Powershell Help

To get help in Graphical window

C:\> help Get-EventLog -showwindow

Powershell Tips

How to change the element of an array?

$array = 1, 2,3, 4, 5

$array.Item(0) = 100

$array

How to sort an array ?

Use the static sort method from array class

$a = 1,3, 4,2

[array]::sort($a)



How to display Loaded and available Modules in Powershell?

Use the Get-Module cmdlet to display loaded

To see the path of the module

Get-Module | select path

To list the modules,

Get-Module -Listavailable

How to open a pipeline results in editor?

 dir | Out-File result.txt; notepad result.txt


How to list all parameters of parametersets?

PS C:\Users\sankar> (Get-Command Get-Date).parametersets | foreach {$_.parameters} | foreach {$_.name}



How to check the folder counts ?

We can find the number of files available on desktop this way


PS C:\Users\sankar\Desktop> @(get-childitem -name *).count
35

In case if you want to exclude some files when counting.

 @(Get-ChildItem -exclude *.txt).count

How to exclude the files from displaying?

Get-ChildItem -exclude *.txt

How to get all the child items from the container that has child items?

We should use  -Recurse Parameter if we need to get all the child items from the container

get-childitem -Recurse $env:USERPROFILE\desktop

we can use -filter if we want to filter with some specified extension file like *.txt , *.docx etc

get-childitem -Recurse $env:USERPROFILE\desktop -filter *.txt

How to check the version of Powershell and .Net Framework?


PS C:\Users\sankar\Desktop> $PSVersionTable

Name                           Value
----                           -----
CLRVersion                     2.0.50727.5456
BuildVersion                   6.1.7601.17514
PSVersion                      2.0
WSManStackVersion              2.0
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0}
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.1

To check version for .Net Framework


PS C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework> dir


    Directory: C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework


Mode                LastWriteTime     Length Name
----                -------------     ------ ----
d----          3/3/2012   8:27 AM            v1.0.3705
d----         7/13/2009  10:20 PM            v1.1.4322
d----          8/4/2012   9:22 AM            v2.0.50727
d----         2/17/2011   9:25 PM            v3.0
d----          3/3/2012   8:27 AM            v3.5
-a---         11/4/2010   6:57 PM      86864 NETFXSBS10.exe
-a---          3/3/2012   2:50 AM      41392 netfxsbs12.hkf
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      13648 sbscmp10.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      13648 sbscmp20_mscorwks.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      13648 sbscmp20_perfcounter.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      11104 sbs_diasymreader.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      11088 sbs_iehost.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      11112 sbs_microsoft.jscript.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      11656 sbs_microsoft.vsa.vb.codedomprocessor.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      11096 sbs_mscordbi.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      11096 sbs_mscorrc.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      11096 sbs_mscorsec.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      11120 sbs_system.configuration.install.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      11088 sbs_system.data.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      11112 sbs_system.enterpriseservices.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      11080 sbs_VsaVb7rt.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      11104 sbs_wminet_utils.dll
-a---         6/10/2009   4:22 PM      13648 SharedReg12.dll

To Create New Item Using Powershell

C:\Users\Sankar> New-Item <File Name> -ItemType File


PS C:\Users\sankar\Desktop> 1..5 | %{New-Item
-Name "$_.txt"  -Value (Get-Date).tostring() -ItemType file}

NULL Value and Parameter Type


PS C:\> Get-ChildItem $env:windr | ?{$_.length -eq $null}


    Directory: C:\


Mode                LastWriteTime     Length Name
----                -------------     ------ ----
d----         7/17/2012   2:11 PM            Intel
d----         7/14/2009   8:07 AM            PerfLogs
d-r--        11/12/2012   1:53 PM            Program Files
d----         8/28/2012   2:43 AM            Quarantine
d----         7/18/2012  12:02 AM            source
d-r--        10/17/2012   8:25 PM            Users
d----         12/7/2012   3:50 PM            Windows


function NULLValue
{
  param
  (
    [string]$a = $( throw "Missing: parameter a"),
    $b = $( throw "Missing: parameter b")
  )

  if ($a -eq $null) { Write-Host "a is null" } else { write-Host "a is not null" }
  if ($b -eq $null) { Write-Host "b is null" } else { Write-Host "b is not null" }
}

If I call this function with: NULLValue $null $null

I will get the following result:

a is not null
b is null

How to round the number?

Use static Round method using math Class as mentioned below

How to pull the report to only 500 group ids even if your organisation is having more than 10000 groups?

For example,  you are having more than 2000 groups in your organisation. Now you are in a situation to get the details of owners name of 500 groups only. How you will do?

We can use Get-content to get the data from the text file with the path name mentioned and do the pipeline to the command like below


[PS] C:\Users\sankar\desktop>$list = Get-Content .\groupid.txt | ?{$_ -ne ""} |%{$_.Trim()}
[PS] C:\Users\sankar\desktop>$list.Count
547
[PS] C:\Users\sankar\desktop>$list | % {Get-DistributionGroup -Identity $_ -ResultSize Unlimited | Select-
Object Name,@{L="ManagedBy";E={$_.ManagedBy}}} | Export-Csv -NoTypeInformation grouplistfromtext.csv

Find out No longer Existing Group

This exchange cmdlet would be helpful if you are dong auditing in your organization. You could filter no longer users details using last log on time.

Get-MailboxStatistics -Server <ServerIdParameter> | Sort-Object LastLogonTime –Descending

How to get the details of email addresses Using Powershell

We can use the below exchange cmdlet to pull the details of email addresses. Then export it to the CSV file using Export-CSV cmdlet. 

Get-Mailbox -resultsize unlimited | Select Name, @{Name=’EmailAddresses’;Expression={[string]::join(";", ($_.EmailAddresses))}} | Export-CSV EmailAddress.csv

How to set the forwarding SMTP Address through Powershell

You cannot set the Fowarding SMTP Address through EMC. But we can set it through EMC

If you want to forward the mails from local mailbox to outside the organization, we should follow the below steps in powershell

1. DeliverToMailboxAndForward:

set-mailbox -DeliverToMailboxAndForward $true

2. Forwarding Address

set-mailbox intials -forwardingaddress Username

3. ForwardingSMTPAddress

set-mailbox intials -forwardingsmtpaddress email@domain.com

Get Large Mailboxes from exchange

Using the below script we can get the large mailboes report from the exchange 2007


Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | Get-MailboxStatistics | Where {$_.TotalItemSize -gt 500MB} `
| Select-Object DisplayName, ItemCount, TotalItemSize, TotalDeletedItemSize, StorageLimitStatus `
| Export-Csv "BigMailbox$(Get-Date -f 'yyyyMMdd').csv" -NoType