powershell / community-blog

Submissions for posts to the PowerShell Community Blog -https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell-community

PowerShell Community Blog

This repository is for submissions for posts to the PowerShell Community Blog. We welcome submissions to the blog from anyone in the community.

Submissions for articles on this blog are governed by the Microsoft Open Source Code of Conduct or the .NET Foundation Code of Conduct. For more information, see the Code of Conduct FAQ.

The Purpose of This Blog

The intended purpose of the PowerShell Community Blog is to provide a platform for the PowerShell Community to show off the great things you can do with PowerShell. This blog welcomes submissions to the blog both from internal Microsoft teams and external people. Blog posts can cover the open source PowerShell 7 or Windows PowerShell. Your post should clearly outline the problem the being solved. Your post can cover an advanced topic, but most posts are likely to be at the 200-300 level. For advanced topics, consider splitting your subject into a multipart series of posts.

Posts to the blog can discuss products and technologies that aren't part of the core PowerShell product or even made by Microsoft, as long as the post's content is relevant to PowerShell users and is not marketing those products.

The published language for the PowerShell community is English, and mainly American English, although posts other variations of English are acceptable. The article review process focuses on the language and structure of each article, as well as the specific details. Even if English isn't your first language, the review process can help to iron out any problems.

How to Interact

There are several ways you can interact, depending on your needs and levels of enthusiasm.

1. The entry-level, so to speak, is to read the blog and enjoy the content. You can come to the PowerShell Community Blog directly or use a blog aggregation mechanism to view the content. Over time, we hope and expect the major search engines to index these posts, making it easy for IT Pros to find and use the information contained.

2. You can also comment on any of blog posts directly on the blog. This blog uses WordPress, so in order to add comments, you need to create and then login to a WordPress account. Once you logon successfully to the blog, WordPress allows you to add comments to the posts here.

   See our Community Blog docs for detailed instructions. We welcome comments and prefer them in English. You can use an online translator like Bing Translator if English isn't your first language.

3. You may want to contribute to the development of blog posts. You can create new posts, file issues on any article (or proposed article), or help review content submissions. If you find an error, feel free to file an issue on GitHub. You can also file an issue to suggest a specific topic you feel might make a good blog post.

You need a GitHub account to be able to submit anything to the blog's GitHub repository. You can sign up for GitHub at GitHub's new account sign up page. And, you need to be able to use GitHub and, most likely, git on your workstation.

Note

Acceptance of any blog post is done at the sole discretion of the Blog administrators. Once you submit a PR, the build automation adds a comment to the PR asking you to sign the CLA. The comment contains a link to take you to the CLA signing page. Before we can accept any blog post submission, you must sign the Contributor License Agreement (CLA). This is a one-time event.

community-blog's Issues

Update request - How can I copy text to the clipboard

The question is how to copy text to the clipboard

Summary of the update request

• Link to the post in the old blog: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/can-i-copy-script-output-to-the-clipboard/
• Description of what needs to be changed:
  Convert to PowerShell

Should discuss the clipboard and the cmdlets to copy to or from the clipboard.

Request - How to get all the alive servers in the domain?

Summary of the request

As an admin, have to do a lot of reporting for the servers in the domain, however not all the servers are always running.
Maybe using the ActiveDirectory module, get all the servers, and then do the Test-Connection command on the server to check if it is reachable, and return the alive servers.

• Active Directory Reference: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/addsadministration/get-adcomputer?view=win10-ps
• Test-Connection Reference: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.management/test-connection?view=powershell-7.1

Update request - How to determine if a user is local admin

Summary of the update request

How to determine if user is local admin.

Was in: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/how-can-i-determine-if-a-user-is-a-local-administrator/

• Link to the post in the old blog:
• Description of what needs to be changed:

Just change to be PowerShell code.

Update request-How long does it take to run a script

I often see queries about low long it takes for a script or script block to run.

Summary of the update request

• Link to the post in the old blog: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/how-can-i-determine-how-long-it-takes-a-script-to-run/
• Description of what needs to be changed:

Cover subtracting two DateTime objects to get duration
Also should cover Measure-command

Cover Get-Date and timespan objects.

Error using Remove-AdminPowerApp in the Microsoft.PowerApps.Administration.PowerShell module

I am trying to use Remove-AdminPowerApp. I am a PowerPlatform admin, and I am running PowerShell in Administrator mode. The error says: "InvokeApi : The term 'Test-PowerAppsAccount' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or
operable program."

When I try to Install-Module -name Microsoft.PowerApps.Administration.PowerShell, the error says, "The following commands are already available on this system:'Add-PowerAppsAccount, Get-JwtToken, Get-TenantDetailsFromGraph, Get-UsersOrGroupsFromGraph, InvokeApi, Remove-PowerAppsAccount, ReplaceMacro, Select-CurrentEnvironment, Test-PowerAppsAccount'."

The ISE shows:

Post idea - The formatting system and some things to be aware of

Summary of the new document or enhancement

A follow up to some issues and discovered items recently with the formatting system which the Interactive UX group decided would be good to get blogged about

Details of requested document:

• Are you offering to write the post [Y/N]: Y - either as a sole or joint author
• Proposed title: The formatting system and some things to be aware of. / The formatting system and some possible gotchas.
• Links to related posts:
• Description of the problem/scenario/question you want covered: Cover some reasons why formatting may not display as some may have expected in certain secnarios

Please assign to me for me to track this.

Found a typo in first post

Problem description or question

• Link to the blog post: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell-community/announcing-the-powershell-community-blog/
• Description of the problem or question: There is a typo

Update request - Can I Change the Command Window Title When Running a Script?

Update this older Scripting Guys post to the new blog

Summary of the update request

• Link to the post in the old blog:
  https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/can-i-change-the-command-window-title-when-running-a-script/

• Description of what needs to be changed:
  Update to work in PowerShell

Understanding Active Directory ACL via PowerShell

Summary of the new document or enhancement

Details of requested document:

• Are you offering to write the post [Y/N]: Y
• Proposed title: Understanding Active Directory ACL via PowerShell
• Links to related posts:
• Description of the problem/scenario/question you want covered: Understanding how to get and read Active Directory ACL and what are the ObjectGUID mean when running Get-ACL against an Active Directory object. This post will focus on explaining the permission name and how to resolve the permission GUID to name as its not much available on the internet and whats available is not clear.

Update request - Update or Add Registry Key Value with PowerShell

Summary of the update request

• Link to the post in the old blog:
  https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/update-or-add-registry-key-value-with-powershell/

• Description of what needs to be changed:
  Using the Set-ItemProperty cmdlet
  Explaining when New-ItemProperty should be used, because Set-ItemProperty can also create the registry key property value

Contributing to the blog - need more info

Problem description or question

I'd love to submit my first post, but I'm stuck on a few things:

you must sign the Contributor License Agreement (CLA). This is a one-time event.

There's no link or further information on how to do this.

Second, there isn't much info about how you'd like content to be posted. Should we make new branches for each post? The current folder structure appears to be Year/Month, but it stops at 2021. Should everything be posted to December 2021 and the site will just read the date, or should we post somewhere else?

Using Microsoft Graph SDK PowerShell Module

Summary of the new document or enhancement

Details of requested document:

• Are you offering to write the post [Y/N]: Y
• Proposed title: Managing and Using Microsoft Graph SDK PowerShell Module
• Links to related posts:
• Description of the problem/scenario/question you want covered:

This topic discusses and talk about how to use Microsoft Graph SDK PowerShell Module

• Downloading the Module
• Different between the old version and Microsoft Graph
• How Scope works
• Graph Permission
• Examples

Post idea - Using PowerShell and Regular Expressions as a Wordle Solving Tool

Using PowerShell and Regular Expressions to solve a Wordle

Details of requested document:

• Are you offering to write the post [Y/N]: Y
• Proposed title: Using PowerShell and Regular Expressions as a Wordle Solving Tool
• Links to related posts: N/A
• One of the most popular puzzles floating about online is "Wordle" which is a general challenge to figure out a 5 letter word using only 6 guesses. Bragging rights among your friends to solve it the fastest. The solution being shown here is using Regular Expressions and a simple solution to build out a Dynamic loop to reject all the possibilities from a 12,500 Word array to identify the most likely candidates. This solution has been successfully tested against 3 Wordle sites (US, UK and Canada) as well as Quordle (A very challenging combination of four Wordles to solve
  Giant 12,500 word array not supplied. You must assemble that yourself ;)

Clarification about main aim of the powershell-community blog space

Hi,

After discussion with @doctordns I would like to request clarification about the main goal of the powershell-community blog space. The general term "to provide a blogging platform" doesn't really explain the aim of this platform.

Is there even an aim? Like teaching newcomers how to use PowerShell? Cover advanced PowerShell topics? Or post anything PS-related?

My suggestion regarding this matter is that this platform has a great opportunity to have a general goal of being a great source for basic "how-to" examples and at the same time, have additional content to cover the widest audience of systems/solutions without necessarily focusing on code/solution simplicity.

In order to encourage authors to search for the simplest solution and accept PR's that covers those, how about having general guidance as of "If they exist, provide a simples way of achieving the goal for newcomers, then follow your way."?

readme.md - clarify meaning of "classy"

Summary of the update request

for non-native English readers the word isn't common knowledge.
I'd guess replacing "classy" with "content of high quality" would avoid confusions and is easy to digest

Update request - How can I determine if a folder exists?

Request that this post from the older Scripting guys blog be updated and added.

Summary of the update request

• Link to the post in the old blog:
  https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/how-can-i-determine-if-a-folder-exists-on-a-computer/

• Description of what needs to be changed:
  update to work with PowerShell

Typo in `Welcome to the Community-Blog contributor guide`

• Link to the blog post: https://github.com/PowerShell/Community-Blog/blob/main/Docs/README.md
• Description of the problem or question:

the sentence "Making contributions to the blog is very similar to making contributions to docs.microsoft.com. To get started, you the following things:" in the Welcome to the Community-Blog contributor guide is probably missing a verb and should probably be something like:

To get started, you need the following things

Update request - How can I determine the Day of the Week

Summary of the update request

To get the day of the week, you use the DateTime's DayOfWeek property, or if you want a numeric result, use value__

• Link to the post in the old blog:
  https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/how-can-i-determine-the-day-of-the-week/

• Description of what needs to be changed:
  Get a date in the past sho getting the date using Get-Date.
  Then, get Day of Weel and the value

Post idea...List who has access to an SMB Share

Details of requested document:

• Are you offering to write the post [Y/N]: Y
• Proposed title: List who has access to an SMB Share
• Description of the problem/scenario/question you want covered: I have a blog entry ready that describes how to pull the ACL list for an SMB Share. How do I submit the post for review?

Thank you,
Mike

Bulk Create Exchange Mailboxes for AD users and configure settings

I was trying to update an old line in our PowerShell script to create an exchange mailbox for users with no mailbox
Here's what I have so far:

The goal is to:

1. Create Mailbox for all ADusers with No mailbox in a specific OU
2. Add A CustomAttribute in Attribute9
3. Disable IMAP and POP

Get-User -OrganizationalUnit Our UserOU -RecipentTypeDetails User | Enable-Mailbox -database “Your Database” | Set-Mailbox -CustomAttribute9 OurAttribute | Set-CASMailbox –PopEnabled $False –IMAPEnabled $False

Any help you provide would be extremely appreciated.

Password Expiry Notification Using Teams and Graph API

Summary of the new document or enhancement

Details of requested document:

• Are you offering to write the post [Y/N]: Y
• Proposed title: Password Expiry Notification Using Teams and Graph API
• Links to related posts: https://www.powershellcenter.com/2022/07/15/new-mgchat/
• Description of the problem/scenario/question you want covered:
  The post is a demo on how to use Microsoft Graph to send Emails and Teams Message using Graph API.

Post idea: Permanent Event Handling using Windows WMI and PowerShell

Summary of the new document or enhancement

Details of requested document:

• Are you offering to write the post [Y/N]: Y
• Proposed title: Permanent Event Handling using Windows WMI and PowerShell
• Links to related posts:
• Description of the problem/scenario/question you want covered:
  This article goes through the steps required to create a permanent WMI event Handling.
  I used Windows Services Win32_Service as an example and also Win32_Share.
  The Cmdlets are the CIM cmdlets, also I show the case using PowerShell 7.
  I try to explain EventFilter, all Consumers classes, and Binding and provide multiple examples.
  Also explained how to write the WMI Filter

Request: Check download speed

Check download speed of connected internet

Many times we are needed to run a speed test on machines to verify that machines have the acceptable speed to use certain applications effectively.

The goal is to

• Download a zip file
• Calculate the time take to download the file
• Repeat the task for 3 times
• Get the average time to guess the download speed

PowerShell command to explain: Invoke-WebRequest

Update request - Determine which groups a user is a member of in a logon script

Summary of the update request

• Link to the post in the old blog:
  https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/how-can-i-determine-which-groups-a-user-belongs-to/

• Description of what needs to be changed:
  Needs to show implicit remoting of AD cmdlets from the DC, then use get-ADPrincipalGroupMembership to get the group memberships. Use whoami.exe .upn, to get the date, then look the user up using the UPN.

Labels configured in Issue Templates but not set up

post-idea and idea labels are not setup in https://github.com/PowerShell/Community-Blog/labels
but are referenced in New_Post_Idea,md (idea) and Request_Update.md (post-idea)

Need someone with write-access to make these labels so that the issues can start getting created with them, and fix the labels on the previously created issues, preferably before the other issues get too buried

Why use Set-Variable Get-Variable?

Summary of the new document or enhancement

Details of requested document:

• Are you offering to write the post [Y/N]: N
• Proposed title: Why use Set-Variable Get-Variable?
• Links to related posts:
• Description of the problem/scenario/question you want covered: interested in someone explaining the compelling reasons to use get and set - variable. why would someone WANT to use these commands, what are the scenarios where these commands make sense, when would it NOT be a good idea to use this approach. explain scoped variables like $global, $script, etc, explain how the set-variable/get-variable commands are similar and dissimilar to these scoped variables

Post idea - How Can I Be Notified Any Time a Service Goes Down?

In #51, we look at permanent WMI eventing. In this old Scripting Guy post, the author looks at temporary eventing.

The scenario is you want to know when services change state.

• Link to the post in the old blog: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/how-can-i-be-notified-any-time-a-service-goes-down/
• Description of what needs to be changed: needs to be converted to use the CIM Cmdlets and with using PowerShell event handling.

Update request - how can I get yesterday's date

Summary of the update request

How can I get yesterday's date?

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/how-can-i-get-yesterdays-date/

I see a lot of questions like this

Needs to be re-written for PowerShell

The article should explain the DateTime class plus show how to use the methods.

Automated testing of tab completion

Summary of the new document or enhancement

This blog post would contain information about TabExpansion2 function and how to leverage non-interactive testing of argument completers.

Details of requested document:

• Are you offering to write the post [Y/N]: N
• Proposed title: Automated testing of argument completers
• Links to related posts:
• Description of the problem/scenario/question you want covered:

Update request - How can I save output to a text file

I see a lot of queries of this type.

Summary of the update request

Show how to save the output to a text file.

• Link to the post in the old blog: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/how-can-i-save-output-to-a-text-file/
• Description of what needs to be changed:

Convert to Powershell but show output

Should also cover .ToString() method and out-string

Update request - Can I enable caps lock key

Show how to ensure input from screen is in all upper case.

Summary of the update request

• Link to the post in the old blog:
  https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/can-i-enable-the-caps-lock-key/

• Description of what needs to be changed:
  Should talk about system.string then needs to be updated to be in PowerShell

Using PowerShell for Automation: Running Windows Updates in a vSphere Cluster

Attempting to be more proficient at learning PowerShell by using PowerShell for Automation.

Problem Trying to solve: "Run weekly updates to my cluster of windows devices (50 servers & 50 desktops) that is in vSphere 6.7, "
Question I want answered: "Review my following PowerShell I have tested to run the windows update on my Win10 local device, but I need assistance scripting out the rest of the PowerShell code for automation. " I have already written down all the cluster from vSphere 50 servers & 50 desktops in text file and called it computers.txt.

---

#Import-Module PSWindowsUpdate
#Remove-Item -Path C:\Scripts\status.tx
#Start-Transcript -Path C:\Scripts\status.txt
#$Updates = "Critical Updates", "Security Updates"
#Get-WUInstall -AcceptALL- Verbose -IgnoreReboot -Category $Updates
#Write-Host "Done"
#Stop-Transcript
#Start-Sleep -s 120
#Restart-Computer -Force -Confirm:$false

-- after pc restarts run as PS As Administrator
Get-WindowsUpdate

---

Thanks

Restart-computer does not work in VS code

When executing this from powershell console og ISE it works - script wait for vmi and then for powershell connectivity

Restart-Computer -Wait -ComputerName $computer -Force

When executing the command from VS Code the computer restarts, and check for VMI is OK but the check for powershell connectivity never completes unless setting -timeout - then the statement times out.

Update request - Read text from last to first line

Wants to read a text file backwards - show how you can do this with an array

Summary of the update request

• Link to the post in the old blog: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/scripting/can-i-read-a-text-file-from-the-bottom-up/

• Description of what needs to be changed:
  Should be converted to be in powershell

Also - add small section on arrays.