Problem scenario
You want to use PowerShell to create a local user on the server.  What command do you run to do this?

Solution
1.  Open PowerShell as Administrator.
2.  Run this (but replace “jane” with the username you want):   New-localuser -Name jane
# respond to the pop-up GUI with a password that is reasonably strong.

Problem scenario
You have an application (in Windows) running, and you want to terminate it with PowerShell.  You want to find running program’s PID.  But you only know its name in Task Manager.  

How do you obtain the Process ID (identification number) of a program (or application) in Windows when you only know the Task Manager name of the program (or application)?

Solution
1.

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Continue reading “How Do You Find the PID when You only Know It by the Task Name in the Task Manager?”

Problem scenario
When running a PowerShell script, you receive the error “Unable to initialize device PRN.”  

Solution
Use the “echo” reserved word instead of “print”.

PRN is what the Windows system name for printer (according to this external posting).

Optional:  If you want to buy a book on PowerShell, click here; you may also want to click here and search for “PowerShell”.

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Continue reading “How Do You Troubleshoot This PowerShell Error “Unable to initialize device PRN.”?”

Problem scenario
You have a list of strings in a .txt file.  You want each string to be in the reverse order from left to right.  You want the strings to remain in their current order from top to bottom.  In other words, you want the content of each line to be reversed. Otherwise you want to preserve the lines in the file (row by row).  For example,

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Continue reading “Using PowerShell, How Do You Reverse the Individual Strings in a .txt File While Preserving the Top to Bottom Order of the Lines Themselves?”

Problem scenario
You have two files.  One file is the main file you want to modify by removing lines that match specific patterns.  The second file has patterns (or strings) that should not be in a final, filtered list.   How do you filter a file to remove the patterns that match strings in another file?

Solution
# This assumes you want to ignore blank spaces in the second file.  

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Continue reading “How Do You Create a PowerShell Script to Filter a List by Removing Any Line That Matches Patterns or Strings in a Second File?”

Problem scenario
You want a PowerShell script to place files from a folder into one zip file.

When using PowerShell version 3, your script throws this error:

‘
Exception calling “CreateFromDirectory” with “2” argument(s): “The path is not of a legal form.”
At line…
     CategoryInfo                  : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodInvocationException
   

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Problem scenario:  You want to find a file on your Windows desktop by a specific name.  How do you search every folder to find it?

Solution
Use PowerShell.  Run these two commands to find “foobar.txt”:

cd /
gci -recurse -filter “foobar.txt”

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Continue reading “How Do You Use PowerShell to Search Every Folder for a File by the File’s Name?”

Problem scenario: How do you find out what version of PowerShell you are using?

Solution
Run this command:  $PSVersionTable.PSVersion

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Continue reading “How Do You Determine the Version of PowerShell That You Are Using?”