The last time my computer was seen on the network …

Posted on July 30, 2018 by Dale

was something I wrote about 8 years ago, in Detecting inactive computers in your AD domain.

So it was time to update that*.

Get-ADComputer -Filter * -Properties Name, LastLogonTimeStamp | Select-Object -Property Name, CanonicalName, @{ n = "LastLogonDate"; e = { [datetime]::FromFileTime( $_.lastLogonTimestamp ) } } | Export-CSV -NoTypeInformation "C:\temp\lastlogontimestamp.csv"

will give you a handy list of computer name and the last time they were seen on the network#.

* The Quest product is no longer free.
# within the last 14 days.

Reference:
PowerShell: Get-ADComputer to retrieve computer last logon date – part 1
Converting LastLogon to DateTime format
Script: LastLogonTimestamp export csv

Using PowerShell to ZIP something.

Posted on July 19, 2018 by Dale

powershell I needed to ZIP-up some log files in a number of subdirectories. In the past, I have used the PKZIP utility.

I couldn’t find my copy of PKZIP Sad smile

“Doesn’t PowerShell have a compress-archive command?”
’Why, yes it does!’

Two commands later:

$files=get-childitem *.log -Recurse compress-archive $files -DestinationPath c:\data\AllTheLogFiles

I had my AllTheLogFiles.Zip file.

Getting the user name for a given security identifier (SID)

Posted on June 28, 2018 by Dale

Two lines of Powershell code:

PS C:\> $osid=New-Object system.security.principal.securityidentifier("S-1-5-21-593069383-354653268-975305329-98179")

PS C:\> Write-Host $osid.translate([system.security.principal.ntaccount])

Output is in the form of <DOMAIN>\<USERID>

ie. NODDYLAND\admin-bike01

Reference:
Microsoft: Well-known security identifiers in Windows operating systems

Getting a list of users in a particular AD Group

Posted on January 15, 2018 by Dale

Get-ADGroup "<GROUP NAME>" -Properties Member | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Member | Get-ADUSer -properties Displayname,Description,EmailAddress | Select Name,Displayname,Description,EmailAddress

will cause the following to display

Name Displayname Description EmailAddress ---- ----------- ----------- ------------ fkjhsd Fred Smith Tech Support naveed.arshad@noddyland.com fhdfdf Bill Burke Manager bill.burke@noddyland.com wrfvvv Alice Cooper Test account alice.cooper@noddyland.com

How to output to a file?
Get-ADGroup "<GROUP NAME>" -Properties Member | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Member | Get-ADUSer -properties Displayname,Description,EmailAddress | Select Name,Displayname,Description,EmailAddress |Export-CSV 'c:\data\temp\<GROUP NAME>.csv'

Wouldn’t Get-ADGroupMember be a better choice than Get-ADGroup?
Yes, it would. If the group is not a large group. If it has a large number of members, you’ll run into the following error:

get-adgroupmember : The size limit for this request was exceeded

Active Directory has a default retrieval limit of 5000 objects for Get_ADGroupMember (and Get-ADPrincipalGroupMembership, and Get-ADAccountAuthorizationGroup).

Getting a list of users in your AD domain via Powershell

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Dale

Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties HomeDirectory,LastLogonDate | Select-Object Name, LastLogonDate, HomeDirectory

will cause the following to display

Name LastLogonDate HomeDirectory ---- --------------------- ---------------

CollinsP   11/12/2015 6:04:12 AM \\wisefaq.com\HomeDrive\CollinsP
SprouleK   19/12/2015 2:08:12 PM \\wisefaq.com\HomeDrive\SprouleK
ReithP     23/12/2015 8:45:54 PM \\wisefaq.com\HomeDrive\ReithP

How to output to a file?
Get-ADUser –Filter * -Properties HomeDirectory,LastLogonDate | Select-Object Name, LastLogonDate, HomeDirectory | Export-CSV 'c:\temp\AllDomainUserNames.CSV'

This article seem familar? That will be because I wrote how to do this with Quest Active Server Roles Powershell Module, back in 2010.

The Microsoft page on Get-ADUser is here.

Getting a list of printers published in an Active Directory domain

Posted on October 22, 2015 by Dale

So I need to get a list of print servers and printers in the domain.

Using Powershell.

Looking around the interwebs, I found a PowerShell commandline here which formed the basis of this commandline:
Get-ADObject -LDAPFilter "(objectCategory=printQueue)" -Properties cn, drivername, location, printername, portname, servername | select portname, cn, drivername, location, printername, servername | Format-Table -Property * -AutoSize | Out-String -Width 4096 | Out-File C:\wisefaq\printerlist.txt

Which outputs to a text file, like this:
portname cn drivername location printername servername -------- -- ---------- -------- ----------- ---------- {101.112.138.188} PRT001-APPLELWR001 APPLE LASERWRITER II US/UT/Boort/10 Anytown St APPLELWR001 PRT001.noddyland.com {112.142.229.22} PRT001-LZR960-2 Dataproducts LZR 960 PS US/UT/Boort/99 Anytown St LZR960-2 PRT001.noddyland.com {101.192.107.56} PRT001-LZR960-1 Dataproducts LZR 960 PS US/UT/Boort/99 Anytown St LZR960-1 PRT001.noddyland.com {101.192.107.56} PRT001-LZR960-3 Dataproducts LZR 960 PCL US/UT/Boort/99 Anytown St LZR960-3 PRT001.noddyland.com {101.46.14.220} PRT001-LZR960-4 Dataproducts LZR 960 PS US/UT/Boort/99 Anytown St LZR960-4 PRT001.noddyland.com {101.46.14.220} PRT001-LZR960-5 Dataproducts LZR 960 PCL US/UT/Boort/99 Anytown St LZR960-5 PRT001.noddyland.com

So why did I use Out-File instead of Export-CSV?
Export-CSV is refusing to output the {ip.addresses}. I don’t know why, and I’ve wasted an hour trying to work around the issue.

Update: December 2015
Adrian suggests that I could use Powershell Custom Objects to fix the issue of ip.addresses not outputting.

References:
PowerShell Quick Tip: Creating wide tables with PowerShell

Searching for Specific Printers in a Domain (Attributes for the printQueue Object)

Print-Queue class

PowerShell print server inventory script (looks very useful, but you need admin access to each of the printers)

How to tell a PC’s network link speed remotely

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Dale

By using PowerShell like this:

Get-WmiObject -class Win32_PerfRawData_Tcpip_NetworkInterface -ComputerName Localhost | Format-Table Name,@{label="LinkSpeed(MB)";Expression={$_.CurrentBandwidth/1000000 -as [int]}}

which will return this:

I first learnt how to do this by reading this blog post by Dustin Hedges.

Some PowerShell links

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Dale

A slowly growing collection of PowerShell resources and links.

Books & guides
Free
Microsoft Sweden – Sweden PowerShell course books and sample
Microsoft Technet – The VBScript-to-Windows PowerShell Conversion Guide
Quest – iPowerShell (PowerShell reference for the iPhone)
Quest – PowerShell TFM v1 ebook
Quest – Windows PowerShell v2 Help

Not free
Ed Wilson (the Microsoft Scripting Guy) – Windows PowerShell Scripting Guide

Cmdlets & modules etc.
Free
Microsoft MSDN – PowerShell Pack
Quest – Free PowerShell Commands for Active Directory (sample use here)

Interesting & useful links
Elsewhere
Microsoft Bing – custom PowerShell search
Microsoft Technet – Scripting Centre
Microsoft Virtual PC Guy – Using Alternate Credentials with WMI and PowerShell [Hyper-V]

Microsoft Jose Barreto’s Blog – How to Handle NTFS Folder Permissions, Security Descriptors and ACLs in PowerShell

Here (scripts)
Checking for existence of a file on a remote computer
Count files in a directory
CPU Utilisation
Pinging a computer
Reading last line of a file
Reboot remote computers
SMS 2003 & SCCM 2007 Server health checking

PowerShellPack

Posted on April 26, 2010 by Dale

Last Tuesday I blogged about the great free scripting tools from Sapien. Well here’s another set of free tools/modules/call them what you will, from Microsoft.

The Windows 7 Resource Kit PowerShell Pack! From the Microsoft MSDN Code Gallery:

About the Windows 7 Resource Kit PowerShell Pack

The Windows 7 Resource Kit PowersShell Pack is a collection of Windows PowerShell scripts included with the Resource Kit. The PowerShell Pack comes in the form of several Windows PowerShell modules, each containing anywhere from 3 to 600 functions.

To get started with the PowerShell pack, run InstallPowerShellPack.cmd from the directory on the CD, open up Windows PowerShell, and run Import-Module PowerShellPack . After you run this command, you will have hundreds of PowerShell scripts loaded to play with.

The Windows 7 Resource Kit PowerShell Pack contains 10 modules to do all sorts of interesting things with PowerShell. Import-Module PowerShellPack actually imports 10 modules for you to use. Here’s a brief overview of each of the modules.

Module	Description
WPK	Create rich user interfaces quick and easily from Windows PowerShell. Think HTA, but easy. Over 600 scripts to help you build quick user interfaces
TaskScheduler	List scheduled tasks, create or delete tasks
FileSystem	Monitor files and folders, check for duplicate files, and check disk space
IsePack	Supercharge your scripting in the Integrated Scripting Environment with over 35 shortcuts
DotNet	Explore loaded types, find commands that can work with a type, and explore how you can use PowerShell, DotNet and COM together
PSImageTools	Convert, rotate, scale, and crop images and get image metadata
PSRSS	Harness the FeedStore from PowerShell
PSSystemTools	Get Operating System or Hardware Information
PSUserTools	Get the users on a system, check for elevation, and start-processaadministrator
PSCodeGen	Generates PowerShell scripts, C# code, and P/Invoke

While you might not use all of these modules in every situation, they represent solid families of commands you can use in any PowerShell scripts you like. The examples below should also help you start to “think in PowerShell”. Most of the tasks you will do in Powershell will not use a single command, but will instead combine many commands in one or more pipelines to get the job done. Each step of these pipelines is a rich object, with properties, methods, and events. This set of commands gives you a number of tools for working with some rich objects that were already lying in the operating system, just waiting for you to discover.

You can download the PowerShell pack here.

wisefaq.com

Stories, and bit rot, from the IT Support Trenches

Category Archives: PowerShell