : 1264
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK
ExitCode : 0
Name : Netlogon
ProcessId : 432
StartMode : Auto
State : Running
Status : OK

PS C:\PowerShell>
PS C:\PowerShell> # Example Of using a PropertyGrid to make the Query
PS C:\PowerShell>
PS C:\PowerShell> [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.windows.forms")

GAC Version Location
--- ------- --------
True v2.0.50727 C:\WINDOWS\assembly\GAC_MSIL\System.Windows.Forms\2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089\System.Windows.For...
PS C:\PowerShell>
PS C:\PowerShell> . .\Out-PropertyGrid.ps1
PS C:\PowerShell>
PS C:\PowerShell> $roq | opg
Cancel
PS C:\PowerShell> # And you can also use it for the whole Searcher Object
PS C:\PowerShell> [WmiSearcher]$roq | opg
Cancel
PS C:\PowerShell>

the [WMI] and [WMIClass] in PoSH RC2 make working with a WMI Path or Query much Easier,also that you can see the Class methods on the WMI Object and use the directly, make that it is much Easier to work with and explore WMI in PowerShell RC2,

So in this examples the RC2 changes do really help, and Queries are more used, and more handy to work with as using the methods as you see in this post,

Hence in Case of WMI till now I'm still very happy with the change, as you can see in original entry I missed that at the time, and can live with PSBase for this.

So I don't mind I need to update my scripts for this, more later in this series.

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad PowerShell

PowerShell RC2 and Active Directory Part 2

2006-09-29T21:36:00.000+02:00

As Active Directory management from PowerShell is very important to me in my daily work as I do all AD, SMS and MOM management from PowerShell as well as some of the others in my department allready ;-) ,

As you could see here : PowerShell RC2 and Active Directory I do not like the Wapper added in RC2.

I have a lot if discussions about it ,

in the NewsGroup (Yes Finaly Google has Indexed the PowerShell NG )

AD access change/break in RC2

Syntax ([ADSI] removed by google)

getting COM properties . ([ADSI] removed by google)

ADSI - AD access changes/issues in RC2

and on IRC , there I got this remark :,

<dreeschkind> guys, you need to vote if you want to achieve anything
<dreeschkind> https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=213764&SiteID=99

And ofcourse did add a 5 ;-)

In the Newsgroup Threads Aruk Kumaravel explains a bit more about the wrapper and about the methods added (hidden),

Create
Put
Set
PutEx
SetEx
GetInfo
SetInfo

and he has also some examples on his blog using the new wrapper :

http://blogs.msdn.com/arulk/archive/2006/07/25/678137.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/arulk/archive/2006/07/28/682289.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/arulk/archive/2006/08/24/719241.aspx

Most people I did hear so far that are using PoSH for AD do not like it, and the questions on the NGm

also ofcourse I did,some more comparing and testing also, here you see some examples of the differences added by the wrapper :

Note that PsBase has no Tabcompletion.

# Old
$user.rename('cn=mow')
$root.invoke('MoveHere','LDAP://CN=mow,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local','cn=mowMoved')
# New
$user.psbase.rename('cn=mow')
$root.movehere('LDAP://CN=FooBar,DC=mow,DC=local','cn=FooMoved')
# New (not working )
([adsi]'LDAP://CN=FooMoved,DC=mow,DC=local').'AccountDisabled'
([adsi]'LDAP://CN=FooMoved,DC=mow,DC=local').get('AccountDisabled')
# Old way ( works ) :
([adsi]'LDAP://CN=FooMoved,DC=mow,DC=local').psbase.invokeget('AccountDisabled')

as you could see here : PowerShell and Active Directory Part 3 (UserProperties) , (last part of post) the ADSI COM Object has some added Method Properties, for a list see : Interface Property Methods. on MSDN

I do not know how to do it yet using the wrapper, (see last NG thread [ADSI] getting COM properties . )

PS C:\PowerShell> ([adsi]'LDAP://CN=FooMoved,DC=mow,DC=local').'AccountDisabled'
PS C:\PowerShell> ([adsi]'LDAP://CN=FooMoved,DC=mow,DC=local').get('AccountDisabled')
Exception calling "get" with "1" argument(s): "The directory property cannot be found in the cache.
"
At line:1 char:49
+ ([adsi]'LDAP://CN=FooMoved,DC=mow,DC=local').get( <<<< 'AccountDisabled')
PS C:\PowerShell>
PS C:\PowerShell> # Old way (works):
PS C:\PowerShell>
PS C:\PowerShell> ([adsi]'LDAP://CN=FooMoved,DC=mow,DC=local').psbase.invokeget('AccountDisabled')
True

As I have almost 1500 readers of the first post of the series PowerShel and Active Directory Part 1 , and 626 that came to PowerShell and Active Directory Part 3 (UserProperties) , so if you have done that start (and did read the NG threads), you have experince with the process and can give valuable feedback,

Do you think is more easy to get started with Active Directory in PowerShell in RC1 or RC2 ?

As that was the main goal of this change I think.

please Vote : https://connect.microsoft.com/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=213764&SiteID=99

or join the discussion in the microsoft.public.windows.powershell NewsGroup

Let know what you think !,

(OK sorry one more complaint ;-) )

I still think that for this little value that.emulating VbScript this wrapper does add for someone starting with PowerShell (when he is coming from VbScript, and knowing all the Methods by Head ;-) ) ,
This wrapper does to much concessions to the usability of PowerShell for more advanced administrator tasks, for using /converting all examples in other .NET languages (C#,IronPyhon,VB.NET,PowerShell), Developers to use PowerShell as a Tool , or to glide to a making a CmdLet , and it is very confusing, making exploring and Learning harder.
I think the way forward, using the Framework, is the best way , see also all changes in .NET2.0 for managing AD infrastructure : /\/\o\/\/ PowerShelled: AD Infrastructure exploring with MSH (AD is managed by admin's, not by end-users ) , as you could see in the Part 3of the series, and the example in this post, it is already easy enough to get to those Hidden Methods added by the wrapper, and we have best of both worlds.
Also Get-Member is one of the most used and important commands in PowerShell , and in exploring Objects , and we have to be able to trust it to be consistent and complete, as it is one of our eyes into the PowerShell World.
So I think that hiding important information from it, for some also hidden added methods is the wrong way to go on the glidepath, and I see almost nothing for it in return, as for typing PSBase.

End of campain !

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad PowerShell

PowerShell : Hosting IronPython

2006-09-29T01:56:00.000+02:00

In last post about using IronPython from PowerShell : Using IronPython to Connect to AD and list children , I did just use the CLI.

In this post I will show how to Use IronPython from Powershell, by hosting it.

I first load the DLL's needed (copy them to PSHOME directory), and then just start using it.

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFile("$pshome\IronPython.dll") 
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFile("$pshome\IronMath.dll") 

$ipe = new-object IronPython.Hosting.PythonEngine 

$code = @' 

import sys 
import clr 
import System 

clr.AddReferenceByPartialName("System.DirectoryServices") 

import System.DirectoryServices 

from System.DirectoryServices import * 

root = DirectoryEntry() 

for c in root.Children: print c.Name 

u = root.Children.Find("CN=FooBar") 

for p in u.Properties: print p.PropertyName , p.Value 

for p in u.Properties.__getitem__("CN"): print p 

'@ 

$ipe.Execute($code)

The results are not lost you can still work with them and you can exchange variables very easy also see examples below :

# You can get back the results by using Evaluate
PS C:\PowerShell> $ipe.Evaluate('root.Children.Find("CN=FooBar")')
distinguishedName
-----------------
{CN=fooBar,DC=mow,DC=local}
# Or you can get the variable
PS C:\PowerShell> $ipe.Globals["u"]
distinguishedName
-----------------
{CN=fooBar,DC=mow,DC=local}
# Set a IronPython Variable
PS C:\PowerShell> $ipe.Globals['domain'] = [adsi]''
PS C:\PowerShell> $ipe.Evaluate('domain.Children.Find("CN=FooBar")')
distinguishedName
-----------------
{CN=fooBar,DC=mow,DC=local}
# and do a Dir (get-member) on that variable in IronPython
PS C:\PowerShell> $ipe.Evaluate('dir(domain)')
AuthenticationType
CanRaiseEvents
Children
Close
CommitChanges

As you see its very easy to mix IronPython and PowerShell parts.

Realy great !

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad IronPython PowerShell

PowerShell RC2 and Active Directory

2006-09-27T23:28:00.000+02:00

As you have RC2 Installed all my AD post will not work anymore, As I did switch back on all my work PC's (I did call all my colleagues not to upgrade as all our AD tools are messed up, I will not update them, as I would not recommend to upgrade to RC2 of you work with AD a lot , as it is verry confusing, but fixable if you read explaination below,

you can get all working again be the result might be messy.

he examples in my AD series will most of the time not work, most of the things discussed will not seem to be there , so if you did not do AD in PowerShell all seem very strange, and it will be hard to follow.

I will explain what has happened and give the ways to solve this.

As PowerShell RC2 was released, I hopefully started to explore the new AD support :

PS C:\PowerShell> [ADSI]''
distinguishedName
-----------------
{DC=mow,DC=local}
PS C:\PowerShell> $root = [ADSI]''

Wow Cool, but then :

PS C:\PowerShell> $root.get_Children()
Exception calling "get_Children" with "0" argument(s): "Unknown name. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80020006 (DISP_E_UNKNO
WNNAME))"
At line:1 char:19
+ $root.get_Children( <<<< )

Hmm, should be there, lets remove the () :

PS C:\PowerShell> $root.get_Children
MemberType : Method
OverloadDefinitions :
TypeNameOfValue : System.Management.Automation.PSMethod
Value :
Name : get_Children
IsInstance : True

bit strange output but its there

Hmm its not there.

PS C:\PowerShell> $root | gm

TypeName: System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------
auditingPolicy Property System.DirectoryServices.PropertyValueCollection auditingPolicy {get;set;}
creationTime Property System.DirectoryServices.PropertyValueCollection creationTime {get;set;}
dc Property System.DirectoryServices.PropertyValueCollection dc {get;set;}
distinguishedName Property System.DirectoryServices.PropertyValueCollection distinguishedName {get;...
...
...

Ok we do not see it but let's try PSbase

PS C:\PowerShell> $root.psbase | gm

TypeName: System.Management.Automation.PSMemberSet
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------
add_Disposed Method System.Void add_Disposed(EventHandler value)
Close Method System.Void Close()
CommitChanges Method System.Void CommitChanges()
CopyTo Method System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry CopyTo(DirectoryEntry newParent), Syste...
CreateObjRef Method System.Runtime.Remoting.ObjRef CreateObjRef(Type requestedType)
DeleteTree Method System.Void DeleteTree()
Dispose Method System.Void Dispose()
Equals Method System.Boolean Equals(Object obj)
GetHashCode Method System.Int32 GetHashCode()
GetLifetimeService Method System.Object GetLifetimeService()
GetType Method System.Type GetType()
get_AuthenticationType Method System.DirectoryServices.AuthenticationTypes get_AuthenticationType()
get_Children Method System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntries get_Children()
get_Container Method System.ComponentModel.IContainer get_Container()
get_Guid Method System.Guid get_Guid()
get_Name Method System.String get_Name()
get_NativeGuid Method System.String get_NativeGuid()
get_NativeObject Method System.Object get_NativeObject()
get_ObjectSecurity Method System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectorySecurity get_ObjectSecurity()
get_Options Method System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntryConfiguration get_Options()
get_Parent Method System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry get_Parent()
get_Path Method System.String get_Path()
get_Properties Method System.DirectoryServices.PropertyCollection get_Properties()
get_SchemaClassName Method System.String get_SchemaClassName()
get_SchemaEntry Method System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry get_SchemaEntry()
get_Site Method System.ComponentModel.ISite get_Site()
get_UsePropertyCache Method System.Boolean get_UsePropertyCache()
get_Username Method System.String get_Username()
InitializeLifetimeService Method System.Object InitializeLifetimeService()
Invoke Method System.Object Invoke(String methodName, Params Object[] args)
InvokeGet Method System.Object InvokeGet(String propertyName)
InvokeSet Method System.Void InvokeSet(String propertyName, Params Object[] args)
MoveTo Method System.Void MoveTo(DirectoryEntry newParent), System.Void MoveTo(DirectoryEntry...
RefreshCache Method System.Void RefreshCache(), System.Void RefreshCache(String[] propertyNames)
remove_Disposed Method System.Void remove_Disposed(EventHandler value)
Rename Method System.Void Rename(String newName)
set_AuthenticationType Method System.Void set_AuthenticationType(AuthenticationTypes value)
set_ObjectSecurity Method System.Void set_ObjectSecurity(ActiveDirectorySecurity value)
set_Password Method System.Void set_Password(String value)
set_Path Method System.Void set_Path(String value)
set_Site Method System.Void set_Site(ISite value)
set_UsePropertyCache Method System.Void set_UsePropertyCache(Boolean value)
set_Username Method System.Void set_Username(String value)
ToString Method System.String ToString()
AuthenticationType Property System.DirectoryServices.AuthenticationTypes AuthenticationType {get;set;}
Children Property System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntries Children {get;}
Container Property System.ComponentModel.IContainer Container {get;}
Guid Property System.Guid Guid {get;}
Name Property System.String Name {get;}
NativeGuid Property System.String NativeGuid {get;}
NativeObject Property System.Object NativeObject {get;}
ObjectSecurity Property System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectorySecurity ObjectSecurity {get;set;}
Options Property System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntryConfiguration Options {get;}
Parent Property System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry Parent {get;}
Password Property System.String Password {set;}
Path Property System.String Path {get;set;}
Properties Property System.DirectoryServices.PropertyCollection Properties {get;}
SchemaClassName Property System.String SchemaClassName {get;}
SchemaEntry Property System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry SchemaEntry {get;}
Site Property System.ComponentModel.ISite Site {get;set;}
UsePropertyCache Property System.Boolean UsePropertyCache {get;set;}
Username Property System.String Username {get;set;}

Ahh, there are all the usefull methods and properties, hmm maybe not that bad, as this works now

PS C:\PowerShell> $root.psBase.children
distinguishedName
-----------------
{CN=Builtin,DC=mow,DC=local}
{CN=Computers,DC=mow,DC=local}
{OU=Domain Controllers,DC=mow,DC=local}
{CN=foo,DC=mow,DC=local}
{CN=fooBar,DC=mow,DC=local}

But then again!!!!!!

First, the PSbase is hidden, so you need to be a more advanced PoSH user and know about it.

then there is no tab completion and you need this much,

PS C:\PowerShell> $user.InvokeGet('AccountDisabled')
Exception calling "InvokeGet" with "1" argument(s): "Unknown name. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80020006 (DISP_E_UNKNOWNN
AME))"
At line:1 char:16
+ $user.InvokeGet( <<<< 'AccountDisabled')

PS C:\PowerShell> $user.psbase.InvokeGet('AccountDisabled')
True

PS C:\PowerShell> $user.InvokeSet('department','foo')
Exception calling "InvokeSet" with "2" argument(s): "Unknown name. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80020006 (DISP_E_UNKNOWNN
AME))"
At line:1 char:16
+ $user.InvokeSet( <<<< 'department','foo')

Get-member does give misleading info, I think I got the BaseObject here memberset ?.

PS C:\PowerShell> $user.psbase | gm
TypeName: System.Management.Automation.PSMemberSet
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------
...
...

But after that even worse, if you follow the series you could add Properties directly and did not need to commit them (part 3) Hence you could do this :

PS C:\PowerShell> $user.displayName = 'user'

Looks OK but ... where is it ??

PS C:\PowerShell> $user.displayName
PS C:\PowerShell>

Refresh or commit ?

PS C:\PowerShell> $user.psbase.RefreshCache()

PS C:\PowerShell> $user.displayName
PS C:\PowerShell> $user.psbase.CommitChanges()
PS C:\PowerShell> $user | fl *
objectClass : {top, person, organizationalPerson, user}
cn : {Ken Myer}
distinguishedName : {CN=Ken Myer,DC=mow,DC=local}
instanceType : {4}
whenCreated : {8/14/2006 7:47:24 PM}
whenChanged : {9/27/2006 8:08:22 PM}
uSNCreated : {System.__ComObject}
uSNChanged : {System.__ComObject}
department : {foo}
name : {Ken Myer}
objectGUID : {147 228 120 129 152 3 234 72 153 138 249 176 59 43 99 6}
userAccountControl : {546}
badPwdCount : {0}
codePage : {0}
countryCode : {0}
badPasswordTime : {System.__ComObject}
lastLogoff : {System.__ComObject}
lastLogon : {System.__ComObject}
pwdLastSet : {System.__ComObject}
primaryGroupID : {513}
objectSid : {1 5 0 0 0 0 0 5 21 0 0 0 94 172 186 232 167 29 117 70 12 60 36 84 68 13 0 0}
accountExpires : {System.__ComObject}
logonCount : {0}
sAMAccountName : {$4A3000-FT61QRM67UFO}
sAMAccountType : {805306368}
objectCategory : {CN=Person,CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,DC=mow,DC=local}
nTSecurityDescriptor : {System.__ComObject}
PS C:\PowerShell> $user.psbase.displayName = 'user'
Property 'displayName' cannot be found on this object; make sure it exists and is settable.
At line:1 char:14
+ $user.psbase.d <<<< isplayName = 'user'

Hmm, let go the hard way then (and again the Psbase !!!!)

PS C:\PowerShell> $user.psbase.InvokeSet('displayname','foo')
PS C:\PowerShell> $user.psbase.CommitChanges()
PS C:\PowerShell> $user | fl *

objectClass : {top, person, organizationalPerson, user}
cn : {Ken Myer}
distinguishedName : {CN=Ken Myer,DC=mow,DC=local}
instanceType : {4}
whenCreated : {8/14/2006 7:47:24 PM}
whenChanged : {9/27/2006 8:13:11 PM}
displayName : {foo}
...

...

And now it works, but you see that we seem to be back in the ADAM limits !!!,

also this is ofcourse very dangerous, as it does only work sometimes.

PS C:\PowerShell>
PS C:\PowerShell> $user.displayname = 'bar'
PS C:\PowerShell> $user

distinguishedName
-----------------
{CN=Ken Myer,DC=mow,DC=local}
PS C:\PowerShell> $user.displayname
bar

So you see this makes working with AD interactive very errorprone, and lots of extra troubles and gotyas to take care of, and I hope that this will be solved for RTM as I think this makes PowerShell AD support much worse opposed to better,and lots of boilercode making scripts harder to read.

I realy wonder how they came to this and if they did eat there own dogfood on this one, as I can not get what they see as improvements for this wrapper.

for WMI the ++ are mutch greater (direct method access) as the -- (losing getInstances() e.g.)

but for AD please give me only the [ADSI] shortcut, and remove that wrapper again, as said and shown I think this makes it even harder for starters in PowerShell to explore AD.

So as you could see in last post I got started with IronPython for AD management also, it is a lot more clear as current solution in RC2, as dir() does show all directly , but as PTY is limited (no tabcompletion) but we have dir() next to the PTY examples (as we have no tabcompletion and PowerShell commands(direct see PowerShell Memo links) in next post I also will work out loading the IronPython DLL to work with it from PowerShell and embed it inside a script using a here string in and add some more AD stuff, also I look into the Event Form and Thread support in IronPython and how to borrow this functionality from IronPython to extend PowerShell.

Our Japanese MVP newpops is also doing a series on doing it the other way around hosting PowerShell in IronPython PowerShell Memo:

be sure to take a look, only the code samples impressive enough and will get you going or you can use Google to translate.

[PowerShell][IronPython]PowerShell from IronPython

[PowerShell][IronPython]PowerShell from IronPython Part 2

Very Very cool also, so when we take best of all "Dynamic" worlds all will be good and PoSHy ;-)

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad IronPython PowerShell

PowerShell : Using IronPython to Connect to AD and list children

2006-09-26T01:40:00.000+02:00

Iron Python is Released,

IronPython Release 1 P.0 Production

so here is an ~~Hint~~ example how to start the IronPython CLI (ipy.exe) from powershell and to connect to the Active Directory RootDSE and to list its children.

PS C:\PowerShell> C:\IronPython-1.0\ipy.exe
IronPython 1.0.60816 on .NET 2.0.50727.42
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
>>> import sys
>>> import clr
>>> import System
>>>
>>> clr.AddReferenceByPartialName("System.DirectoryServices")
>>> root = System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry()
>>> for c in root.Children: print c.Name
...
CN=Builtin
CN=Computers
OU=Domain Controllers
CN=foo
CN=ForeignSecurityPrincipals
CN=Infrastructure
CN=Ken Myer
CN=LostAndFound
OU=MowOtherOU
OU=MowOu
CN=NewUs:::er0003
CN=NewUser0010
CN=NewUser0011
CN=NewUser0012
CN=NTDS Quotas
CN=Program Data
CN=System
CN=Users
>>> exit
'Use Ctrl-Z plus Return to exit'
>>> ^Z

*Edit* Importing NameSpaces, Cool !, but do not throw $$ around ;-)

import System.DirectoryServices
from System.DirectoryServices import *
root = DirectoryEntry()
>>> u = root.Children.Add("CN=fooBar","User")
>>> $u.name
Traceback (most recent call last):
SyntaxError: unexpected token bad character '$' (<stdin>, line 1)

>>> u.Name
'CN=fooBar'

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad IronPython PowerShell

PowerShell Session video of Bruce Payette

2006-09-18T23:53:00.000+02:00

From Loren Bandiera’s weblog I found the Lang.NET Symposium page

with on that :.

Bruce Payette - Discussing the new Windows PowerShell. Huge improvement over cmd.exe

I'm watching en enjoying it at the moment,

Recomended !!

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

PowerShell : Active Directory Part 11 - moving - Renaming Objects

2006-09-12T21:20:00.000+02:00

In this post Move and Renaming AD objects,

still not about Searching AD as I did say before using the DirectorySearcher Object,

but as a lot of my older posts and examples about already use it, If you did read the read the other parts of this AD series, you should be able understand those example scripts to get much information from that older scripts about searching AD going on from the examples, and pasting in lines of code from the examples into the interactive Shell .

See for a complete list, of all the parts in this series, and the other examples and scripts using the DirectorySearcher.

The excellent PowerShell Links directory Dance2Die maintains on Del.icio.us : PowerShell (Note the RSS feed !! )in the Active Directory Subdirectory: del.icio.us PowerShell AD links

(if can you make a get-Aduser ($SamAccountName){} from that using a DirectorySearcher as an example, please leave it in the comments ;-)

so in this post renaming and moving objects as that was not discussed yet :

Yesterday night, I got a question on how to rename a user in PoSH on IRC (IRC.freeNode.net #PowerShell).

I could not come up with a direct answer at the time, but did remember from VbScript that you could use a method on the OU,

I did a quick lookup, Microsoft Windows 2000 Scripting Guide - Moving and Renaming User ...

and came to this :

PoSH>$MowOu = C:\PowerShell\ActiveDirectoryBrowser.Ps1

PoSH>$mowOU

distinguishedName
-----------------
{OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
PoSH>$mowou.get_Children()
distinguishedName
-----------------
{CN=$_,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
{CN=foo,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
{CN=foobar,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
{CN=Ken Myer,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
{CN=mow,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
{CN=Mow2,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
{OU=MowSubOu,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
{CN=NewUser0003,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
{CN=NewUser0010,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
{CN=NewUser0011,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
{CN=NewUser0267,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
{CN=TestGroup,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
PoSH>$mowOU.invoke('MoveHere','LDAP://CN=mow,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local','cn=mowMoved')
distinguishedName
-----------------
{CN=mowMoved,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}

After I came home from work today and found back the PowerShell console as I left it last night,

I did a get-member again, and did see that I had missed the most obvious solution last night, using the Methods on the DirectoryObject.

PoSH>$mowOU | gm -MemberType method
TypeName: System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------
add_Disposed Method System.Void add_Disposed(EventHandler value)
Close Method System.Void Close()
CommitChanges Method System.Void CommitChanges()
CopyTo Method System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry CopyTo(DirectoryEntry newParent), Syste...
CreateObjRef Method System.Runtime.Remoting.ObjRef CreateObjRef(Type requestedType)
DeleteTree Method System.Void DeleteTree()
Dispose Method System.Void Dispose()
Equals Method System.Boolean Equals(Object obj)
get_AuthenticationType Method System.DirectoryServices.AuthenticationTypes get_AuthenticationType()
get_Children Method System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntries get_Children()
get_Container Method System.ComponentModel.IContainer get_Container()
get_Guid Method System.Guid get_Guid()
get_Name Method System.String get_Name()
get_NativeGuid Method System.String get_NativeGuid()
get_NativeObject Method System.Object get_NativeObject()
get_ObjectSecurity Method System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectorySecurity get_ObjectSecurity()
get_Options Method System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntryConfiguration get_Options()
get_Parent Method System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry get_Parent()
get_Path Method System.String get_Path()
get_Properties Method System.DirectoryServices.PropertyCollection get_Properties()
get_SchemaClassName Method System.String get_SchemaClassName()
get_SchemaEntry Method System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry get_SchemaEntry()
get_Site Method System.ComponentModel.ISite get_Site()
get_UsePropertyCache Method System.Boolean get_UsePropertyCache()
get_Username Method System.String get_Username()
GetHashCode Method System.Int32 GetHashCode()
GetLifetimeService Method System.Object GetLifetimeService()
GetType Method System.Type GetType()
InitializeLifetimeService Method System.Object InitializeLifetimeService()
Invoke Method System.Object Invoke(String methodName, Params Object[] args)
InvokeGet Method System.Object InvokeGet(String propertyName)
InvokeSet Method System.Void InvokeSet(String propertyName, Params Object[] args)
MoveTo Method System.Void MoveTo(DirectoryEntry newParent), System.Void MoveTo(DirectoryEntry...
RefreshCache Method System.Void RefreshCache(), System.Void RefreshCache(String[] propertyNames)
remove_Disposed Method System.Void remove_Disposed(EventHandler value)
Rename Method System.Void Rename(String newName)
set_AuthenticationType Method System.Void set_AuthenticationType(AuthenticationTypes value)
set_ObjectSecurity Method System.Void set_ObjectSecurity(ActiveDirectorySecurity value)
set_Password Method System.Void set_Password(String value)
set_Path Method System.Void set_Path(String value)
set_Site Method System.Void set_Site(ISite value)
set_UsePropertyCache Method System.Void set_UsePropertyCache(Boolean value)
set_Username Method System.Void set_Username(String value)
ToString Method System.String ToString()

So you also can do this :

# Using the DirectoryEntry Rename method

PoSH>$mowOU.get_Children() |? {$_.cn -match 'mowMoved'}
distinguishedName
-----------------
{CN=mowMoved,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
PoSH>$MowMoved = $mowOU.get_Children() |? {$_.cn -match 'mowm'}
PoSH>$MowMoved
distinguishedName
-----------------
{CN=mowMoved,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
PoSH>$MowMoved.rename('cn=mow')
PoSH>$MowMoved
distinguishedName
-----------------
{CN=mow,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}

# Connect to RootDSE and go to user by setting a new path using Set_Path

PoSH>$mow = new-object system.directoryservices.directoryEntry
PoSH>$mow

distinguishedName
-----------------
{DC=mow,DC=local}
PoSH>$mow.set_path('LDAP://CN=mow,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local')
PoSH>$mow
distinguishedName
-----------------
{CN=mow,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}

You can see from this that it is handy that you can use the methods you are used to (or vaguely remember) from VbScript.

And you can use the methods from the .NET Wrapper Object ( you can learn about using Get-Member ).

Ok, Ok the CmdLets are for V2, (but I did hear some rumors about some extra functionality for AD as well as for WMI in RC2 .),

but working in the Interactive Shell console like this trying things interactively , combining Old and discovered knowledge, having much less looking up of Information and templates for admin task, using SDK DLL's (MOM 2005,SMS2003)gives you that kind of a productivity boost compared to working in VbScript ( a guess for me it's 10x and sometimes (for on the fly work ) much more (could be days ), as against doing the same in VbScript, and 2 or 3 times for CMD.EXE and commandline tool usage where applicable )

That sometimes I really feel like flying in PowerShell ;-)

and we can make our own functions with ease from the commands also :

PoSH>function get-ADObject ($Path) {new-object system.directoryservices.directoryEntry($path)}
PoSH>get-ADObject 'LDAP://CN=mow,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local'
distinguishedName
-----------------
{CN=mow,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}

and with the easy of making GUI Forms in PowerShell see PowerShell : Active Directory Part 10 (AD Browser) , for exporing the AD tree and visual selecting an AD object for use in PowerShell, that also makes it easy to get to AD objects for interactive tasks.

Not everything is perfect yet (Exception Handling, for in scripts,Remoting etc.), but I would not be able to live without it for my dayly work allready.

If you followed this series, and / or used PowerShell for AD management, compared to how you used to do you think it gives you a productivity boost, or will be able to ? I would be glad to hear what you think about this , please leave a comment about that also (Ok, enough begging, but my read / comment rate is low ;-) )

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

PowerShell : Learn about the HashTable Object and other Collections

2006-09-07T22:27:00.000+02:00

In the TechNet ScriptCenter there is a series : Sesame Script If you’re new to scripting, these articles will teach you the basics and help get you started.

(Check out also the Sesame Script Archives , although the Series is aimed at beginners also some more advanced topics get explained, an all articles are a good read.), also the concepts are often also usable in PowerShell so even they are in VbScript they still can be a good resource for learning PowerShell)

In this part of the series : Sesame Script: The Dictionary Object , a Dictionary Object is discussed

In PowerShell we have a similar object called a HashTable that works almost the same and other .NET Collection Classes we can use that work like this, so this concepts are also good to know mastering PowerShell, the WMI example might not be the best example as it is an collection of objects already, but as an ArrayList is used also in for example a Select statement for more info also PowerShell and Active Directory Part 5 so is good to understand, and if you did not get the use in the Select completely its also good to get this background.

the HashTable unlike many other things do not enumerate on the pipeline. this can be a catch Wmi-Help Part 1

In this post I will follow the Sesame Script Article with similar command in PowerShell and point out the PowerShell Specifics, be sure to read the part in the "Sesame Script" article completely first.

An Example that Doesn’t Use the HashTable Object

PoSH>gwmi win32_service | fl name,state
name : Alerter
state : Stopped
name : Eventlog
state : Running

The next example about Filtering

PoSH>gwmi win32_service -filter "state = 'Stopped'" | ft name,state
name state
---- -----
Alerter Stopped
ALG Stopped

An Example that Does Use the Dictionary Object

PoSH>gwmi win32_service |% {$ht = @{}}{$ht.add($_.name,$_.state)}
PoSH>$ht
Name Value
---- -----
Eventlog Running
Alerter Stopped

First note we can create a HashTable like this in PowerShell

PoSH>@{} | gm
TypeName: System.Collections.Hashtable
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------
Add Method System.Void Add(Object key, Object value)
Clear Method System.Void Clear()

PoSH>@{name = 'mow'}

Name Value
---- -----
name mow

PoSH>@{'name' = 'mow'; 'shell' = 'PoSH'}
Name Value
---- -----
name mow
shell PoSH

Listing the Names of Stopped Services

PoSH>$ht.keys |? {$ht."$_" -eq 'Stopped'}
Alerter
ALG

Running :

PoSH>$ht.keys |? {$ht.Item($_) -eq 'Running'}
Eventlog
W32Time

Other Things You Should Know About the Dictionary Object

PoSH>$ht.Contains('Alerter')
True
PoSH>$ht.Contains('foo')
False

PoSH>$ht.ContainsValue('Running')
True
PoSH>$ht.ContainsValue('Alerter')
False

For the rest see the Get-Member output

you can get to the DictionaryEntries it contains by calling the GetEnumerator yourself :

PoSH>$ht.GetEnumerator()

Name Value
---- -----
Eventlog Running
Alerter Stopped

PoSH>$ht.GetEnumerator() | gm
TypeName: System.Collections.DictionaryEntry
Name MemberType Definition
---- ---------- ----------
Name AliasProperty Name = Key
Equals Method System.Boolean Equals(Object obj)
get_Key Method System.Object get_Key()
get_Value Method System.Object get_Value()
GetHashCode Method System.Int32 GetHashCode()
GetType Method System.Type GetType()
set_Key Method System.Void set_Key(Object value)
set_Value Method System.Void set_Value(Object value)
ToString Method System.String ToString()
Key Property System.Object Key {get;set;}
Value Property System.Object Value {get;set;}

You can also see more advanced examples of working with the HashTable Object in an MSH post (nothing changed here) here :

: Get AD info into a nested HashTable from MSH , (also a good read if you follow the AD series, as this also contains info about how to construct the Query for a Search of Active DIrectory using a directory Searcher)

Also use get-Member well ( Strange behavour of get-member on DataTables ), and Check out the Other collection members :

Other Usefull Collections

PoSH>$h = new Collections.Hashtable
PoSH>$h | gm
TypeName: System.Collections.Hashtable
PoSH>[System.Collections.ArrayList](1,2)
1
2
PoSH>,[System.Collections.ArrayList](1,2) | gm
TypeName: System.Collections.ArrayList
PoSH>$s = [System.Collections.Stack]('a','b')
PoSH>$s.count
2
PoSH>$s.pop()
b
PoSH>$s.count
1
PoSH>,$s | gm
TypeName: System.Collections.Stack

PoSH>$sl = new System.Collections.SortedList
PoSH>Get-Member -InputObject $sl

TypeName: System.Collections.SortedList

PoSH>$q = [System.Collections.Queue]('a','b')

PoSH>$q.Dequeue()
a
PoSH>,$q | gm

TypeName: System.Collections.Queue

You see that this basic collection logic and get-member, can get a whole lot of possibilities next to a simple array to store Objects.

and you can use get-member-inputObject to list the methods of the Collection.

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

PowerShell : Setting SendAs permission in Exchange 2003 (AD)

2006-09-06T22:58:00.000+02:00

On the "You had me at EHLO" Exchange Team blog, you can find this excelent Post with PowerShell Examples for E12.

Exchange Server 2007 recipient management one-liners

But not all is lost if you still Have Exchange 2003 as much of the tasks listed here, you can also do in Active Directory directly.

I will show here also how you can do this directly in AD using PowerShell, for as you have an Exchange 2003 environment and you need to do this, and so you can see the difference with and without the Exchange 2007 Cmdlet,

I select the mailbox from AD with the PowerShell Active Directory Browser from Last post in the AD series PowerShell : Active Directory Part 10 (AD Browser) , ofcourse there are other ways to get at the mailbox as you could see in that series:

# Grant "Send-As" permission E12 

Add-ADPermission testmbx -ExtendedRights Send-As -user jaredz 

# Using AD Browser to get to mailbox 

$mailbox = Browse-ActiveDirectory 
$AccountName = 'Mow' 

# Grant "Send-As" Permission Exchange 2003 (ActiveDirectory) 

$acl = new-object System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectoryAccessRule ([Security.Principal.NTAccount]$AccountName,'ExtendedRight','Allow','ab721a54-1e2f-11d0-9819-00aa0040529b')  
$Mailbox.get_ObjectSecurity().AddAccessRule($acl) 
$mailbox.CommitChanges() 

For some more info about setting Active Directory ACL's and ExtendedRights see also PowerShell and Active Directory Part 8 (ACL's) , or do a Search for the GUID : 'ab721a54-1e2f-11d0-9819-00aa0040529b' in Google for more info about SendAs and Exchange 2003 (SP1 + ).

Enjoy,

greetings /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

PowerShell : Active Directory Part 10 (AD Browser)

2006-09-05T22:57:00.000+02:00

For this part 10 of this series, I'v made a GUI Active Directory Browser script in PowerShell.

*Warning* As you have RC2 Installed all my AD posts will not work anymore, it is verry confusing, but fixable if you read explaination here PowerShell RC2 and Active Directory :

As I did switch back on all my work PC's (I did call all my colleagues not to upgrade as all our AD tools are messed up, I will not update them, as I would not recommend to upgrade to RC2 of you work with AD a lot.

*Edit 2* an RC2 version of this script you can find in the Comments, updated by Jakke, Thanks Jakke !

In the first post in this Active Directory series, PowerShell and Active Directory Part 1 , I showed how you could connect to the root of an Active Directory Domain,

$root = New-Object System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry

Get a Sub OU :

$mowOU = $root.get_Children().find('ou=mowOu')

Connect directly to an Active Directory Object :

$mowOu = New-Object DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry(LDAP://OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local)

And how to use them on the CommandLine,

From there on, we amongst others,

Listed and created AD Objects, as OU's Users and Groups, Changed properties, Used methods, Exported and Imported/Created the Objects (Users) to and from a CSV file and did set ACL's to AD Objects.

But if you need to connect to a SubOU deep in the AD tree, it is hard to get at it this way, we or need a lot of Get_Children() and Find() Methods, or a long LDAP path.

In next post we will so how to search for Objects in Active Directory using a DirectorySearcher, and how you can connect to the Active Directory Object from the results,that also will solve part of this problem.

But most of the times would also be handy to be be able to just browse through the AD Tree to the Object you need and then use it in PowerShell to perform some actions.

I Made a Script for this in PowerShell : BrowseActiveDirectory.ps1

This Script will connect to the Root of the Domain or to custom root (a Subcontainer supplied as a DirectoryEntry Object, if you did follow the rest of the series, I hope this makes perfect sense ;-) ) and if this succeeds builds a Form that contains a TreeView Object, that you can use to browse to the AD object you need, and then Returns it so you can use it in PowerShell.

This Form, (as you might have seen in my Teaser), Looks like this (click picture to enlarge)

In this case I walked to the OU : MowOU, I also used in former examples, when the Active Directory Browser will Startup you will only see the Root Object with the DN of the AD Object it represents.

for performance reasons, not the Whole AD-tree will be read when starting up, but only when you select a Node in the TreeView, the Children of the AD object it presents get enumerated and there DN's are added to the TreeView, we will use events from the TreeView to do this.

When you use the Select Button or hit Enter, the DirectoryEntry will be retrieved and Passed back to the pipeline so you can Catch it in the PowerShell console and put it into a variable for further use.

I like this GUI form as a quick way to get to the Object I want in AD, it is much quicker then getting there from the commandline, or it also much easier to explore and look at the structure of the ActiveDirectory domain this way.

As already mentioned in PowerShell and Active Directory Part 8 (ACL's) , I like to just use "loose lines of Code" or functions, that you just can just past into the Commandline, so most of my examples are given that way

And I gave some more examples and explained a bit more about the difference with Scripts here :PowerShell, Has my Dell a dangerous battery ? ,

This script I made Hybrid, you can start it directly or start it to load the function, I did add this function as a Switch Parameter,

so Next to Using the script Directly like this :

PoSH>$De = .\ActiveDirectoryBrowser.Ps1
PoSH>$De = fl *
PoSH>$De = .\ActiveDirectoryBrowser.Ps1
PoSH>$De | fl *
objectClass : {top, organizationalUnit}
ou : {MowSubOu}
distinguishedName : {OU=MowSubOu,OU=MowOu,DC=mow,DC=local}
instanceType : {4}
whenCreated : {6/26/2006 6:59:59 PM}
whenChanged : {6/26/2006 6:59:59 PM}
uSNCreated : {System.__ComObject}
uSNChanged : {System.__ComObject}
name : {MowSubOu}
objectGUID : {162 13 61 122 139 39 201 72 161 216 129 101 53 217 180 114}
objectCategory : {CN=Organizational-Unit,CN=Schema,CN=Configuration,DC=mow,DC=local}
nTSecurityDescriptor : {System.__ComObject}
# Use this as new Root

PoSH>.\ActiveDirectoryBrowser.Ps1 $de

You can also use the Browse-ActiveDirectory Function that does all the work in the Script, by Loading it into your current session by dotSourcing the ActiveDirectoryBrowser.Ps1 script and providing the -loadOnly Switch

then you can use the Browse-ActiveDirectory function interactively from then on, so you can also use this script in your profile

If you use the -LoadOnly Switch but do not DotSource it the script will warn you like this :

PoSH>.\ActiveDirectoryBrowser.Ps1 -l
WARNING: LoadOnly Switch is given but you also need to 'dotsource' the script to load the function in the global scope
To Start a script in the global scope (DotSource) put a dot and a space in front of path to the script
If the script is in the current directory this would look like this :
. .\ActiveDirectoryBrowser.Ps1
then :
The Browse-ActiveDirectory Function is loaded and can be used like this :
$de = Browse-ActiveDirectory

PoSH>. .\ActiveDirectoryBrowser.Ps1 -l
The Browse-ActiveDirectory Function is loaded and can be used like this :
$de = Browse-ActiveDirectory

If you use the script this way for loading the function, it also will Define the alias Bad for ease of use

I hope this LoadOnly option example also shows a bit how you can use the different forms of starting things in PowerShell.

The Script looks like this :

# ActiveDirectoryBrowser.Ps1 
# 
# This script does show a GUI to browse ActiveDirectory in a Treeview 
# and Returns the DirectoryEntry Selected for use in PowerShell 
# or if LoadOnly Parameter is given it just loads the Browse-ActiveDirectory function,  
# and does set the alias bad, for loading the function for interactive use by dotsourcing the script 
# 
# /\/\o\/\/ 2006 
# 
# http://mow001.blogspot.com 

param ( 
  [directoryservices.directoryEntry]$root = (new-object system.directoryservices.directoryEntry), 
  [Switch]$LoadOnly 
) 

# the Main function that can be loaded or gets started at the end of the script 
  
Function Browse-ActiveDirectory { 
  param ([directoryservices.directoryEntry]$root = (new-object system.directoryservices.directoryEntry)) 

  # Try to connect to the Domain root 

  &{trap {throw "$($_)"};[void]$Root.get_Name()} 

  # Make the form 

  $form = new-object Windows.Forms.form    
  $form.Size = new-object System.Drawing.Size @(800,600)    
  $form.text = "/\/\o\/\/'s PowerShell ActiveDirectory Browser"   

  # Make TreeView to hold the Domain Tree 

  $TV = new-object windows.forms.TreeView 
  $TV.Location = new-object System.Drawing.Size(10,30)   
  $TV.size = new-object System.Drawing.Size(770,470)   
  $TV.Anchor = "top, left, right"     

  # Add the Button to close the form and return the selected DirectoryEntry 
  
  $btnSelect = new-object System.Windows.Forms.Button  
  $btnSelect.text = "Select" 
  $btnSelect.Location = new-object System.Drawing.Size(710,510)   
  $btnSelect.size = new-object System.Drawing.Size(70,30)   
  $btnSelect.Anchor = "Bottom, right"   

  # If Select button pressed set return value to Selected DirectoryEntry and close form 

  $btnSelect.add_Click({ 
    $script:Return = new-object system.directoryservices.directoryEntry("LDAP://$($TV.SelectedNode.text)")  
    $form.close() 
  }) 

  # Add Cancel button  

  $btnCancel = new-object System.Windows.Forms.Button  
  $btnCancel.text = "Cancel" 
  $btnCancel.Location = new-object System.Drawing.Size(630,510)   
  $btnCancel.size = new-object System.Drawing.Size(70,30)   
  $btnCancel.Anchor = "Bottom, right"   

  # If cancel button is clicked set returnvalue to $False and close form 

  $btnCancel.add_Click({$script:Return = $false ; $form.close()}) 

  # Create a TreeNode for the domain root found 

  $TNRoot = new-object System.Windows.Forms.TreeNode("Root") 
  $TNRoot.Name = $root.name 
  $TNRoot.Text = $root.distinguishedName 
  $TNRoot.tag = "NotEnumerated" 

  # First time a Node is Selected, enumerate the Children of the selected DirectoryEntry 

  $TV.add_AfterSelect({ 
    if ($this.SelectedNode.tag -eq "NotEnumerated") { 

      $de = new-object system.directoryservices.directoryEntry("LDAP://$($this.SelectedNode.text)") 

      # Add all Children found as Sub Nodes to the selected TreeNode 

      $de.get_Children() |  
      foreach { 
        $TN = new-object System.Windows.Forms.TreeNode 
        $TN.Name = $_.name 
        $TN.Text = $_.distinguishedName 
        $TN.tag = "NotEnumerated" 
        $this.SelectedNode.Nodes.Add($TN) 
      } 

      # Set tag to show this node is already enumerated 
  
      $this.SelectedNode.tag = "Enumerated" 
    } 
  }) 

  # Add the RootNode to the Treeview 

  [void]$TV.Nodes.Add($TNRoot) 

  # Add the Controls to the Form 
   
  $form.Controls.Add($TV) 
  $form.Controls.Add($btnSelect )  
  $form.Controls.Add($btnCancel ) 

  # Set the Select Button as the Default 
  
  $form.AcceptButton =  $btnSelect 
      
  $Form.Add_Shown({$form.Activate()})    
  [void]$form.showdialog()  

  # Return selected DirectoryEntry or $false as Cancel Button is Used 
  Return $script:Return 
} 

# If used as a script start the function 

Set-PSDebug -Strict:$false #  Otherwise Checking the Switch parmeter does fail (Bug ?) 

if ($LoadOnly.IsPresent) { 

  # Only load the Function for interactive use 

  if (-not $MyInvocation.line.StartsWith('. ')) { 
    Write-Warning "LoadOnly Switch is given but you also need to 'dotsource' the script to load the function in the global scope" 
    Write-Host "To Start a script in the global scope (dotsource) put a dot and a space in front of path to the script" 
    Write-Host "If the script is in the current directory this would look like this :" 
    Write-Host ". .\ActiveDirectoryBrowser.Ps1" 
    Write-Host "then :" 
  } 
  Write-Host "The Browse-ActiveDirectory Function is loaded and can be used like this :" 
  Write-Host '$de = Browse-ActiveDirectory' 
  Set-alias bad Browse-ActiveDirectory 
} 
Else { 

  # start Function 

  . Browse-ActiveDirectory $root 

} 

Most of this Code is straight forward I think with the # comments( if you followed the AD series, and have seen some of my other PowerShell GUI Examples) , just remember that the add_* methods are used to add scripts to events from the objects on the Form.

here some remark by the main points of interest in the script (sorry Numbers Gone) :

Line 24 : &{trap {throw "$($_)"};[void]$Root.get_Name()}

This line does test the ActiveDirectory Connection by getting the name Property and use a Trap block to catch it and throwing the Error again so the script will stop if this fails.

Line 49,64 :$btnCancel.add_Click({$script:Return = $false ; $form.close()})

The add_Click methods handle the event when I button gets clicked you can give this funtion a Delegate ScriptBlock that gets executed every time the button get clicked.

Line 75-95 : $TV.add_AfterSelect({

This whole Scriptblock is also an eventhandler delegate, this one from the Treeview object and it is called every time a TreeNode is selected,

you can see there is a variable with the name $This, this will contain the TreeView object so we can get the treenode that is selected at that moment from that

Line 76 : if ($this.SelectedNode.tag -eq "NotEnumerated")

we check if we already did get the children of this node, otherwise we will collect them and add SubNodes to the TreeView for them.

Line 109 : $form.AcceptButton = $btnSelect

Make The Select Button the Default so it will get a click event when [Enter] is pressed

Line 111 : $Form.Add_Shown({$form.Activate()})

Used to give the form focus

Line 120 : The logic to make the script "Hybrid"

For more info about the AD parts see the rest of the series,

For more info about building GUI's and placing and using Form elements on them in PowerShell See my Other GUI examples in former posts.

Using a DataGrid :

PowerShell out-DataGrid update and more DataSet utilities

Using a Property Grid (Object Viewer)

PowerShell-out-propertygrid-msh-view.html

about Focus the Form problem (updated version this script)

Simple Show-Image function for Monad

Adding menus etc ,

MSH Concentration (scripting games part 4)

MSH Minesweeper GUI game

Hosting PowerShell in it.

Hosting an MSH runspace from Monad

Use For EventWatcher workaround (STA Thread ), and how to use Popup balloons.

MSH directory watcher with popup-balloon

There are a bit more posts to find, if you search on GUI on my blog.

*Edit* as the lineNumbers do stay if you copy the Code Above and pasting it, So I'm posting the code another time without LineNumbers

Enjoy,

greetings /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

Repost code from Notepad,without LineNumbers hope this works as well LiveWrite as Blogger hangs, on toughing this post ;-(

PowerShell

2006-09-04T23:41:00.000+02:00

"$([char[]]( (2    *  40  )  , 
(100   +   11                 ) , 
(99   +   8   +   12       )   , 
(10   *   10 +   1  )     , 
(  114                   ), 
( 83         )   , 
    (   100 +  4           )   , 
(50 +    50   +    1      )   , 
(30   +   70  + 8        )   , 
(9    + 99       )   
) 
) 
"

PowerShell : How Do I randomize a list, and remove some elements ?

2006-09-03T16:07:00.000+02:00

Going on from last 2 posts,

PowerShell : How can I tell whitch numbers are missing from a sequence of numbers found in a text file ?

PowerShell : Can you do that less cryptic ?

about finding missing elements in a sequence, inspired by a Hey Scripting guy, article : PowerShell : How can I tell witch numbers are missing from a sequence of numbers found in a text file ? , and the Sort problem mentioned.

I came to another nice challenge, creating a test file for it, that is random and with some missing numbers,

I made a remark about speed, (edit 3) in the second post, as on IRC we where comparing other methods and speed differences between the Methods used, you can find the examples at the end of the second post.

But with so little numbers (10) in the original file, it is hard to test,

So I made up some PowerShell commands to make a bigger testfile for this, for example to test the speed of the filereading and the sort, so if you past this code into the PowerShell console It will create a testfile of 1900 numbers from 1 to 2000 in Random order and with 100 missing numbers :

Below the Code you will find the results when I did paste this code into my Console with some remarks to explain what is going on here :

# Write the test Numbers to the file  

1..2000 | sc c:\powershell\test.txt 

# Read them back in an ArrayList 

[collections.arraylist]$a=[io.file]::ReadAllLines('c:\powershell\test.txt') 

# put them in random order and remove 100 to create the gaps 

$r = ($a.count - 100)..1 |% {$R = new-object random}{$R.next(0,$a.count) |%{$a[$_];$a.removeat($_)}}  

# Test the Times for sorting  

(measure-command {$r | sort {[int]$_}}).TotalMilliseconds 
(measure-command {[array]::sort($r)}).TotalMilliseconds 

# Write the Randomized numbers back to the file 

$r | sc c:\powershell\test.txt 

# Test the complete Command 

(Measure-Command {gc test.txt | sort {[int]$_} |% {$i = 1}{while ($i -lt $_){$i;$i++};$i++}}).TotalMilliseconds 

# Test the Alternate Version 

(Measure-Command { 
  [int[]]$a=[io.file]::ReadAllLines('c:\powershell\test.txt') 
  [array]::sort($a) 
  $a |% {$i = 1}{while ($i -lt $_){$i;$i++};$i++} 
}).TotalMilliseconds 

And here the results of this :

PoSH># Write the test Numbers to the file
PoSH>
PoSH>1..2000 | sc c:\powershell\test.txt
PoSH>
PoSH># Read them back in an Array
PoSH>
PoSH>[collections.arraylist]$a=[io.file]::ReadAllLines('c:\powershell\test.txt')
PoSH>
PoSH># put them in random order and remove 100 to create the gaps
PoSH>
PoSH>$r = ($a.count - 100)..1 |% {$R = new-object random}{$R.next(0,$a.count) |%{$a[$_];$a.removeat($_)}}
PoSH>

This last line is the most interesting line where the magic happens, but the start of this "magic" is in the line before already, not the method of reading the file but the : [collections.arraylist]$a that will cast the result into an arraylist, In an arraylist you can add and remove Items, we make use of that in the next line.

$r will take the results, as the $a array will be empty at the end of the command, next part is :

($a.count - 100)..1 this will make a range from 1900 to 1, as the first line created a file with 2000 lines, but we want 100 less, if you just want to randomize the list just remove the -100 and all the numbers will stay and the list will only be randomized.

Next |% The Foreach, then the first scriptblock, {$R = new-object random} , this will generate a new random generator for more info see, Thow Dices in MSH , and 2 GUI games I made before that use it : MSH Minesweeper GUI game ,MSH Concentration (scripting games part 4) ,

As this scriptblock is followed by another one the Foreach will treat this as a Begin Block and only execute this once, then will execute the next scriptblock as a process block, $R.next(0,$a.count) |%

This will create a random number from 0 to 1999 , and that is pipelined to the next scriptblock, note that the value on the pipeline is not used here, it just is used to determine the times to loop.

The random number is now passed on to the next scriptblock, $a[$_];$a.removeat($_) it takes the random number from the pipeline ($_), and outputs the item that is at that place in the Arraylist $a{$_}, next it will remove the Item that it did output from the Arraylist $a.removeat($_) that is where the base of the magic is hidden,

what, that's all remove an Item ?, Yep ;-),

As next, the loop will go on to the second pass, and will come here again $R.next(0,$a.count) but as we did remove the item that we did output, this will be a number from 0 to 1998,

So we will never output a double item, as we use the random number just as an Index, the trick with the 100 numbers to leave out is also based on that we just miss the last 100 numbers that remain AFTER we picked the numbers at random and that we did put in the $R array already:

Lets list the first 10 to show that this did work :

PoSH>$r[1..10]
61
1343
1108
1527
762
1039
277
295
475
1155

Now we can do out first test with the randomized list,

PoSH># Test the Times for sorting
PoSH>
PoSH>(measure-command {$r | sort {[int]$_}}).TotalMilliseconds
1553.9698
PoSH>(measure-command {[array]::sort($r)}).TotalMilliseconds
5.7518

Hmm, we already see some difference, but for testing our solutions for the question, we also want to test the reading of the file so we write the new list back to the file :

PoSH># Write the Randomized numbers back to the file
PoSH>
PoSH>$r | sc c:\powershell\test.txt
PoSH>

Now that we are here, we have created our testfile, and we can go on test the complete solution against a 1900 records random file with 100 numbers missing (I removed some of the output, but you can see the numbers are random missing :

PoSH>[int[]]$a=[io.file]::ReadAllLines('c:\powershell\test.txt')
PoSH>[array]::sort($a)
PoSH>$a |% {$i = 1}{while ($i -lt $_){$i;$i++};$i++}
6
23
29
61
73
129
207
234
241

So Now we can go on and compare the speed of some different solutions for the question against a bigger file

PoSH># Test the complete Command
PoSH>
PoSH>(Measure-Command {gc test.txt | sort {[int]$_} |% {$i = 1}{while ($i -lt $_){$i;$i++};$i++}}).TotalMilliseconds
1814.0741
PoSH>
PoSH>(Measure-Command {
>> [int[]]$a=[io.file]::ReadAllLines('c:\powershell\test.txt')
>> [array]::sort($a)
>> $a |% {$i = 1}{while ($i -lt $_){$i;$i++};$i++}
>> }).TotalMilliseconds
>>
307.5865

As you can see there can be some differences here ;-)

If you like to do some more testing, also take a look in the PowerShell : Can you do that less cryptic ? post for some more different ways to solve the question

At the end of the post the 2 examples using Diff (compare-Object), and 1 using for to solve it, you can also compare them for speed

Enjoy your testing and timing ,

If you have other any interesting results (in speed or other ways) or other methods to handle the missing numbers problem, or randomize a list solution, please leave them in the comments,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

PowerShell : Can you do that less cryptic ?

2006-09-02T19:00:00.000+02:00

Ok,Oh, all right

the onliner from last post (" PowerShell : How can I tell witch numbers are missing from a sequence of numbers found in a text file ? ,

gc test.txt | sort {[int]$_} |% {$i = 1}{while ($i -lt $_){$i;$i++};$i++}

was maybe a bit to tiny to post without any explanation.

you can do very powerfull things on the commandline like this, but for in a script or example this might not very handy.

I still not going to explain it,

but I will make it a lot more Clear what Happens, by showing that you do not have too be so tiny in PowerShell , you can write this in a more verbose and readable way , as the former one-liner Can also be written as Follows :

# Read numbers from file  

$numbers = get-content test.txt 

# Sort the Numbers 

$Sortednumbers = $Numbers | Sort {[int]$_} 

# start comparing numbers in file to counter 

$counter = 1 

foreach ($number in $Sortednumbers ) { 

  # as long as Number in file is higher than counter, output as missing and raise counter   

  while ($counter -lt $Number){ 
    "$Counter is missing" 
     $Counter++ 
  } 

  # counter is the same as Number, hence is in file output and raise counter 

  "$Counter is In file" 
  $Counter++ 

}

This code does exactly the same as the on-liner, is a bit more work, but much more clear for code you or somebody else might have to read or change.

*Edit* some other suggestions given on IRC for handling this question are :

# Other suggestions on IRC 
  
# <dreeschkind>  

$n = gc test.txt 
$n|%{[int]$max = 1}{if ($max -lt $_){$max=$_}} 
diff -r $(1..$max) $n 

# <mow001> slower 

$n = gc test.txt 
$max = ($n | Measure-Object -max).maximum 
diff -r $(1..$max) $n 

# <d2d> faster ?
  
$result = @(); $arr = Get-Content test.txt; for ($i = 1; $i -lt $arr[-1]; $i++) { if ($arr -notcontains $i) { $result += $i } }; $result

*Edit 2* Another tip : Need for speed, use another cool feature from Powershell go .NET directly :

[int[]]$a=[io.file]::ReadAllLines('c:\powershell\test.txt')
[array]::sort($a)

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

PowerShell : How can I tell whitch numbers are missing from a sequence of numbers found in a text file ?

2006-09-02T16:54:00.000+02:00

Another Hey Scripting Guy ! Question I could not refuse ;-)

How Can I Tell Which Numbers Are Missing From a Sequence of Numbers Found in a Text File? In Powershell ?

let’s make a text file containing the following sequence of numbers:

# Make a TextFile with the Numbers

@'
2
4
8
9
10
'@ | sc test.txt

How are we going to determine which numbers (1, 3, 5, 6, and 7) are missing from the sequence? Like this:

gc test.txt |% {$i = 1}{while ($i -lt $_){$i;$i++};$i++}

PoSH>gc test.txt |% {$i = 1}{while ($i -lt $_){$i;$i++};$i++}
1
3
5
6
7

What’s that? Explain how this script works? Come on, SG; didn’t we mention that it was Saturday?

*Edit* did I hear someone say Sort ? (thx Karl)

*Edit2* Added from file with cast to INTEGER

gc test.txt | sort {[int]$_} |% {$i = 1}{while ($i -lt $_){$i;$i++};$i++}

PoSH>2,9,4,8,10 | sort |% {$i = 1}{while ($i -lt $_){$i;$i++};$i++}
1
3
5
6
7

*Edit3*, Ok, still no explanation but this might help understanding how this script works : PowerShell : Can you do that less cryptic ?

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

PowerShell Active Directory Browser teaser

2006-09-02T02:49:00.000+02:00

PowerShell Active Directory Browser teaser To test the upload of pictures in Live Writer Beta, a teaser for my next post in the AD series,

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

Powershell, Has my Dell a dangerous battery Part 2 ?

2006-08-31T21:34:00.000+02:00

Yesterday after I posted PowerShell, Has my Dell a dangerous battery ? , I did meet James Thruher

on IRC (irc.freenode.net channel #Powershell ), and while discussing the script he came to the idea to get the serials direct from the Dell site.

b.t.w. if you want to join us on IRC pleasy check it out, on that IRC channel you can also meet amongs others :

Some other regulars on : irc.freenode.net channel #Powershell are :

DbmwS Don't Bother me with Spam (aka D2D, Dance to die ) from monadblog and http://del.icio.us/powershell and very active on the PowerShell Newsgroup : Windows Powershell

Karl Prosser, the guy behind PowerShell Analyzer : Karl Prosser - Klumsy Geek (note that he has a public Alpha release of PowerShell Analyzer (a great PowerShell editor) out now that you can download from his blog)

Arild : from AnkhSVN and also PowerShell fan see his Blog (see also (PowerShell, AnkhSVN and Subversion) on Scott Hanselman's blog)

So, as I did see the new Item on Jim's blog this morning I did think he posted it as my last remark was :

<jtruher> it's still doesn't seem to be quite right - it seems to miss a couple of numbers
* mow001 needs some sleep, see it on your blog ;-)

, but better yet, he posted an other real cool script Background "jobs" and PowerShell.

but as I did see also some differences between his (scraped from the Dell site) and my list, see the compare below, and I think it is a very cool addition I will post it here also.

MSH>compare-object ($AffectedSerials | sort) ($dell | sort)
InputObject SideIndicator
----------- -------------
1K055 =>
5P474 =>
J1524 =>
OR331 =>
59474 <=

Jim did post the solution as a comment 2 comments on last post, but I will post that example here also . and try to keep the &nbsp

<jtruher> blast - the HTML renderer changed my &nbsp; to a real space
<mow001> I will add it to my new post thanks

I will post a complete script again to check this I made 2 options, use the current list ( I made a fresh one with the latest list with the trick below for if yyou have no internet), or it can download it from the Dell site.

MSH>[string]::join("','",$AffectedSerials)
3K590','59474','6P922','C2603','C5339','C5340','C5446','C6269','C6270','D2961','D5555','D6024','D6025
','F2100','F5132','GD785','H3191','JD616','JD617','KD494','M3006','RD857','TD349','U5867','U5882','W5
915','X5308','X5329','X5332','X5333','X5875','X5877','Y1333','Y4500','Y5466
# changed in notepad to :

$affectedSerials = '3K590','59474','6P922','C2603',
'C5339','C5340','C5446','C6269','C6270','D2961','D5555',
'D6024','D6025','F2100','F5132','GD785','H3191','JD616',
'JD617','KD494','M3006','RD857','TD349','U5867','U5882',
'W5915','X5308','X5329','X5332','X5333','X5875','X5877',
'Y1333','Y4500','Y5466'

So now it works like this :

MSH>.\CheckBattery.msh
retrieved affected serials 1K055 C5446 F2100 KD494 W5915 Y1333 3K590 C6269 F5132 OR331 X5308 Y4500 5
P474 C6270 GD785 M3006 X5329 Y5466 6P922 D2961 H3191 RD857 X5332 C2603 D5555 J1524 TD349 X5333 C5339
D6024 JD616 U5867 X5875 C5340 D6025 JD617 U5882 X5877
Battery Model : DELL 4M0105
MSH>.\CheckBattery.msh -internal
Battery Model : DELL 4M0105

and the script looks like this :

# CheckBattery.ps1 
# 
# Check Dell Battery for Fire Hazard 
# Thanks to James Thruher for the Web Part 
#  
# /\/\o\/\/ 2006 
# http://mow001.blogspot.com 

Param ($computer = ".", 
        [switch]$internalList) 

if ($internalList.IsPresent) {  
  $script:affectedSerials = '3K590','59474','6P922','C2603', 
  'C5339','C5340','C5446','C6269','C6270','D2961','D5555', 
  'D6024','D6025','F2100','F5132','GD785','H3191','JD616', 
  'JD617','KD494','M3006','RD857','TD349','U5867','U5882', 
  'W5915','X5308','X5329','X5332','X5333','X5875','X5877', 
  'Y1333','Y4500','Y5466' 
}  
Else {  
  $wc = new net.webclient 
  $bat = $wc.downloadstring("https://www.dellbatteryprogram.com/") 
  $r = [regex]"&nbsp;([A-Z0-9][A-Z0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9])" 

  $matches = $r.matches($bat) 
  $script:AffectedSerials = $matches | foreach { $_.groups[1].captures[0].value } 
  "retrieved  affected serials $($script:AffectedSerials)" 
}  

get-WmiObject win32_battery | Foreach {  
  $Name = $_.name  
  write-host "Battery Model : $name" 
  $script:AffectedSerials | Where {$name -match $_} | Foreach {  
      Write-Warning "Affected : Battery $Name matches : *$_*"  
  }  
} 

Note as in the other post (I forgot to mention it but )you can give also a computername to connect to a remote system.

And this time I made it as a script that you can run .

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

PowerShell, Has my Dell a dangerous battery ?

2006-08-30T23:19:00.000+02:00

Some Dell Batteries can become to hot see : Dell Laptop Explodes in Flames - Gizmodo

Dell has started a Recall of Notebook Computer Batteries,CPSC, Dell Announce Recall of Notebook Computer Batteries.

Not all Dell Batteries are Affected, so I made a PowerShell script to get the Battery Model and check it against the list of batteries so that you can check your battery easy. For more information and pointers to instructions on how to inspect your battery, and how to begin the battery exchange process, see Dell's Battery Return Program page.

I also will use this example, to show again how to start different kinds of examples in PowerShell as there are a couple of different ways to make and start the examples, making it very flexible, but for beginning users in PowerShell it is not always that clear how to start the examples on my blog, I noticed from some comments and questions, I mentioned this before a couple of times before on my blog e.g. in PowerShell and Active Directory Part 8 (ACL's), but I will use this example to show some of the different forms again and how to use them as I think it is an important issue and of course want everyone to be able to start and use the examples I provide on my blog ;-)

*Edit* in the next post Powershell, Has my Dell a dangerous battery Part 2 ? you find an example that gets te serials from the Dell site directly, also I have a new list of serials with some changes ! so check out the next post also !

The first Example you can just paste onto your Console

# Lines of code that can just be pasted onto the PowerShell Console 

$AffectedSerials = "3K590","59474","6P922",  
  "C2603","C5339","C5340",  "C5446","C6269",  
  "C6270",  "D2961","D5555","D6024","D6025",  
  "F2100","F5132","GD785","H3191","JD616",  
  "JD617","KD494","M3006","RD857","TD349",  
  "U5867","U5882","W5915","X5308","X5329",  
  "X5332","X5333","X5875","X5877","Y1333",  
  "Y4500","Y5466"  

get-WmiObject win32_battery | Foreach {  
  $Name = $_.name  
  write-host "Battery Model : $name" 
  $AffectedSerials | Where {$name -match $_} | Foreach {  
      Write-Warning "Affected : Battery $Name matches : *$_*"  
  }  
} 

Ok  Lets see how that does look,Let's past in the first line 

PoSH>$AffectedSerials = "3K590","59474","6P922",
>> "C2603","C5339","C5340", "C5446","C6269",
>> "C6270", "D2961","D5555","D6024","D6025",
>> "F2100","F5132","GD785","H3191","JD616",
>> "JD617","KD494","M3006","RD857","TD349",
>> "U5867","U5882","W5915","X5308","X5329",
>> "X5332","X5333","X5875","X5877","Y1333",
>> "Y4500","Y5466"
>>

this is also the way I created the list from the Dell website and pasted it in from notepad , next to that it started with this oneliner I created interactively :

Posh>gwmi win32_battery |% {$AffectedSerials |% {$name -match $_}}

As you could see from the first line, filling the Affected serials variable, PowerShell detects that a line is not ready when you past it in and will continue the line (showing >>)

So I copied that line into notepad did format it more lines, after that I cleaned out the code a bit, while pasting to code back into the console to check until I liked the result

I really love to work on the console by pasting in and out of the console like this while testing as its really quick as you use quickedit !! the console works great see also : Commandline editing with MSH.

(as my VM has not battery and my base OS on my laptop runs still MSH you see the prompt change ;-)),

Posh>gwmi win32_battery |% {$AffectedSerials |% {$name -match $_}}
MSH>$AffectedSerials = "3K590","59474","6P922",
>> "C2603","C5339","C5340", "C5446","C6269",
>> "C6270", "D2961","D5555","D6024","D6025",
>> "F2100","F5132","GD785","H3191","JD616",
>> "JD617","KD494","M3006","RD857","TD349",
>> "U5867","U5882","W5915","X5308","X5329",
>> "X5332","X5333","X5875","X5877","Y1333",
>> "Y4500","Y5466"
>>
MSH>get-WmiObject win32_battery | Foreach {
>> $Name = $_.name
>> write-host "Battery Model : $name"
>> $AffectedSerials | Where {$name -match $_} | Foreach {
>> Write-Warning "Affected : Battery $Name matches : *$_*"
>> }
>>
>> }
>>
Battery Model : DELL 4M0105

Note that with this method all is loaded in the $global (interactive) scope, so that I can also interact with the variables in between, in this case I use this to add part of my found serial to the $Affected serials HashTable to test the Warning :

# I add part of my model to the array with serials to check, to show the output with a affected battery
MSH>$affectedSerials += "4M010"
MSH>get-WmiObject win32_battery | Foreach {
>> $Name = $_.name
>> write-host "Battery Model : $name"
>> $AffectedSerials | Where {$name -match $_} | Foreach {
>> Write-Warning "Affected : Battery $Name matches : *$_*"
>> }
>> }
>>
Battery Model : DELL 4M0105
WARNING: Affected : Battery DELL 4M0105 matches : *4M010*

You can see that I do not have to paste the HashTable back in as I have it still loaded in my $global Scope, and I can just change it and past in the second line again, and now it will show the error as it will match against my battery.

This method is very handy while working interactively developing or testing as you can test parts of the script just by pasting them in, as I work like this almost always you can do this with almost every example on my blog.

Another version you will find often on my blog is a function,

# check-Battery function 

function Check-Battery ($computer = '.') { 

  $AffectedSerials = "3K590","59474","6P922",  
    "C2603","C5339","C5340",  "C5446","C6269",  
    "C6270",  "D2961","D5555","D6024","D6025",  
    "F2100","F5132","GD785","H3191","JD616",  
    "JD617","KD494","M3006","RD857","TD349",  
    "U5867","U5882","W5915","X5308","X5329",  
    "X5332","X5333","X5875","X5877","Y1333",  
    "Y4500","Y5466"  

  get-WmiObject win32_battery -computer $computer | Foreach {  
    $Name = $_.name  
    write-host "Battery Model : $name" 
    $AffectedSerials | Where {$name -match $_} | Foreach {  
        Write-Warning "Affected : Battery $Name matches : *$_*"  
    }  
  } 
}

you can also use those examples just by pasting them onto the Console, but after that you need to start them

MSH># check-Battery function
MSH>
MSH>function Check-Battery ($computer = '.') {
>>
>> $AffectedSerials = "3K590","59474","6P922",
>> "C2603","C5339","C5340", "C5446","C6269",
>> "C6270", "D2961","D5555","D6024","D6025",
>> "F2100","F5132","GD785","H3191","JD616",
>> "JD617","KD494","M3006","RD857","TD349",
>> "U5867","U5882","W5915","X5308","X5329",
>> "X5332","X5333","X5875","X5877","Y1333",
>> "Y4500","Y5466"
>>
>> get-WmiObject win32_battery -computer $computer | Foreach {
>> $Name = $_.name
>> write-host "Battery Model : $name"
>> $AffectedSerials | Where {$name -match $_} | Foreach {
>> Write-Warning "Affected : Battery $Name matches : *$_*"
>> }
>> }
>> }
>>
MSH>Check-Battery
Battery Model : DELL 4M0105
MSH>Check-Battery foo
get-WMIObject : The RPC server is unavailable. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800706BA)
At line:10 char:16
+ get-WmiObject <<<< win32_battery -computer $computer | Foreach {

MSH>$AffectedSerials -contains '4M010'
True

Note that as I declare the $AffectedSerials in the function, my modified $AffectedSerials is not used so my computer will not show up as affected, but my $global scope is not changed it still contains the added value as the function runs in his own scope.

A common misunderstanding is that an example like this is copied from my blog into notepad and then saved in a file.

as this is the declaration of a function this function gets loaded not executed, also after you run the script you can not use the function if you want to load it in the interactive ($global) scope to keep it handy you need to start the script with a dot (called Dot Sourcing to be able to use it after running the script) as with the function

some examples of this:

PowerShell out-DataGrid update and more Dataset utilities

working with CSV files in MSH (part one)

this way of loading functions is great for use in a profile see also :

Tuning MSH in your Profile

I hope this shows a bit how easy it is to test by pasting code into the console, how to work with the different examples and how the different ways of starting code differ. in later posts more about how to work with scripts.

If you still have problems starting one of my examples please let me know.

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

PowerShell Adding -verbose switch to functions

2006-08-28T22:57:00.000+02:00

*Remark* this is a post to test Live Writer so it will change a couple of times. (*Edit 5 *for now it looks good I can edit my posts without losing formatting, and offline)

*Edit 2* there will be some double posts for testing, I will remove those later (this link will stay others will be removed)

In the last post you did see that I used the verbose-switch

here I will show an example on how to set this for the function itself, or to use the preference variables to set this:

*Edit* note that all the Write Messages do not get passed to the pipeline so only will display on the host.

*see this examples in normal text look if pipeline chars do stay

PoSH>$test = "pipeline" ; write-host "Host"
Host

PoSH>$test
pipeline

PoSH>1,2 |% {out-host "pipeline $_" ; write-host "Host $_"}
Host 1
Host 2

PoSH>1,2 |% {"pipeline $_" ; write-host "Host $_"}
pipeline 1
Host 1
pipeline 2
Host 2

PoSH>1,2 |% {"pipeline $_" ; write-host "Host $_"} |% {"second foreach : $_"}
second foreach : pipeline 1
Host 1
second foreach : pipeline 2
Host 2

PoSH>

*End Edit*

In the former examples you could see what is the difference between outputting to the host and to the pipeline, the last example shows that in the second foreach there is only the output from out-object (out-object is used by default if you just put a string on a line as I did in the example)

an example how to add a switch to a funtion, so you can override it for a function like you can with a CMDlet :

# WriteExample.ps1 
# add a verbose switch to a PowerShell Function 

param ([switch]$Verbose) 

# Check verbose Switch 

if ($verbose.IsPresent) { 
  $VerbosePreference = 'Continue' 
  Write-Verbose "Verbose Mode Enabled" 
} 
Else { 
  $VerbosePreference = 'SilentlyContinue' 
} 

# Rest of script 

write-host "only Host output" 
write-verbose "only Host output verbose mode" 
write-warning "Warning only host" 
write-error "error, will raise error" 

now you can change the behavior by setting the preference in the $global scope or overrule it on a Function base this like this :

*Edit 4 *Note that the -verbose switch will set it only for the script it leaves the global setting alone

# Examples working with the different preferences 

PoSH>$VerbosePreference 
SilentlyContinue 
PoSH>$WarningPreference 
Continue 
PoSH>$ErrorActionPreference 
Continue 

PoSH>\WriteExample.ps1 
only Host output 
WARNING: Warning only host 
C:\PowerShell\WriteExample.ps1 : error, will raise error 
At line:1 char:19 
+ .\WriteExample.ps1  <<<< 

# verbose 

PoSH>\WriteExample.ps1 -v 
VERBOSE: Verbose Mode Enabled 
only Host output 
VERBOSE: only Host output verbose mode 
WARNING: Warning only host 
C:\PowerShell\WriteExample.ps1 : error, will raise error 
At line:1 char:19 
+ .\WriteExample.ps1  <<<< -v 
PoSH> 

# changing also warning and error preference 

PoSH>$ErrorActionPreference = 'SilentlyContinue' 
PoSH>$WarningPreference = 'SilentlyContinue' 
PoSH>.\WriteExample.ps1 
only Host output 
PoSH>.\WriteExample.ps1 -v 
VERBOSE: Verbose Mode Enabled 
only Host output 
VERBOSE: only Host output verbose mode 
PoSH>

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

PowerShell and Active Directory Part 9 (nested groups)

2006-08-28T18:09:00.000+02:00

In this entry I will show how you can use a recursive script to get the all members of a group, including the members that are in nested groups.

Note that the script will not handle groups with more as 1000 (W2K) or 1500 (W2K3) users,
as this is the maximum the Members property will enumerate.
If you have groups that are bigger you need to adapt the script to do a paged search for examples how to do this see :Large AD queries in Monad

The script looks like this :

# Function get-NestedMembers 
# List the members of a group including all nested members of subgroups 
# /\/\o\/\/ 2006 
 
function get-NestedMembers ($group){  
  if ($group.objectclass[1] -eq 'group') {  
        write-verbose "Group $($group.cn)"  
    $Group.member |% {  
      $de = new-object directoryservices.directoryentry("LDAP://$_")  
      if ($de.objectclass[1] -eq 'group') {  
        get-NestedMembers $de  
      }  
      Else {  
        $de.sAMAccountName  
      }  
    }  
  } 
  Else { 
    Throw "$group is not a group" 
  }  
} 

Note that I did add the groupname as a Write-Verbose, so it will only show in verbose mode and in verbose mode will only be displayed not passed on to the pipeline , also it will show users that are member of more groups as often as they get found, as show in the examples below you can use group or sort -unique to get a list of them or to only show the users / computers found in more groups once.

# get-NestedMembers usage examples : 
  
# get a group 
 
$group = new-object directoryservices.directoryentry("LDAP://cn=MainGroup,OU=Groups,DC=mow,DC=Local") 
 
# Get all nested members 
 
get-NestedMembers $group 
 
User1 
User2 
User2 
User3 
 
# Show current verbose mode : 
 
MowPS>$VerbosePreference 
SilentlyContinue 
 
# Enable Verbose Mode : 
 
$VerbosePreference = 'continue' 
 
get-NestedMembers $group 
 
VERBOSE: Group MainGroup 
User1 
User2 
VERBOSE: Group SubGroup 
User2 
User3 
 
# Disable Verbose Mode again : 
 
$VerbosePreference = 'SilentlyContinue' 
 
# Group the output to get the doubles 
  
get-NestedMembers $group | group 
 
Count Name                      Group 
----- ----                      ----- 
    1 User1                  {User1} 
    2 User2                  {User2, User2} 
    1 User3                  {User3} 
 
# Use sort -Unique to get every user only once 
 
get-NestedMembers $group | sort -Unique 
 
User1 
User2 
User3

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

Powershell and hey Scripting guy !

2006-08-24T21:47:00.000+02:00

one of my most favorite scripting sites is the Script Center on Microsoft teched.

As I said often before on my blog especialy the scripting guys items I like very much, I follow it for a long time and and I did learn a lot from it.

the first powershell examples on the scriptingcenter in the Windows PowerShell Script Repository where a bit dissapointing
see also : First Monad B3 impression and please help the scripting guys

but after some complaining : see also : PowerShell's Script Center problem
the Scripting guy made it all up see :

How Can I Use Windows PowerShell to Start a Service on a Remote Computer?
What Can I Do With Windows PowerShell?

Yesterday the scripting guy answered a Powershell Question again :
How Can I Use Windows PowerShell to Determine the Status of the Guest Account?

For the question of today in powershell see also :
How Can I Add or Subtract Two Hexadecimal Numbers?
for Powershell this looks like this :

# Add some hex numbers :

MSH>0x1C8 + 0xD201
54217

# use the format operator :

MSH>"{0:x}" -f (0x1C8 + 0xD201)
d3c9

# use the tostring overload

MSH>(0x1C8 + 0xD201).tostring('x')
d3c9

need I say more ?

for more examples of formatting on the powershellconsole see also 2006 Winter Scripting Games (part 2)

So you see that its also nice to follow the examples not in Powershell and try to find a PowerShell way, I have a lot of examples of doing that, in the series about the Scripting Games I did compete in on my blog where I did al the questions also in powerShell form (MSH at the time) as all the material and origional answers are still online here : Scripting Games Home.

The PowerShell versions a made for the events you can find here : (from first to last)
2006 Winter Scripting Games
2006 Winter Scripting Games (part 2)
scripting games part 3
MSH Concentration (scripting games part 4)
Scripting Games week 2
The Scripting Games Event 6 in MSH
Scripting Games almost over
scripting games Last Day MSH answers for event 7 and 8

but as you see the "Hey scripting guy !" series is also nice to check fo the VbSScript examples as a lot of the techniques also can be used in powershell,
you can theck the archive here : Hey, Scripting Guy! Archive by Date
and the Script center has also a "what is new" RSS feed that you can use to be triggered when new examples get posted as they get metioned in the feed, hence its one of favorite feeds as well.

I need a bit more time on the next part of the AD series as I still don't like the version as I have it at the moment
As also I had a very busy Weekend doing a big migration at a customer last weekend, (powershell was very usefull there , not to say that it did make/save my weekend, as it enabled me to quickly do some large AD / Exchange changes and other checks of logfiles from robocopy etc .
I made some powershell scripts on the fly to :

checking list of emailadresses agains the adresses in AD etc.
scanning (grep-ping) logfiles etc.
changing Email aliases,
setting primiary aliases
removing double primairy adresses
setting forwarding on mailboxes
setting Permissions on Mailboxes.
list the mailboxes I did disable the mailbox restrictions on
setting some redirections on group mailboxes etc.

As I do think that I could have done the status reports asked, lastminute changes, and fixes needed during the migration that quick and in a situation that was, as Jeffrey Snover would say "With my hair on fire"

I did had to replace someone at the last minute on this project, hence did not know the situation wel, and the large (large) Vbscripts and tooling used for it I did not realy know , so to make these changes/fixes with the origional scripts, as mostly there was only need to do a small part of the complete migration script to run again, or needed some tuning, or I was not completly sure if all siteeffects where covered if I did run the script and also I did some things as setting send-As security on mailboxes that is not that easy,

So I was realy glad I could do a lot on the fly on the powershell commandline, and make small scripts on the fly to do the changes, to do that in VbScripts would be way to much work to even have tried.

So in this situation I realy did feel the "Power" of powershell during big migrations, As is that much more easy to make this kind of changes and checks,

I think a lot of times last weekend about how difficult that would have been in VbScript and how much time I would have taken.

and that I realy could not miss PowerShell anymore.

I will also make a post with some examples I did use for this as I clear them up and sort them out, for a later post in the AD series.

Enjoy,

Greetings, /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

PowerShell Orphan share remover Tool (Update)

2006-08-14T17:44:00.000+02:00

I needed to clean some Orphan Shares on our servers,
but when I did lookup the MSH script, I make last year I found that the stats did not work anymore in PowerShell, also it had a boolean parameter, since we have a Switch argument now in PowerShell that would be better,

So I Updated the MSH Orphan share remover Tool To PowerShell,
I changed the $doChange Bool to a [Switch], (new in powerShell RC1
see PowerShell AD site Finder) also the -eq behavour when checking an array changed,
so I needed to change the to -contains (for the example I did leave them in but I switched also to keeping count in the script)

The Update script looks like this :

# OrphanShares.PS1 
# Checks / Removes Orphan Shares 
# /\/\o\/\/ 2005 
# V2 updated to PowerShell RC1 
 
param ( 
  [string] $Computer = ".",    
  [Switch] $Remove 
) 
 
# Connect to registry 
 
$Reg = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey('LocalMachine', $Computer) 
$key = $Reg.OpenSubKey("SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Shares", $True) 
 
# get shares in Registry : 
 
$Regshares = $Key.GetValueNames() 
 
# get Existing shares : 
 
$shares = @();get-WMIObject -computer $Computer win32_share | foreach {$shares += $_.name} 
 
# Compare the Lists : 
 
$Exist = 0 
$Orphan = 0 
$deleted = 0 
 
$RegShares | foreach { 
  if ($shares -eq $_) { 
 
    "$_ Exists" 
    $Exists += 1 
 
  }Else { 
 
    "$_ is an Orphan" 
    $Orphan += 1 
 
    # Only if DoChange is True Delete The Orphan Share 
 
    if ($Remove.IsPresent) {$Key.DeleteValue($_);"$_ Deleted !!";$deleted +=1} 
  } 
} 
 
# show some statistics : 
 
"Existing : $Exists" 
"Orphan   : $Orphan" 
"Deleted   : $Deleted" 
 
# changed -eq to -contains but not used anymore  
 
# "Orphan   : ";($RegShares | foreach {"$_ $($shares -contains $_)"} | findstr "False" | measure-object).count 
# "Existing : ";($RegShares | foreach {"$_ $($shares -contains $_)"} | findstr "True" | measure-object).count 
 

For more information about Orphan shares and the script see the old post,
Enjoy,

Greetings /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

PowerShell and Active Directory Part 8 (ACL's)

2006-08-11T23:28:00.000+02:00

This eighth part of the AD series is the *Edit* change of plans, see rest of blogentry, there will be one more, (one before) last about creating users in Active Directory,
in this post we will transform the filter used in last post to a more robust function, and transform it in a more production quality script.

*Note* Disclaimer, while I discus the posibilities for making a production quality script the example script I provide in this post is only a example on how to start, not complete and tested script, so only use this in a test environment also be sure to have a basic understanding
of how the script works, better yet read the other posts in this series first!

Part 1 to 3 of this series handle the making of a user from the start from the commandline, an overview what you can find where you can find in the beginning of part 4 ,
Part 5 - 7 handle the way to use CSV files or any other way to fill the PSObject with the needed properties, and this function.

PowerShell and Active Directory Part 7
PowerShell and Active Directory Part 6
PowerShell and Active Directory Part 5
PowerShell and Active Directory Part 4 (TypeData)
PowerShell and Active Directory Part 3 (UserProperties)
PowerShell and Active Directory Part 2
PowerShel and Active Directory Part 1

First about the change to a script, the Filter I used is easy to test with as you can just past it to the commandline, this version is a script that you can run directly.

for another example see the changes Mike Hodnick made to an out-zip function I made before MSH out-zip Function in his blogpost here Create zip/compressed folders with Powershell to make it into a scriptas it was "but it wasn't exactly 100% usable out of the box".

The only thing that needed changing is the extension (MSH to PS1) and it works,
only this script was made to create / load the function :

. c:\powershell\fuctions\out-zip.ps1

note the [dot][space] before the scriptpath, that makes that the function is loaded into the $global scope, otherwise it is gone again after the script ends.
It is gone also if you close the PowerShell console but I load this in my profile to keep it handy.
As I mostly test by pasting code into the console most of my examples are like this, so you can just past them in from my blog to test.

So it both handy out-of-the box I think but in an other way and / or a different purpose.
it's good to compare the 2 scripts to see wat I mean.
In this case I also did choose to switch to a scriptfile to run and let it call internal functions.
for some more info and another example see also : PowerShell AD site Finder this script has the same form, also the switch parameter and byRef I discuss there.

For the setting "User can not change password" I did not yet discuss that in Part 3 about setting the special properties, this is actualy a ACL on the directoryentry and you can not set it using ADSI, only with the NT provider.
You can not use the WinNT provider with a DirectoryEntry Object, but there are some workarounds see also : Access ADSI WinNT provider from Monad Part 2

You see there are 2 workarounds,
The First I found was inline VB.NET code MSH access NT provider
The second was the Reflection example in part 2,that way, Importing the VisualBasic namespace , I show here :

# Setting User can not change password with NT provider using the VisualBasic namespace 

[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName('microsoft.visualbasic') 

$winNT = [microsoft.visualbasic.interaction]::GetObject("WinNT://mow/mow",$null) 
$Type = $winNT.gettype() 
$Type.invokemember("userFlags",'GetProperty',$null,$winNT,$null) -band 0x40 

$new = $Type.invokemember("userFlags",'GetProperty',$null,$winNT,$null) -bor 0x40 
$Type.invokemember("userFlags",'SetProperty',$null,$winNT,$new) 
# Save the changes 

$Type.invokemember("setinfo",'invokemethod',$null,$winNT,$null)

But as it is actualy an ACL on the directory object we can also change the security on the User object ourself, see for more information here : MDSN User Cannot Change Password (LDAP Provider) (Be sure to follow the links to the different examples )
for a VbScript see example : HilltopLabs : cannot Change Password

This looks very difficult and big scripts are needed, but we have powershell ;-)
So this looks like this in the script :

  # Set User Cannot Change Password Property 

  if ($_.CantChangePassword) { 

    $everyOne = [System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier]'S-1-1-0' 
    $EveryoneDeny = new-object System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectoryAccessRule ($Everyone,'ExtendedRight','Deny','ab721a53-1e2f-11d0-9819-00aa0040529b') 
    $self = [System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier]'S-1-5-10' 
    $SelfDeny = new-object System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectoryAccessRule ($self,'ExtendedRight','Deny','ab721a53-1e2f-11d0-9819-00aa0040529b') 

    $newUser.get_ObjectSecurity().AddAccessRule($selfDeny) 
    $newUser.get_ObjectSecurity().AddAccessRule($EveryoneDeny) 

    $newUser.CommitChanges() 

  }

Not to Bad right, but note that the other examples do some more checking and can set it back also, as we create new users here we do not need all this.

*Edit* I decided this subject was important enough to get his own blogentry and found back some old material from when I did not have internet I did not post yet, so I will post that material here and will continue the script in next post.

In the samples below you can also see how to explore the AD security from the commandline and also to check the current ACL's and remove the Access denied rules.
you can see that it is also very easy, also I will discuss the User must change password at next logon property in this examples, setting pwdLastset to -1 or 0
will switch that (it can not be set in combination the the User can not change password)

# Remove Access denied from commandline 

$mow.get_ObjectSecurity().GetAccessRules($true,$false, [System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier] ) 

$mow.get_ObjectSecurity().GetAccessRules($true,$false, [System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]) |? {$_.ObjectType -eq 'ab721a53-1e2f-11d0-9819-00aa0040529b'} 
$mr = $mow.get_ObjectSecurity().GetAccessRules($true,$false, [System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]) |? {$_.ObjectType -eq 'ab721a53-1e2f-11d0-9819-00aa0040529b'} |? {$_.AccessControlType -eq 'Deny'} 

$mow.get_ObjectSecurity().RemoveAccessRule($mr[0]) 

$mow.get_ObjectSecurity().RemoveAccessRule($mr[1]) 

$mow.CommitChanges() 

######################################## 

PoSH>$mr[0].IdentityReference | gm 

   TypeName: System.Security.Principal.NTAccount 

[System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier].GetConstructors() |% {"$_"} 

############## 

# Make SID Objects  

$everyOne = [System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier]'S-1-1-0' 
$self = [System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier]'S-1-5-10' 

# you can use NTAccount but thats localized  

# translate  

PoSH>$self.Translate( [System.Security.Principal.NTAccount]) 

Value 
----- 
NT AUTHORITY\SELF 

# get the consructors 

[System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectoryAccessRule].GetConstructors() |% {"$_"} 
  
# we are going to use this one : 

Void .ctor(System.Security.Principal.IdentityReference, System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectoryRights, System.Security 
.AccessControl.AccessControlType, System.Guid) 

new System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectoryAccessRule ($self,'ExtendedRight','Deny','ab721a53-1e2f-11d0-9819-00aa0040529b') 

ActiveDirectoryRights : ExtendedRight 
InheritanceType       : None 
ObjectType            : ab721a53-1e2f-11d0-9819-00aa0040529b 
InheritedObjectType   : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 
ObjectFlags           : ObjectAceTypePresent 
AccessControlType     : Deny 
IdentityReference     : S-1-5-10 
IsInherited           : False 
InheritanceFlags      : None 
PropagationFlags      : None 

$SelfDeny = new-object System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectoryAccessRule ($self,'ExtendedRight','Deny','ab721a53-1e2f-11d0-9819-00aa0040529b') 
$SelfAllow = new-object System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectoryAccessRule ($self,'ExtendedRight','Allow','ab721a53-1e2f-11d0-9819-00aa0040529b') 
$EveryoneDeny = new-object System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectoryAccessRule ($Everyone,'ExtendedRight','Deny','ab721a53-1e2f-11d0-9819-00aa0040529b') 
$EveryOneAllow = new-object System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectoryAccessRule ($Everyone,'ExtendedRight','Allow','ab721a53-1e2f-11d0-9819-00aa0040529b') 

$mow.get_ObjectSecurity().AddAccessRule($selfDeny) 
$mow.get_ObjectSecurity().AddAccessRule($EveryoneDeny) 

$mow.CommitChanges() 

######################################### 

# Setting User must change password at next Logon 

$user.pwdLastSet = -1 

# Reading password last set value 

$ds = New-Object directoryservices.directorysearcher($user) 

MowPS>[datetime]::fromfiletime(($ds.findone().properties.pwdlastset)[0]) 

Monday, July 17, 2006 5:07:05 PM 

# Un-setting user must chage password at next logon 
$user.pwdLastSet = 0 

MowPS>$user.InvokeGet('PasswordLastChanged') 

*************************** 

MowPS>[datetime]::fromfiletime(($ds.findone().properties.pwdlastset)[0])

Next post I will go on with the script, but I'm still a bit thinging about it and as said did think the ACL material was worth a own "extra" part in this series.

Enjoy,

Greetings /\/\o\/\/
Tags : Monad msh PowerShell

Signing PowerShell Scripts

2006-08-09T22:47:00.000+02:00

Scott Hanselmann, posted an excelent Signing PowerShell Scripts tutorial,

after the bogus "powershell worm" (next is the virusscanner removing xcopy as a virus ;-))

for more info see Windows PowerShell and the “PowerShell Worm”

this is a great tutorial about the security features of powershell.

enjoy,

greetings /\/\o\/\/

Tags : Monad msh PowerShell