Category Archives: Microsoft

PowerShell Random Password Function

Generating a password with PowerShell is relatively easy if you leverage a particular method of .Net, System.Web.Security.Membership. Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Web[System.Web.Security.Membership]::GeneratePassword(8,2) Simple and to the point. But below is a pretty good function to do something similar, if you are curious about string operations with PowerShell. function Get-RandomPassword($length){ $length-=1 $lower = ‘abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz’ $upper = $lower.ToUpper() $number = 0..9 $special=’~!@#$%^&*()_+|}{[]\’ $chars = “$lower$special$upper”.ToCharArray() $pass = Get-Random -InputObject… Read More »

Find Active Directory Computers by OS

Finding machines in Active Directory is pretty easy using the Get-ADComputer commandlet. You can specify what to find by any number of parameters. For example, the most basic use of the commandlet is: Get-ADComputer -Filter * The above code will return all Active Directory computer objects. But lets say you are in the process of upgrading operating systems across the domain, and… Read More »

Find Shutdown Events

Just a quick PowerShell one-liner to display all the shutdown events on a computer.

Setting the IP Address from the Command Line

When you are building a Windows server from the command line, GUI interfaces are not available. Here are two methods of setting IP configuration from the command line.

Create a New Domain with PowerShell

If you’re standing up a new domain, this bit of PowerShell will get you there without the need to run through the wizard.

Word Keyboard Shortcuts

You can speed up the entry of data in to your word documents by leveraging keyboard shortcuts.

Set your signature in OWA

Ever get tired of adding a signature block to an email? Typing your name and other info every time you write an email? Here is how to get rid of that tedium with Outlook for the web.

Use PowerShell to see who Rebooted a Server

Let’s say one of the production servers got rebooted unexpectedly and you would like to find out who rebooted it and when the server got rebooted. In PowerShell, you can take a look at the event log using the PowerShell one-liner command shown below. You don’t need to write a bunch of lines in a script and then… Read More »

Connect to Network Printer via TCP/IP

Sometimes you are unable to connect to a printer via the print server. Maybe your driver is unavailable, or for some reason you may not have rights to print to that printer. You can bypass the print server, most times, and print directly to a network printer.

XPFrame User Control

XPFrame solves well known problem of standard frame’s behaviour with XP styles (see screenshot bellow). This control looks like .NET GroupBox under Windows XP or like VB Frame under early systems. Demo project is included.