I routinely see organizations big and small still using “regular” Active Directory user accounts as service accounts. Typically, they have the password for those service accounts set to never expire or an alternate password policy that only requires the password is changed yearly. If your organization is managing service...
Powershell
Quickly deploy LAB Virtual Machines with the AutomatedLab PowerShell Framework
My Requirements: Use PowerShell to minimize the time spent on creating VMs. Install ADDS along with the VM creation. Use a differencing disk for all the VMs to save disk space. In the spirit of kickstarting this channel again, I needed to spin up a few Virtual Machines to...
I’m resurrecting the YouTube channel.
I’m going to resurrect the YouTube channel and start making videos as time allows. That said if you have something specific you would like to see contact me using one of the methods below and I’ll see if I can work it in at some point. More to follow…...
Convert text files to PDF then merge PDFs in bulk with PowerShell and iTextSharp
To demonstrate this process, I will show you how I export all the PowerShell help and convert it to PDF files that I use instead of looking at the help files in the PowerShell Console. I realize you can view the PowerShell help files in the console and online....
Automate Creating Lab Virtual Machines in Azure with PowerShell
As you may or may not know, I recently decommissioned my old Dell PowerEdge 1950 server that I used for a few Lab virtual machines. While experimenting with PowerShell on these Virtual Machines, I have found myself in the situation where it would be easier to delete the Virtual...
Hey PowerShell… Text me if my Domain Admins Group changes
This is why I Love PowerShell… It’s simple, yet functional. From an Administrative perspective, I think we can all agree that any changes in your Domain Admins group without your knowledge would be of interest to you. If you’re in a large organization with access to enterprise management tools...
Enable PowerShell Remoting to an Azure Virtual Machine, without Domain Membership
I recently started an Azure subscription in order to move all the servers I use to test PowerShell code to the cloud. Right now I have only a couple Virtual Machines, one running Windows Server 2016, that’s my Domain Controller. I also have a Windows Server 2012 R2 Virtual...
Basic and Advanced Filtering of PowerShell Objects using Where-Object
This is a very minimal introduction into filtering pipeline objects using Where-Object and comparison operators. This video will give you the syntax and a simple example. To unleash the full capabilities of comparison operators take a look at the help file. # Basic Syntax example Get-Service | Where-Object Status...
PowerShell Quicktip #2: Filter-Left
A practical example of why you should filter as far left in your scripts as possible. It might matter. #1 Get-Service | Where-object { $_.Status -eq 'Running' -and $_.name -like 's*'} #2 Get-Service -name s*| Where-object { $_.Status -eq 'Running'} #1 Measure-Command -Expression {Get-Service | Where-object { $_.Status -eq...
PowerShell Basics: Sorting and Selecting Objects with Sort-Object and Select-Object
# Selecting #Default Get-Process # All Properties Get-Process | Select-Object -Property * | Out-GridView # Sorting # Changes the default sorting order for Get-Process Get-Process | Sort-Object CPU # Minimize the data and sort Get-Process | Select-Object ProcessName, CPU | Sort-Object CPU -Descending ## Caution # Mission: Get...