Book offers from Manning
Published October 31, 2013those really nice people at www.manning.com have some real bargains this weekend:
Thursday October 31--Half off all MEAPs
Friday November 1--Half off all pBooks
Saturday November 2--Half off all eBooks
Sunday November 3--Half off any purchase
enjoy
Using WQL in PowerShell
Published October 30, 2013WMI Query Language – WQL – is used to either form a query directly or indirectly in the –Filter parameter of Get-WmiObject and Get-CimInstance.
$query = "SELECT * FROM Win32_LogicalDisk WHERE DriveType = 3"
Get-CimInstance -Query $query
OR using the –Filter parameter
Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_LogicalDisk -Filter "DriveType = 3"
WQL is a limited subset of SQL.
If you want to find out more there is a help file available in PowerShell 3.0 and above
get-help about_WQL -ShowWindow
Using WQL
Published October 30, 2013WMI Query Language – WQL – is used to either form a query directly or indirectly in the –Filter parameter of Get-WmiObject and Get-CimInstance. $query = “SELECT * FROM Win32_LogicalDisk WHERE DriveType = 3″Get-CimInstance -Query $query OR using the –Filter … Continue reading 
SCCM 2012 lunches deal of the day
Published October 30, 2013Manning’s deal of the day is Learn SCCM 2012 in a Month of Lunches – get 50% off – today only at www.manning.com
where syntax
Published October 29, 2013This type of construction has been part of PowerShell since the very beginning:
Get-Process | where {$_.Handles -gt 500}
Get some data and use where-object to filter the data based on the value of some property. $_ represents the object on the pipeline.
PowerShell 3.0 introduced a simpler syntax
Get-Process | where Handles -gt 500
which is shorthand for
Get-Process | where -Property Handles -gt -Value 500
At which point it becomes obvious what is happening – you are comparing a property against a value. There are a whole set of comparison operators you can use in this manner – see the help file for details.
This new syntax makes life much easier when you only have a single comparison to perform – you need to use the old style syntax if you need to test on two properties.
The problem is that I don’t see this syntax being used that much. If you are using PowerShell 3.0 or above I recommend changing to the new style syntax. It does save typing.
A new lunches book
Published October 29, 2013Manning have started the early access program (MEAP) for Learn SCCM 2012 in a Month of Lunches – http://www.manning.com/bannan
SCCM is a major component for managing your environment. Looking forward to reading it – especially as it has a chapter devoted to PowerShell
Powershell help file updates
Published October 28, 2013The updated PowerShell help files are available for all but a handful of modules – the outstanding ones should be available this week.
Time to run update-help
Outputting collections from AD
Published October 28, 2013Have you ever tried anything like this:
Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties * |
Select Name, LastLogondate, PasswordNeverExpires, Enabled,
@{N='OU'; E={($($_.distinguishedName) -split ",",2)[1] }},
Memberof |
Export-csv -Path users.csv -NoTypeInformation
You want some basic information about the users plus their group membership
What you get is this
Name : Fred Friday
LastLogondate :
PasswordNeverExpires : False
Enabled : True
OU : OU=Mailboxes,DC=Manticore,DC=org
Memberof : Microsoft.ActiveDirectory.Management.ADPropertyValueCollection
The data is OK apart from the group membership where you get the name of the object.
All you need is a little trick with sub expressions
Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties * |
Select Name, LastLogondate, PasswordNeverExpires, Enabled,
@{N='OU'; E={($($_.distinguishedName) -split ",",2)[1] }},
@{N='Groups'; E={$($_.Memberof)}} |
Export-csv -Path users.csv –NoTypeInformation
and then the data comes through
Name : Fred Friday
LastLogondate :
PasswordNeverExpires : False
Enabled : True
OU : OU=Mailboxes,DC=Manticore,DC=org
Groups : CN=Wednesdaylist,OU=DistributionGroups,DC=Manticore,DC=org
Enjoy
Setting AD attributes from a CSV file
Published October 28, 2013Back in this post http://richardspowershellblog.wordpress.com/2012/02/29/setting-a-users-home-directory/ I looked at setting the users home directory. I recently got a question about using a CSV file for input.
CSV files have been around for years and are likely to be with us for a long time to come – its a very useful and compact format. using a CSV file to set attributes is a two stage process – read the data then make the changes.
I’ll use the home directory data as an example. If you have a csv file with an entry for every user looking like this:
samaccountname : sjones
Drive : H:
Home : \\server2\Home\sjones
You can then do this:
Import-Csv .\homes.csv |
foreach {
Set-ADUser -Identity $_.samaccountname -HomeDirectory $_.Home -HomeDrive $_.Drive -PassThru
}
If the attribute doesn’t have a parameter then:
Import-Csv .\homes.csv |
foreach {
Set-ADUser -Identity $_.samaccountname -Replace @{HomeDirectory = "$($_.Home)"; HomeDrive = "$($_.Drive)"} -PassThru
}