Scripting Games have started

Jump over to http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/

for event 1 in the beginners and advanced categories

Finding the primary name of a DNS alias record

A forum question asked how to find the primary name from an alias or CNAME record.

Get-WmiObject -Namespace 'root\MicrosoftDNS' -Class MicrosoftDNS_CNAMEType `
-Filter "ContainerName = 'Manticore.org'" -ComputerName server02  |             
select @{N='Alias'; E={$_.Ownername}}, Primaryname            

use the MicrosoftDNS_CNAMEType class. Filter on the domain ie containername.  ComputerName holds the DNS server name.

Change OwnerName to Alias in a select calculated field

MVP renewal 2012

My MVP award was renewed for another year today.

Thank you to Microsoft for bestowing the honour for the fifth year and thank you to all of the people who’ve helped me gain this award by posting questions, reading my blogs, listening to talks etc.

PowerShell in Practice offer today only

Manning have PowerShell in Practice on a half price offer today. Go to www.manning.com and use code dotd0330cc when ordering

UK PowerShell Group March 2012 meeting recording

The recording, slides and demo script from the session on CIM cmdlets – Tuesday 27 March is available

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=43cfa46a74cf3e96#cid=43CFA46A74CF3E96&id=43CFA46A74CF3E96%212955

Enjoy

PowerShell Deep Dive 2012 Agenda

The agenda for the PowerShell Deep Dive next month has just been published on the PowerShell team blog

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/powershell/archive/2012/03/26/schedule-for-the-upcoming-powershell-deep-dive-and-a-few-videos-from-frankfurt.aspx

If you are already booked to go – looking forward to meeting you.  If you’re thinking of going last years event was amazing. If you are interested in PowerShell it is the place to be

UG meeting reminder – March 2012

Quick reminder that the UK user group meeting is on Tuesday 27 March @ 7.30 BST.  Details from

http://msmvps.com/blogs/richardsiddaway/archive/2012/03/06/uk-powershell-group-march-2012.aspx

The meeting is on the new CIM functionality in PowerShell v3.  This is a need to know technology as much of the new PowerShell functionality in Windows Server 8 is based on this.

Please double check the time as the UK switched to daylight saving time this weekend.

PowerShell Deep Dive

I heard at the beginning of the week that I’ve been granted a speaker slot at the PowerShell Deep Dive next month – http://www.theexpertsconference.com/us/2012/

I’ll be speaking on creating cmdlets from WMI objects using a new feature in PowerShell v3 that is so cool it could start a new Ice Age

Look forward to seeing you there

Folder sizes

Question on the forums related to folder sizes and last write time

Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\PersonalData\MyBooks\PowerShell and WMI" -Recurse |             
where { $_.PSIsContainer} |            
foreach {            
 $size = Get-ChildItem -Path $_.FullName | measure -Sum Length | select -ExpandProperty Sum            
             
 Add-Member -InputObject $($_) -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Size -Value $size            
            
 $_ | select Fullname, LastWriteTime, @{N="Size(MB)"; E={[math]::Round(($_.Size/1mb), 2)}}            
} | Format-Table -AutoSize -Wrap

Unfortunately the object returned by get-ChildItem doesn’t include folder size. So we loop through each folder & get the sum of its contents. The size value is added to the folder object and Fullname, LastwriteTime and size displayed.  The size is recalculated to megabytes. Substitute your favourite size

Reading registry values with CIM

In this post

http://msmvps.com/blogs/richardsiddaway/archive/2012/03/10/migrating-to-cim-doh.aspx

and its predecessors we saw how to enumerate registry sub-keys. But how do we read a registry value?

function get-CIMRegValue{             
[CmdletBinding(DefaultParameterSetName="UseComputer")]             
            
param (             
 [parameter(Mandatory=$true)]            
 [ValidateSet("HKCR", "HKCU", "HKLM", "HKUS", "HKCC")]            
 [string]$hive,            
            
 [parameter(Mandatory=$true)]            
 [string]$key,            
            
 [parameter(Mandatory=$true)]            
 [string]$value,            
            
 [parameter(Mandatory=$true)]            
 [string]            
 [Validateset("DWORD", "EXPANDSZ", "MULTISZ", "QWORD", "SZ")]            
 $type,            
            
  [parameter(ValueFromPipeline=$true,            
   ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true)]            
 [parameter(ParameterSetName="UseComputer")]             
 [string]$computer="$env:COMPUTERNAME",            
             
 [parameter(ValueFromPipeline=$true,            
   ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true)]            
 [parameter(ParameterSetName="UseCIMSession")]             
 [Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.CimSession]$cimsession            
             
)             
BEGIN{}#begin             
PROCESS{            
            
switch ($hive){            
"HKCR" { [uint32]$hdkey = 2147483648} #HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT            
"HKCU" { [uint32]$hdkey = 2147483649} #HKEY_CURRENT_USER            
"HKLM" { [uint32]$hdkey = 2147483650} #HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE            
"HKUS" { [uint32]$hdkey = 2147483651} #HKEY_USERS            
"HKCC" { [uint32]$hdkey = 2147483653} #HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIG            
}            
            
switch ($type) {            
"DWORD"     {$methodname = "GetDwordValue"}            
"EXPANDSZ"  {$methodname = "GetExpandedStringValue"}            
"MULTISZ"   {$methodname = "GetMultiStringValue"}            
"QWORD"     {$methodname = "GetQwordValue"}            
"SZ"        {$methodname = "GetStringValue"}            
}            
$arglist = @{hDefKey = $hdkey; sSubKeyName = $key; sValueName = $value}            
            
switch ($psCmdlet.ParameterSetName) {            
 "UseComputer"    {$result = Invoke-CimMethod -Namespace "root\cimv2" -ClassName StdRegProv -MethodName $methodname  -Arguments $arglist -ComputerName $computer}            
 "UseCIMSession"  {$result = Invoke-CimMethod -Namespace "root\cimv2" -ClassName StdRegProv -MethodName $methodname  -Arguments $arglist -CimSession $cimsession }            
 default {Write-Host "Error!!! Should not be here" }            
}            
            
switch ($type) {            
"DWORD"     {$result | select -ExpandProperty uValue}            
"EXPANDSZ"  {$result | select -ExpandProperty sValue}            
"MULTISZ"   {$result | select -ExpandProperty sValue}            
"QWORD"     {$result | select -ExpandProperty uValue}            
"SZ"        {$result | select -ExpandProperty sValue}            
}            
             
}#process             
END{}#end            
            
<# 
.SYNOPSIS
Displays a registry value

.DESCRIPTION
Displays a registry value using WSMAN or DCOM 
to access remote machines 

.PARAMETER  hive
Hive Name. One of "HKCR", "HKCU", "HKLM", "HKUS" or "HKCC"
The name is validated against the set

.PARAMETER  key
The registry key - without the hive name e.g.
"SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BITS"

.PARAMETER value
The specific registry value to return for the 
given key

.PARAMETER  type
The type of registry value to return.
Must be one of
"DWORD", "EXPANDSZ", "MULTISZ", "QWORD", "SZ"

.PARAMETER  computer
Name of a remote computer. Connectivity will be by WSMAN.

.PARAMETER  cimsession
An object representing a cimsession. Connectivity is controlled 
by the CIM session and can be WSMAN or DCOM

.EXAMPLE                                                                                       
get-CIMRegValue -hive HKLM -key "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\BITS" -value DelayedAutoStart -type DWORD

.EXAMPLE
get-CIMRegValue -hive HKLM -key "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\BITS" -value ObjectName -type SZ  

.EXAMPLE
get-CIMRegValue -hive HKLM -key "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\BITS" -value DependOnService -type MULTISZ 

.EXAMPLE
get-CIMRegValue -hive HKLM -key "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\BITS" -value ImagePath -type EXPANDSZ

.EXAMPLE
get-CIMRegValue -hive HKLM -key "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\BITS" -value DelayedAutoStart -type DWORD -computer "."

.EXAMPLE
$cs = New-CimSession -ComputerName Win7test  
get-CIMRegValue -hive HKLM -key "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\BITS" -value DelayedAutoStart -type DWORD -cimsession $cs   

.EXAMPLE
$opt = New-CimSessionOption -Protocol Dcom                                                                                                          
$csd = New-CimSession -ComputerName server02 -SessionOption $opt                                                                                    
get-CIMRegValue -hive HKLM -key "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\BITS" -value DelayedAutoStart -type DWORD -cimsession $csd

.NOTES


.LINK

#>            
            
}

Parameters define the hive, key, value to be read and the type of value.

Registry values come in a number of types:

• DWORD and QWORD are 32 & 64 bit numbers
• SZ is a string
• EXPANDSZ is a string containing environmental variables that gets expanded
• MULTISZ is a multi-valued string

Parameters to define a computer name or CIM Session are also present

The numeric value for the hive is set in a switch statement. The data type is used to define the method name – each data type has its own method.

The argument list is populated and the method is invoked using a computer name or CIM session as appropriate

The results are decoded according to type.

Full help is provided on the function.