SAPIEN Solutions

This week, Alex Riedel and SAPIEN alumus Don Jones will sit down (virtually speaking) at a roundtable discussion on the PowerScripting Podcast. They will…   More »

This summer we ran a PowerShell Boot Camp that was very popular and successful. People have been asking when we're going to hold another one. Your question has been answered. I will be doing the boot camp in Dallas, TX February 9-11, 2009. Now before you get too excited, be warned that this is not your typical instructor led training.   More »

It's that time of year again when Microsoft announces its newest MVPs. I'm happy to report that Hal Rottenberg has finally received this honor.…   More »

The other day I showed you how to use ADSI and PowerShell to manage services on remote computers. Since the ADSI type adapter is admittedly "kludgy" at times, I put together a script that you could use like a cmdlet to retrieve service information via ADSI.   More »

In PowerShell v1.0, if you want to manage services on a remote computer, you likely used WMI and the Get-WMIObject cmdlet. But there is another solution using ADSI. If you use the WinNT provider, you can access all of the services on a remote machine in much the same way you would manage local users and groups. Let me show you.   More »

I wanted to make sure everybody knew about another site in the ScriptingAnswers.com family. We have another area we refer to as our Essentials site.…   More »

If you've sat in on any of my WMI related classes or conference sessions, I know you've heard me talk about using WBEMTest to test WMI connectivity and your WMI queries. WBEMTest has been around as part of Microsoft operating systems for a long time but many administrators have never heard of it. If you are troubleshooting a WMI related script this is the first place you should go, especially when troubleshooting remote server connections and alternate credentials. If you can't authenticate to the server using WBEMTest, your script is likely to fail as well. Usually if there is a connection error, the error message should lead you in the right direction. You should also use WBEMTest to test and refine your query. Once you know it works, then copy and paste it into your script (VBScript or PowerShell or anything else for that matter). If you script still has a problem, it is likely not your WMI query because you've already verified it works. I put together a short video demo on how to use WBEMTest. To start it, click Start - Run and type WBEMTEST. The video shows you the rest.   More »

If you've been to the SAPIEN blog, hopefully you've noticed the simple poll: "Are you using PowerShell in a production environment?" Right now 75% of respondents are using PowerShell today to manage their network. I'm curious about the other 25%. I'm not passing judgement but am genuinely interested why an organization is NOT using PowerShell. Here are some reasons I can think of.   More »