BjornHouben

#PowerShell – Getting started with #Pester unit tests to improve code quality

On my list I have a couple of PowerShell related subjects I want/need to learn more about. These include, but are not limited to parallelization, GitHub, DSC, PowerShell Core, JEA, Plaster, DBAtools and DBAchecks.

I have been playing around a bit already with parallelization and Github and the next thing on my list was Pester.

Pester in general

For those that do not know it, the Pester Wikidescri…

#PowerShell – Anybox module to easily create GUIs by @dm3ll3n

In my previous post #PowerShell – Create a simple GUI form in seconds I wrote about a script I made to easily create a GUI.

After posting it, a colleague of mine said he had seen a great solution for creating GUIs on Reddit called Anybox.

Anybox is created by Donald Mellenbruch (@dm3ll3n) and is available from the PowerShell Gallery. Unfortunately however there is no proper built-in help yet. He…

#PowerShell – Trying to have my blog added to Planet PowerShell

When I first saw the announcement of Planet PowerShell I loved the concept of having blog posts aggregated in a single place  to thought it was a great idea to aggregate PowerShell related blog posts.

I wanted to have my blog added to it as well. But at the time when I saw the requirements, I saw that I needed to do some stuff with GitHub and that was beyond my comfort zone back then.

Last week…

#PowerShell – Create a simple GUI form in seconds

As a PowerShell person I’m personally not a big fan of creating a GUI for PowerShell scripts. This is however something that is asked a lot when PowerShell scripts are created for by example provisioning new users.

I’ve seen many different approaches to this. Most worked around it either by using Read-Host or creating a GUI inside their function. In some cases these approaches also meant that the…

PowerShell – Getting started with Visual Studio Code and GitHub

In the past years I’ve been creating scripts and storing them on my personal OneDrive that is connected to multiple desktops and laptops I use. Additionally, my Synology NAS syncs with OneDrive and backups the files to ChrashPlan.

Even though this works, it has some disadvantages:

OneDrive provides basic version history, but it is limited to just the file at a point in time. When modifying…

Office 365 – Create PowerShell Session is failed using OAuth when trying to connect to Exchange Online PowerShell using Connect-ExoPSSession

For some time now I’ve been using the Microsoft Exchange Online Powershell Module that supports Azure multi-factor authentication (MFA)  , but for an unknown reason it stopped working When trying to connect to Exchange Online PowerShell using the code below with a global administrator account, I was getting an access denied error: Connect-EXOPSSession -UserPrincipalName [email protected]…

#Office365 - #Accessdenied when trying to connect to #ExchangeOnline #PowerShell

When trying to connect to Exchange Online PowerShell using the code below with a global administrator account, I was getting an access denied error: $usercredential = get-credential $Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://outlook.office3 65.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $UserCredential -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection New-PSSession :…

Last week to buy #Microsoft #Certification Booster Pack promotion for your #exam

Microsoft Certification Booster Packs are sold for $200-$225 depending on the package and your country. This basically means that: For $200 you can choose between “1 Exam + 30 days access to online practice test” or “1 exam and up to 4 free retakes of that same exam” For $225 you get “1 exam and up to 4 free retakes of that same exam AND 30 days access to online practice test”. It seemed like the…

#Certification - My thoughts on Microsoft Certification #BoosterPacks #MSLearning

Since March 7th, Microsoft is selling booster packs which can be bought until August 31. The exams can be taken up until six months after your purchase. The following boosters packs are available: Practice Test + exam for $200 Exam + 4 free retakes for $200 Practice Test + exam + 4 free retakes for $225 As always there are pros and cons to this offering. These are things that have gone through my…

#PowerShell - PowerShell generated batch file results in error þ is not recognized as an internal or external command @MSH_Dave

Some time ago, a colleague told me he was having trouble generating a batch file using PowerShell. The batch file as generated, but when he tried to run the batch file, it resulted in an error containing: þ is not recognized as an internal or external command In the batch file, the character þ was nowhere to be found. The code he used to generate the batch file was as follows: $Batscript =…

#PowerShell - Auto generate PowerShell Functions from .NET Code using #ISESteroids

In my previous blog posts I described how to determine possible values for a property / attribute using .NET code and how to create a function to simplify this task in the future. Shortly after, I saw a post on Twitter showing of functionality of ISESteroids to auto generate functions from .NET code. Since I hate to do unnecessary work and I know others think this way as well  wanted to share…

#PowerShell - WMF5 (including PowerShell 5) can be deployed using WSUS again, but there is a catch ...

A couple of weeks ago I was thinking that I should blog that it’s a pity that Windows Management Framework (including PowerShell) could be not distributed through WSUS anymore. In the past it was available on through WSUS, but it was removed (expired) at some point due to some issues. This meant to deploy PowerShell you could not deploy it through regular WSUS, but you had to either: Include it…

#SCVMM 2012 R2 - Fix for VM console access error : Virtual Machine Manager lost the connection to the virtual machine

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been installing and configuring a System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2012 R2 (VMM) environment. At first all management was done from the VMM management server and console access to VMs from VMM was working fine. Later on the VMM console (and appropriate rollup) were installed on the laptop directly. Then when he opened the VMM console as a regular user and…

#OneNote 2013 - free version shows logon window for a short while and then quickly disappears

OneNote is one of my favorite note taking applications. I use it on a large number of devices and platforms and like always having my notes available and up-to-date no matter what because they are stored synced to on OneDrive. Recently I found it out that OneNote is freely available for many platforms at : https://www.onenote.com/download After installing it I had some trouble getting it to work…

#PowerShell - easily posting scripts to a website while maintaining syntax highlighting by copying as HTML

When sharing PowerShell scripts on the Internet there are a couple of options: Simply post it as plain text, which means syntax highlighting will not be included. Use available syntax highlighting for the platform you use. Sample platforms include: Microsoft ScriptCenter and a syntax highlighting example from a script of mine:…

#PowerShell - Get-EnumValue function to get possible values of properties / attributes

In my previous blog post I blogged about how to get the possible values of an attribute or property like by example the service starttype using enumerators. For future use I’ve created this function called Get-EnumValue. The function (and any updated future versions) can be found on ScriptCenter: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Determine-possible-values-eaf48782 But for those…

#PowerShell - Determine possible values for an attribute

While working on a script for XenApp 6.5 I wanted to perform actions based on the session state. To me however, the possible state values were not clear. Without knowing these states, I would have to make assumptions which could lead to unexpected behavior and results. Generic example Since not everyone is using Citrix, here’s a more generic sample using Get-EventLog to determine the possible…