SAPIEN Technologies » Ask the Experts

Attention User Groups

Margaret Pratt — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:52:59 +0000

We are sending our CEO and CTO on tour! SAPIEN Technologies will be visiting a number of user groups within the US to meet and discuss ideas, present new exciting products and to get feedback from you, our customers and users. Of course we will also sponsor those meetings with cool prizes and whatever goodies the airlines let us take along.

So if you belong to any VBScript, PowerShell or general System/Network Administrators users group, this is your chance to reserve a spot for your group to have one of the founders of SAPIEN speak at and sponsor one of your meetings.

Please contact margaret@sapien.com with any questions and to reserve a spot on our busy schedule.

Technorati Tags: PrimalScript, SAPIEN, User Groups, VBScript, Windows Administrator, Windows PowerShell

PowerScripting Podcast Roundtable

Jeffery Hicks — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 10:00:41 +0000

This week, Alex Riedel and SAPIEN alumus Don Jones will sit down (virtually speaking) at a roundtable discussion on the PowerScripting Podcast. They will be joined by PowerShell architect Jeffrey Snover, and PowerShell MVP Kirk Munro.

Scheduled topics include:

A Thousand Things 1% Better
What’s most important for a posh newbie to learn?
Script vs. Shell
Coolest use of PowerShell that you’ve seen–and what’s to come.
What third-party software is missing?
Is PowerShell useful for ?

You can catch the show live on UStream at 9:00PM EST. There is a lively chat room that is actively involved in the show. Everyone always seems to have a great time and learn a lot.

Technorati Tags: podcast, PowerScripting, powershell, scripting

Scripting Essentials

Jeffery Hicks — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 10:00:28 +0000

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. Here we gather tips, best practices, sample scripts and more. Coverage includes not only PowerShell but VBScript as well. This is also where you’ll find conference slide decks and demo scripts.

The site is arranged by categories and you’ll likely find something in multiple categories. You may also like to subscribe to the sites RSS feed.

So if you haven’t dropped by, I hope you’ll pay a quick visit to http://www.scriptinganswers.com/essentials/ and find something of interest. If there’s anything you’d like to see added to the site, please let me know.

Technorati Tags: essentials, powershell, scripting, scriptinganswers, Tutorials, VBScript

How do I sign a Windows PowerShell script?

Don Jones — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:38:24 +0000

"Boz" sent this one in, and it’s a doozy. I have two places for you to look: First is at http://www.scriptinganswers.com/essentials/index.php/2008/02/21/how-do-i-sign-a-windows-powershell-script/, which describes the process I used to sign a script for a new self-paced training video that should be out in March 2008.

The other is in Microsoft TechNet Magazine, where I wrote an article about this. Visit http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/default.aspx and look for the March 2008 issue when it’s available.

The short answer: Buy (or acquire) a Class III code-signing certificate of the Microsoft Authenticode variety, and use the Set-AuthenticodeSignature cmdlet to sign your script. Not too difficult, although getting your certificate in the proper format may require some perambulations.

Technorati Tags: certificate, powershell, sign, signature

How can I write a PowerShell function that outputs a table?

Don Jones — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:00:02 +0000

This is a REALLY common question, and if you have any experience with VBScript, or Perl, or some similar scripting language, you’ll go down completely the wrong path. The thing to remember is that PowerShell already knows how to format tables! You just have to give it your data in a way it understands, so it can make a table out of it. So what does PowerShell’s Format-Table cmdlet know how to work with?

Objects.

So the trick is to format whatever data you’re working with as an object. In other words, let’s say you have four variables that contain your data: $data1, $data2, $data3, and $data4. You might be tempted to create a table by doing this:

Write-Host $data1 $data2 $data3 $data4

And so forth. You might start your script with a statement that writes out column headers, even. But that’s not the "PowerShell way" of doing things. Here’s what is:

show plain-text

$out = new-object psobject
$out | add-member noteproperty ColumnA $data1
$out | add-member noteproperty ColumnB $data2
$out | add-member noteproperty ColumnC $data3
$out | add-member noteproperty ColumnD $data4

This gives you an object, stored in $out, containing four properties: ColumnA, ColumnB, ColumnC, and ColumnD. Simply output that by using Write-Output $out and you’re done: PowerShell will happily format it as a table. Since it only has four properties, you don’t even have to use the Format-Table cmdlet – PowerShell will choose a table layout automatically.

A bonus of this technique is that you can also use other cmdlets, like Export-CSV, ConvertTo-HTML, and more. By having your output data contained within an object, all of PowerShell’s various exporting and formatting options become possible, with no extra work on your part.

Think of an "object" as a row in a table; each property of the object becomes a column of the table. Here’s an example function that accepts a computer name, makes up some data as output, and outputs the object. I’m reading in a bunch of computer names from a file, and sending each one to the function. The result is a single output table.

show plain-text

function MakeData($name) {
$data1 = $name.ToLower()
$data2 = $name.ToUpper()
$data3 = $name
$out = new-object psobject
$out | add-member noteproperty LowerCase $data1
$out | add-member noteproperty UpperCase $data2
$out | add-member noteproperty Original $data3
write-output $out
}
$computers = get-content c:\names.txt
foreach ($computer in $computers) {
makedata $computer
}

I could actually have written the function to accept pipeline input directly, making this possible:

show plain-text

gc c:\names.txt | makedata

But I didn’t, simply because the way I used is a bit easier to follow as a learning example. So, the moral: Don’t output text. Output objects.

Thanks to Jon for sending this one in.

Technorati Tags: format, formatting, objects, output, powershell, table

Can I run PowerShell scripts on Windows Server 2008 Server Core?

Don Jones — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 20:09:49 +0000

Ah, this is what everyone really wishes for, isn’t it? Which, as you might have guessed from that intro, the answer is "no." See, PowerShell requires bits of the .NET Framework in order to run. Not the whole thing, you understand, just pieces – a fairly small subset, in fact. Unfortunately, you don’t get the Framework in pieces, you get the whole wodge in one big piece. That whole wodge was more moving parts than the Server Core folks wanted to have to deal with, since the entire Framework has its own dependencies on underlying bits of Windows – bits which Server Core doesn’t necessarily include. Like graphical stuff. So, until they modularize the Framework a bit, no PowerShell on Server Core.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t use PowerShell to manage Server Core. After all, the point of Server Core is to *not log onto the console at all,* so it shouldn’t really matter what’s *on* Server Core. What matters is what’s on *your management workstation.* So you run PowerShell there, and manage Server Core remotely using technologies like ADSI and WMI, and add-on cmdlets like the Quest PowerShell cmdlets.

Thanks to Dave for submitting this question. Submit yours on our "Ask the Experts" page at http://blog.sapien.com.

Technorati Tags: framework, powershell, server core, win2008