..::\\ www.christiano.ch //::..

Remote Access Without Admin Privileges

In PowerShell v.2, remote access is available only to users who hold local administrator privileges. So, even if you do have appropriate remote access to a machine, , you cannot remotely access the system if you are not an Admin. This is not a technical limitation, though, just a safe default. You should use this line to change it :

Set-PSSessionConfiguration -Name Microsoft.PowerShell -showSecurityDescriptorUI

Out-GridView Dirty Tricks

Out-Gridview is a new cmdlet in PowerShell v.2 which allows you to output objects to a “mini” excel sheet like this:

Get-Process | Out-GridView

However, this only works if .NET Framework 3.51 is installed. While PowerShell requires just .NET 2.0, both Out-GridView and ISE-Editor require 3.51 because of their WPF graphical output.

Out-Gridview will display the same columns you would have seen when you output the objects to the console. You should clone the object first to see all object properties in your gridview:

Get-Process | Select-Object * | Out-Gridview

Thanks to Get-Date, you can easily create unique temporary file names with a timestamp:

(Get-Date -format ‘yyyy-MM-dd hh-mm-ss’) + ‘.tmp’

Generate PC Lists

One easy way of creating lists of PC names or IP address ranges etc is a simple pipeline like this:

1..40 | Foreach-Object { ‘PC-W7-A{0:000}’ -f $_ }

Use the -f operator to format the number. In this example, it will always be three-digit.

You can use Sort-Object to sort simple variable types. Have a look at the following:

‘Tom’, ‘Chris’, ‘Judy’, ‘Alan’ | Sort-Object

Input can come from a different command. If you’d like to get seven random lottery numbers, you should try this:

1..49 | Get-Random -Count 7 | Sort-Object

You’ll find that when you feed complex objects into Sort-Object, you should specify the object property you want to sort on (or else Sort-Object will pick one by itself):

Get-ChildItem $env:windir | Sort-Object Length

Here are some more examples:

Get-HotFix | Sort-Object InstalledOn

Get-ComputerRestorePoint | Sort-Object Description

Ok, this one’s is cool i think. Whenever i needed a large dummy file, i opened up notepad, write ASDFASDFASDFA CTRL-A, CTRL-C, CTRL-V,CTRL-V,CTRL-V,CTRL-V. CTRL-A, CTRL-C, CTRL-V,CTRL-V,CTRL-V,CTRL-V,CTRL-V.. Then i saved the file, opened up a CMD-Shell and wrote copy dummyFile.txt+dummyFile.txt+dummyFile.txt until the file was large enough.. ok, there’s fsutil.exe which does the same in a much more efficient manner.. OR, unleash the Power of .NET – no, you don’t have to start programming using Visual Studio, just open up PowerShell..

Read more…

Schtasks.exe – Enables an administrator to create, delete, query, change, run, and end scheduled tasks on a local or remote computer. Running Schtasks.exe without arguments displays the status and next run time for each registered task. If you have jobs that need to execute regularly, you can manage them with a PowerShell script and make it a scheduled task:

Read more…

Okay, this post I’m going to write down for my personal notes but also for you.. Ever needed to delete a specific file, in my case in need to delete (remove-item) all *.pdb files in one of my Visual Studio Solution.. recursive of course. To get a list of Files use the Get-ChildItem CmdLet. Extend that command using the –rec or –recurse parameter – so you’ll get all the files recursively, starting from the current path / directory.

Read more…

To enumerate all files of a specific path recursive and get the full path for each file using Microsoft PowerShell:


Get-ChildItem -rec | ForEach-Object -Process {$_.FullName}


to capture the output and generate an XML file do:


Get-ChildItem -rec | ForEach-Object -Process {$_.FullName} | Export-Clixml c:\temp\report.xml


to only enumerate / list files, use the psIsContainer switch:


Get-ChildItem -rec | Where-object {!$_.psIsContainer -eq $true} | ForEach-Object -Process {$_.FullName}


or for folders only:


Get-ChildItem -rec | Where-object {!$_.psIsContainer -eq $false} | ForEach-Object -Process {$_.FullName}


Powershell on Windows Vista and Windows 7 runs restricted and not-elevated by default. Microsoft did a good job when they invented the so called UAC (User Account Control). As ususal, Microsoft started something new and did not finish it yet – the product is still not feature-complete. Well, probably it’s their philosophy to create thousands of products in a vertical manner, the user then is left all alone finding out how to dive into the features from a horizontal perspective…

What i mean: PowerShell runs restricted and has NO SUDO command. For sake of christ, there is a workaround.

First, find out the location of your profile.ps1. it easy as:


PS C:\> $profile
C:\Users\ PS C:\>


Probably this script does not exist by default. At least on my systems this was the case. So create it.
When created / if it does exist do:


PS C:\> notepad.exe $profile


This should open your profile.ps1 script in notepad..
Edit this Script to include:


function elevate-process
{
$file, [string]$arguments = $args;
$psi = new-object System.Diagnostics.ProcessStartInfo $file;
$psi.Arguments = $arguments;
$psi.Verb = "runas";
$psi.WorkingDirectory = get-location;
[System.Diagnostics.Process]::Start($psi);
}

set-alias sudo elevate-process;


Now you’re almost done. After starting a new PowerShell session – even a non-elevated one – you can run commands elevated by using the sudo command.
For Illustration:

PS C:\> sudo notepad.exe


If the new PowerShell session should display a warning regarding the execution of scripts, check out my older posts (using the site search), i’ve postet a solution for that.