SAPIEN Solutions

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 »

I've been getting things ready for my next Techmentor appearance. This one is practically in my back yard. I'll be in NYC on Monday and Tuesday next week.   More »

The other day I gave you a function to create a VBScript style message box in PowerShell. If you find yourself needing MsgBox in PowerShell, you're likely going to want InputBox.   More »

We are currently running a survey about PowerShell adoption. If you haven't had a chance yet to participate, please go here to do so: Take…   More »

if you came from the VBScript world you may be missing a few old friends in PowerShell. Because Powershell is a management console, it lacks a GUI unless you create one using Windows forms. Things will change a bit in PowerShell v2.0 but for now let's stick with what we have. If you really need a message box, ala VBScript, then simply call it from PowerShell. All you need to do is use the [microsoft.visualbasic.interaction] class and the MsgBox method.   More »

With service build 569 of PrimalScript 2007 we added a COM object that makes it easier to deal with CSV (comma separated values) data and/or…   More »

Here's another recent topic from the ScriptingAnswers.com forums which I thought I'd share. The forum members wanted to delete files if the drive utilization exceeded a certain threshold. Using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) with VBScript I came up with something like this...   More »