Do you have a script that worked with your x32 XP computer, but no longer works in Windows 7 or 8 x64? I am finding that some of the scripts I wrote have this problem. Somethings may rely on an ActiveX control that was native to XP but not a later version. What I am…
Author: Alan
See https://www.akaplan.com/about/
ISE Handling of Variables and Functions Can Fool You
I have had to fix a couple of recent posts because the PowerShell scripts failed to work as I thought they would. Which is weird, because I test them before releasing them. What I had not noticed is that you can set a variable in ISE that will be remembered through the session. An example…
Delete a List of Computer Accounts from Active Directory
Although I have spent most of my time recently writing PowerShell code, I still get requests from the field for vbscripts. The security model differences make it more time consuming to explain how to run a PowerShell script than vbscript’s “double click this”. DisablePCsFromList.vbs is an updated version of a 2006 vbscript which reads a…
Win32_ReliablityRecords, PowerShell and ScriptoMatic
I was reviewing my blog stats today and found a link from a site in UK to my version of ScriptoMatic.hta. I have upgraded my home laptop to 8.1, and decided to see whether it still works (it does). If you launch the “fixed” ScriptoMatic as an ordinary user, it takes a very long time…
Suggesting a default filename
I like to leave log files where people can find them. Typically this is on their desktop, or in the same folder where the script ran from. I wrote the following bit of code which creates a date based report file and offers it as a default. It is pretty straightforward, but I did not…
PowerShell Saturday in Charlotte, NC
Do you want to know more about PowerShell? The Charlotte PowerShell Users group (home to the Scripting Guy Ed Wilson, and the Scripting Wife, Teresa), will be hosting the seventh annual PowerShell Saturday at the Charlotte NC Microsoft Campus. The cost is modest, and the event speakers are first rate.
Delete a list of Computer Accounts from the Clipboard
I frequently get a request to delete a list of computers in my AD domain. Often the list is in an email. Delete-PCListFromClip.ps1 is a short script which reads the content of the clipboard, then sends the list to Out-Gridview for review. You may then select the computer names for deletions. PowerShell 3.0 and the…
Convert-ADValues updated
I’ve updated one of my favorite and most used PowerShell Scripts, Convert-ADValues. Read the revised post, here.
The Windows Experience Index and PowerShell
I thought that the Windows Experience Index was pretty useless until I wanted to compare the speed of systems that I was preparing to donate. One had Windows 7, the other was a lab PC running Windows 8.1. I was surprised to find that I could not find the Windows Experience Index (WEI) on the…
Get a Close Global Catalog Server with PowerShell
I have been writing a script which does a lot of AD queries to find computer OUs. I wanted to do this on a close Global Catalog Server. Here is the function I wrote to get this: Function Get-CloseGC{ #Requires -version 3 #requires -module ActiveDirectory #it doesn’t really require version 3 if you have AD…