PowerTip of the Day, from PowerShell.com:

WMI is a great information resource, and Get-WmiObject makes it easy to retrieve WMI instances. First, use -List parameter to find WMI class names. For example, find classes that deal with network:

Get-WmiObject-ListWin32_*network*

Next, pick one of the classes and enumerate its instances:

Get-WmiObjectWin32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration

With WQL, a SQL-type query language for WMI, you can even create more sophisticated queries, such as:

Get-WmiObject-Query‘Select * FROM Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration WHERE IPEnabled=True’

PowerTip of the Day, from PowerShell.com:

Out-GridView is a great way to present results in a “mini-Excel” sheet:

Get-Process|Out-GridView

However, Out-GridView has two requirements:.NET Framework 3.5.1 and the built-in script editor ISE must both be installed. ISE is not installed by default on Windows Servers. So, if you want  to use Out-GridView on server products, you will need to make sure you install the ISE feature.

On a Server 2008 R2, you could enable ISE by using PowerShell:

Import-ModuleServerManager

Add-WindowsFeaturePowerShell-ISE

PowerTip of the Day, from PowerShell.com:

Try this one-liner if you need to print out all PDF documents you have stored in one folder:

Dirc:\myfolder\*.pdf|Foreach-Object { Start-Process-FilePath$_.FullName – VerbPrint }

PowerTip of the Day, from PowerShell.com:

When you query network adapters with WMI, it is not easy to find the active network card. To find the network card(s) that are currently connected to the network, you can filter based on NetConnectionStatus which needs to be “2″ for connected cards. Then you can take the MAC information from the Win32_NetworkAdapter class and the IP address from the Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration class and combine both into one custom return object:

PS> Get-WmiObjectWin32_NetworkAdapter-Filter‘NetConnectionStatus=2′

 

 

ServiceName              : NETw5s64

MACAddress                 : 00:22:FA:D9:E1:50

AdapterType               : Ethernet 802.3

DeviceID                       : 11

Name                                  : Intel(R) WiFiLink 5100 AGN

NetworkAddresses :

Speed                                : 54000000

This gets you the network hardware but not the network configuration. To get the configuration data for this network card (like its IP address), get the related Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration instance:

functionGet-NetworkConfig {

  Get-WmiObjectWin32_NetworkAdapter-Filter‘NetConnectionStatus=2′|

    ForEach-Object {

      $result= 1 |Select-ObjectName, IP, MAC

      $result.Name=$_.Name

      $result.MAC=$_.MacAddress

      $config=$_.GetRelated(‘Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration’)

      $result.IP=$config|Select-Object-expandIPAddress

      $result

    }

 

}

 

PS> Get-NetworkConfig

 

Name                                                              IP                                                                  Mac

—-                                                              –                                                                  —

Intel(R) WiFiLink 5100… {78.64.118.150, fe80::a… 00:22:FA:D9:E1:50

PowerTip of the Day, from PowerShell.com:

When you access Microsoft Excel from script, you may have noticed that it never gets removed from memory again, even if you call its Quit() method:

‘Excel processes: {0}’-f @(Get-Processexcel-ea 0).Count

$excel=New-Object-ComObjectExcel.Application

$excel.Visible=$True

Start-Sleep 5

$excel.Quit()

‘Excel processes: {0}’-f @(Get-Processexcel-ea 0).Count

Now you could try and kill that orphaned process:

Stop-Process-nameexcel

However, you now would kill all open Excel instances, not just the one you launched from script. Also, killing a process with Stop-Process is hostile, and Excel may complain the next time you launch it that it was shut down unexpectedly.

Here is how you tell the .NET Framework to quit Excel peacefully:

[System.Runtime.Interopservices.Marshal]::ReleaseComObject($excel)

Start-Sleep 1

‘Excel processes: {0}’-f @(Get-Processexcel-ea 0).Count