What I learned about powershell in 2019

For ease of finding, I’m separated out powershell learnings from general trivia

Dec 20, 2019

#TodayILearned that -ExcludeProperty only works if used in conjunction with -property e.g.

get-AdUser mattypenny -properties * | select-object -Property * -ExcludeProperty userCertificate

#Powershell

Dec 3, 2019

#TodayILearned that to show all the commits (including messages) for a particular file you do

git log --follow -- <filename>

Dec 2, 2019

#TodayILearned that this inserts today’s date in vim

:put=strftime('%d %B %Y')

Nov 13, 2019

#TodayILearned that if you are daft enough to have a begin ‘bit’ without process and end ‘bits’ in a Powershell function, then it returns:

"Missing closing '}' in statement block or type definition."

It’s perhaps not the most useful error message for this particular case…

Oct 22, 2019

#TodayILearned this bit of Powershell strips out the ‘Registered Trade Mark’ (little R in a circle) symbol from a string.

In this case the string was the caption for the Windows OS in Server 2008).

[string]$RegisterMark = [char]174
$Caption = $Caption.replace($RegisterMark,'')

Oct 22, 2019

#TodayILearned how to handle quotes when generating Powershell

foreach ($Name in "spider stacy","cait o'riordan") {

    $Name = $Name -replace "'","''"

    $String = @"
    get-ADUser -filter {Name -eq '$Name'}
"@

    Invoke-Expression -Command $String | select name

}

Oct 17, 2019

#TodayILearned that @adbertram has a marvellous function for doing dynamic ValidateSets

Mastering PowerShell Parameter Validation with Dynamic Methods

Oct 15, 2019

#TodayILearned that ‘globalisation’ is spelt differently in different countries

(via @DoctorDns in the first #Powershell Conference book….which is fab)

https://lexico.com/en/definition/globalization

Oct 14, 2019

#TodayILearned to do Ctrl-Alt-Del on a Remote Desktop

Start, then ‘osk’ for on-screen keyboard
hold Ctrl-Alt on the ‘off-screen keyboard’
click on Del on the on-screen one

How to CTRL + ALT + DEL in Remote Desktop on Windows - Guiding Tech

Oct 9, 2019

#TodayILearned that you can use a Powershell class to implement a dynamic ValidateSet for a parameter

My excitement at discovering this will possibly not be shared by everyone on Twitter

about Functions Advanced Parameters - PowerShell | Microsoft Learn

Jun 20, 2019

#TodayILearned these are equivalent, I think

Invoke-Pester -script .\diagnostics\simple\Server1.tests.ps1 -PassThru | select -ExpandProperty TestResult | select Result, Name

and

Invoke-OperationValidation -testFilePath .\diagnostics\simple\Server1.tests.ps1 -IncludePesterOutput

Jun 19, 2019

#TodayILearned that there is an @ansible module to apply windows updates (following on from @jonathanmedd’s talk at @PSSouthampton last night)

https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/modules/win_updates_module.html#win-updates-module

Jun 5, 2019

#TodayILearned that you can pass all the parameters from one Powershell function to another in the built-in $PSBoundParameters variable

Feb 27, 2019

Replying to

I never knew you could do this either:

invoke-pester -script testscript.tests.ps1 *> c:\temp\TestResults.txt

The star re-directs all streams

#TodayILearned

Feb 27, 2019

#TodayILearned that if you want to re-direct the screen output from @PSPester to a file, then you use a ‘6’

invoke-pester -script testscript.tests.ps1 6> c:\temp\TestResults.txt

Feb 26, 2019

#TodayILearned that VS @Code has really nice diff functionality.

Ctrl-Shift-P then File: Compare Active File With…

Jan 1, 2019

#TodayILearned that git status -s gives a more usefully formatted view of changes in a repository

Dec 11, 2018

#TodayILearnedthat in Powershell to replace ‘carriage return’ (I think…it renders as \r in my setup), you have to put the `r in double quotes not single quotes

$BodyText = $BodyText.replace("`r"," “)

Nov 8, 2018

#TodayILearned that you can use [ValidateSet] with powershell variables other than parameters

(I’m hoping this will, in this case, guard against typo’s later in the code)

Nov 8, 2018

#TodayILearned you can set a VS @code setting as follows:

“files.defaultlanguage”: “powershell”

….to have new files default to Powershell

(via @vhusker )

jacobbenson.azurewebsites.net/index.php…

Oct 15, 2018

#TodayILearned that the little outline thing in VS @code is called a ‘minimap’ and to turn it off you do:

Ctrl-Shift-P,

View:Toggle Minimap

Oct 12, 2018

#TodayILearned that you can use -lt and -gt with letters.

i.e. to get names in the first half of the alphabet

$x | where name -lt ‘N’

(via @Idera_software ) From blog.idera.com

Sep 25, 2018

#TodayILearned that you can slide between the tabs in VS @code with this skinny semi-hidden slider

Jul 31, 2018

Trying to test if a bit of text contains a backtick in #Powershell, I couldn’t get -like “``” to work, but this seems to:

if ($Line.Contains('`'))

The bit in brackets is single quote, back-tick, single quote

#TodayILearned

Jun 22, 2018

#TodayILearned that typing ‘code’ in bash opens VS Code

May 29, 2018

#TodayILearned that in #Powershell on linux, although you can cd to a folder where the slashes go in the ‘wrong’ direction, you have to get the slashes ‘right’ for [http://System.IO.Path] to work

May 22, 2018

#TodayILearned (or more accurately, I think re-learned!) that the Powershell $Env:PSModulePath separators on Linux are colons not semi-colons

May 8, 2018

#TodayILearned Quote Cody Konior @codykonior

May 8, 2018

Super handy #powershell tip. When you pipe an object to Format-List it will cut arrays off and show then like Name : {A, B, C…}. You can actually stop that with $FormatEnumerationLimit = -1.

Apr 26, 2018

#TodayILearned that if you’re running #Powershell on @ubuntu you need to get the case ‘right’ in your $Env:PSModulePath

I guess because it’s a $Env variable the case sensitivity is determined by the Environment not the shell?

Apr 24, 2018

#TodayILearned that

Invoke-item .

….will bring up the file manager gui on @ubuntu powershell, as it would on windows

Apr 18, 2018

#TodayILearned that you have to do:

Install-WindowsFeature RSAT-AD-PowerShell

to get the ActiveDirectory module in Server2016

(via ntweekly.com/2016/07/0…)

Apr 9, 2018

#TodayILearned that managed service accounts don’t show up in Get-ADUser - you have to use Get-AdServiceAccount

#PowerShell

Mar 29, 2018

#TodayILearned that you have to stick a $ on the end of the Managed Service Account name for the @SQLServer installer to recognize it

It need a dollar, dollar a dollar is what it need

Mar 21, 2018

#TodayILearned that on older SQL installations which don’t have sqlps, you have to do:

add-pssnapin SQLServerCmdletSnapin100

and optionally

add-pssnapin SQLServerProviderSnapin100

#Powershell

Mar 1, 2018

#TodayILearned that

Where-Object : Cannot bind parameter ‘FilterScript’. Cannot convert the “Name” value of type “System.String” to type “System.Management.Automation.ScriptBlock”.

..typically means I’m running on an olde worlde version of Powershell

Feb 20, 2018

#TodayILearned the magic of ‘gk’ and ‘gj’, which go up and down within a wrapped line in vim

Feb 1, 2018

#TodayILearned that you can use a bar (or ‘pipe symbol’) to enter more than one ‘ex’ command in Vim i.e.

:%s/[‘’]/'/g | %s/SQLData/sql_data/g