Understanding TempDB Contention

Adding New Items to an XML Document Efficiently If you need to add new items to an XML document that already contains such items, the easiest way is to search for an existing item, then clone it. You can then update the information in the cloned item and insert it...

Bringing a Process Window to the Foreground with PowerShell PowerShell can use Add-Type to access internal Windows API functions. This way, it is easy to bring any process window into the foreground. Here is the function you need: #requires -Version 2 function...

By default, the Telnet client is disabled on Windows systems. You can easily enable it with a one liner in PowerShell, though. Just launch a PowerShell with full Administrator privileges, then run this command: PS C:\> dism /online /Enable-Feature...

By default, PowerShell remoting uses Kerberos authentication and works only in domain environments, and only when you specify computer names, not IP addresses. Configuring PowerShell Remoting in Peer-to-Peer Network To use PowerShell remoting in other scenarios such...

The Test-Connection cmdlet implements a simple ping to check whether a system responds to an ICMP request. Unfortunately, you cannot specify a timeout. Test-Connection defaults to a static timeout of 4 seconds: PS C:\> Test-Connection -ComputerName...

Using Get-CimInstance as an Alternative to Get-WmiObject PowerShell 3.0 added an alternative to Get-WmiObject: Get-CimInstance seems to work very similar and can retrieve information from the internal WMI service: PS C:\> Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_BIOS...

PowerShell has a built-in support to wait until a process or many processes end: simply use Wait-Process. Understanding Data Marts and Dimensional Modeling There is no support to do the opposite: wait until a process has started. Here is a function that can wait for...

Updating Active Directory User Information with PowerShell If you have installed the free RSAT tools from Microsoft, you can use PowerShell to update information stored in your AD user account, for example your office phone number. Permissions for Updating Active...

Whenever you add delegation rights to an AD object (i.e. allow a user to manage the members of an organizational unit), you really invoke a change of security settings for the given AD object. Cloning Active Directory Security Settings Easily AD security descriptors...

Removing Accidental Deletion Protection By default, AD objects are protected from accidental deletion. To remove this protection for all objects in a given scope (i.e. all objects in an organizational unit and below), try this code: #requires -Version 1 -Modules...

In a previous tip you have seen that the PowerShell console supports all characters available in a TrueType font. You just need to convert the character code to the type "Char". Advanced Example: Using Splatting for Console Output Here is a more advanced example that...

Did you know that console output can contain special icons like checkmarks? All you need to do is set the console to a TrueType font like "Consolas". To display special characters, use the decimal or hexadecimal character code, for example: [Char]8730 [Char]0x25BA...

You may know that each string object has a method called Trim() that trims away whitespace both from the beginning and end of a string: $text = ' Hello ' $text.Trim() Trim() and Line Breaks A lesser known fact is that Trim() will also eat away leading and trailing...

Understanding Control Flow: break, continue, return, and exit Do you know off-hand what "break", "continue", "return", and "exit" do? These are powerful language constructs, and here is a test function to illustrate how different their effects are: 'Starting' function...

Get-ItemProperty can easily read registry values, but you do not get back any information about the registry value type. Get-ItemProperty -Path 'HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion' Alternative Approach Using .NET Here is an alternate approach that uses...

PowerShell 3.0 and later Sometimes it is important to know just how long a command takes. For example, to monitor web site response times, you could use Invoke-WebRequest. Measure-Command measures execution time. $url = 'http://www.powershell.com' # track execution...