Jaap is a Senior System Engineer in the Financial Services industry. He focuses on Microsoft and related technologies and has a passion for PowerShell. In his spare time he maintains his Blog, Twitter feed, @Jaap_Brasser, and contributes on the Official Scripting Guys Forum and Windows PowerShell TechNet forums
Jaap BrasserThe Word.Application object can be used to convert Word documents into PDF files using soda pdf software, is handy and convenient, has privacy/security as you need to upload your files to the developer’s server.
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Jaap BrasserIn the previous #PSTip Compress files and folders with System.IO.Compression.FileSystem class, a .zip file was created and extracted. Now it might be good to know the compression ratio to see how much storage space has been saved by compressing the files.
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Jaap BrasserUsing the CreateFromDirectory and ExtractToDirectory methods, it is possible to compress and extract files. In this tip I will show different constructors that can be used to either compress or extract files using this class.
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Jaap BrasserBy using the Windows() method and the LocationURL and LocationName properties we can programmatically determine which folder is open in File Explorer.
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Jaap BrasserUsing the ADSI type accelerator in combination with WinNT provider we can retrieve the last logon time for a local account from the local SAM account database:
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Jaap BrasserUsing the Microsoft.Win32.Registry class it is possible to access both–the local registry and, more importantly, the registry of a remote system.
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Jaap BrasserWhen working with Azure it can be useful to quickly connect to a number of Azure VMs. Unfortunately this might result in having to enter your password multiple times.
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Jaap BrasserChanging a drive letter of a removable drive or DVD drive is an easy task with Windows PowerShell. Using the Win32_Volume class and the Set-CimInstance cmdlet a drive letter can be reassigned.
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Jaap BrasserWhen working with the PowerShell ISE it can occur that there are a lot of untitled scripts left at the end of a busy day of scripting.
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Jaap BrasserIn Windows files can have a lot of additional file attributes that are not shown when using the Get-ChildItem cmdlet. To reveal these the Shell.
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Jaap BrasserIn PowerShell 4.0, the Get-ScheduledTask cmdlet was introduced, but unfortunately this cmdlet is not available in older versions of PowerShell. This is where the Schedule.
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Jaap BrasserWhile it is great that PowerShell can do so many things in the background without having to interact with it, occasionally it might be useful to have a graphical notification.
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Jaap BrasserIn modern days Windows operating systems, User Account Control (UAC) is enabled by default. There are some considerations when using PowerShell and running a script in elevated or non-elevated context.
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Jaap BrasserWhen using the Get-ADOrganizationalUnit cmdlet there is a property available, LinkedGroupPolicyObjects. Unfortunately, that property only displays the GUID of the Group Policy Objects.
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Jaap BrasserNote: This tip required PowerShell 3.0 or above The Win32_Share WMI class can be used to enumerate all shares on the local or remote system.
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Jaap BrasserIn the ‘Create mapped network drive using WScript.Network‘ tip, it was shown how a mapped drive can be mounted. The WScript.
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Jaap BrasserIn the ‘Create mapped network drive using WScript.Network‘ post, it was shown how a mapped drive can be mounted. The mapped drive doesn’t initially have a friendly name–only the name of the shared folder and the server name will be shown.
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Jaap BrasserThere are multiple methods of mapping network drives in PowerShell. In the past the net.exe tool was used and since PowerShell 3.
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Jaap BrasserNote: This tip requires PowerShell 2.0 or above. In PowerShell, it is possible to use GUI elements to request user input.
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Jaap BrasserNote: This tip requires PowerShell 2.0 or above. In PowerShell, it is possible to use GUI elements to allow for user input during scripts.
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Jaap BrasserNote: This tip requires PowerShell 2.0 or above. Recently a question was posted on the PowerShell.com forums: How to get a full list of available ComObjects?
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Jaap BrasserNote: This tip requires PowerShell 2.0 or above. To get more information about any object, class or attribute the MSDN library is often a good resource.
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Jaap BrasserNote: This tip requires PowerShell 2.0 or above. Today I was asked if there was a way to find out which groups have the same group members.
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Jaap BrasserPowerShell provides a nice way of testing if a set of credentials are correct. This can be done by using the System.
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Jaap BrasserThe System.DirectoryServices.AccountManagement namespace provides a nice way of testing if a set of Active Directory credentials are correct (also discussed in PSTip Validating Active Directory user credentials ).
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Jaap BrasserWhen working with Windows PowerShell it can be important to know the screen configuration and resolution of the current computer monitors.
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Jaap BrasserThis question was asked on the forums recently, is it possible to list all the Active Directory attributes that are currently in use for Active Directory users.
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Jaap BrasserNote: This tip requires PowerShell 2.0 or above. PowerShell offers a powerful method of working with URIs by leveraging the System.
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Jaap BrasserWhen working with different PowerShell providers (PSProviders), the use of UNC paths can lead to error messages. This tip will show the pitfalls of using UNC paths when working with PowerShell providers other than the file system.
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Jaap BrasserWhen working with dates in PowerShell it is often useful to leverage the .NET Framework System.DateTime class. For example to display the current date and time the Now method can be used:
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Jaap BrasserUsing the GetHostEntry static method of the .NET Framework System.Net.Dns class it is possible to resolve IP address or a host name:
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Jaap BrasserWhen I met up with Aleksandar Nikolic at TechEd Europe I was asked if I wanted to write an article for PowerShell Magazine.
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