PowerShell 3 discovery

Having a quick look at the numbers of commands in PowerShell 3 on Windows 8 I get this

PS> (get-command -CommandType cmdlet).count
376
PS> (get-command -CommandType function).count
524

The numbers are even higher on Server 8 depending on what  features/roles you have loaded.

How do you keep track of all those commands – memorising 900 names is not going to happen never mind the reported 2000+ on the server.

The answer is to step up a level to the module. Remember the modules that are available or use

PS> Get-Module -ListAvailable

    Directory: C:\Scripts\Modules

ModuleType Name                      ExportedCommands
———- —-                      —————-
Manifest   SystemInfo                {Get-ComputerSystem, Get-OperatingSystem}

    Directory: C:\Windows\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules

ModuleType Name                      ExportedCommands
———- —-                      —————-
Manifest   AppLocker                 {Set-AppLockerPolicy, Get-AppLockerPolicy, Test-AppLockerPolicy…
Manifest   Appx                      {Add-AppxPackage, Get-AppxPackageManifest, Get-AppxPackage…
Manifest   BitLocker                 {Get-EncryptableVolume, Get-EncryptableVolumes, Get-Protectors..
Manifest   BitsTransfer              {Add-BitsFile, Remove-BitsTransfer, Complete-BitsTransfer…
Manifest   BranchCache               {Add-BCDataCacheExtension, Clear-BCCache, Disable-BC…

Notice that the folder the module is contained is displayed – useful.

Alternatively refine the search

Get-Module -ListAvailable *dns*

One point to note is that Get-Module by default only shows the modules you’ve used!  A new PowerShell console shows

Microsoft.PowerShell.Core
Microsoft.PowerShell.Management

but

PS> get-module | select name

Name
—-
Microsoft.PowerShell.Core
Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility

because we’ve used select-object

DNS cmdlets in PowerShell 3

There are a number of modules related to DNS

ModuleType Name
———- —-
Manifest DnsClient
Manifest DnsConfig
Binary DnsLookup
Manifest DnsNrpt

If we start with the DnsClient module we get these functions and cmdlets

Add-DnsClientNrptRule
Clear-DNSClientCache
Get-DNSClient
Get-DNSClientCache
Get-DnsClientEffectiveNrptPolicy
Get-DnsClientNrptGlobal
Get-DnsClientNrptRule
Get-DNSGlobalSettings
Get-DNSServerAddress
Remove-DnsClientNrptRule
Set-DNSClient
Set-DnsClientNrptGlobal
Set-DnsClientNrptRule
Set-DNSGlobalSettings
Resolve-DnsName

Knowing which DNS server the client is using

PS> Get-DNSServerAddress | select ElementName, Name

ElementName Name
———– —-
Virtual Wireless 192.168.2.1
isatap.{E962BF88-1194-44A8-B30B-A65A4772C812} 192.168.2.1
Virtual LAN 10.10.54.201
isatap.{EA0AB201-1381-4643-A67D-72C9C8860860} 10.10.54.201
Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1 fec0:0:0:ffff::1
Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1 fec0:0:0:ffff::2
Loopback Pseudo-Interface 1 fec0:0:0:ffff::3

and what the client has cached

Get-DNSClientCache | select Name, data

Name data
—- —-
server02 192.168.2.1
server02 10.10.54.201
server02 192.168.1.6
server02.manticore.org 192.168.2.1
server02.manticore.org 10.10.54.201
server02.manticore.org 192.168.1.6
watson.telemetry.microsoft.com

final one for the moment – is a replacement for nslookup

PS> Resolve-DnsName exch07

IP4Address : 10.10.54.130
Name : exch07.Manticore.org
Type : A
CharacterSet : Unicode
Section : Answer
DataLength : 4
TTL : 1200

UK User Group–Alexsandar

Quick reminder about the UK User group Live Meeting on remoting and end points presented by PowerShell MVP Alexsandar Nikolic.

Details and link to join from http://msmvps.com/blogs/richardsiddaway/archive/2011/09/08/powershell-user-group-20-september-2011.aspx

Aleksandar talked about this at the recent PowerShell Deep Dive. This will be good!

The Experts Conference April 2011–My session

Dmitry has just posted the video of the session I did at the PowerShell deep dive @ TEC in April

http://dmitrysotnikov.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/video-richard-siddaway-wmi-gems-and-gotchas/

The session was entitled WMI: Hidden Gems and Gotchas

Links to the slides and demo scripts are also available on the post

Windows 8 and PowerShell 3

You will have started to see blogs about Windows 8 and PowerShell 3 due to Microsoft releasing a developers preview version on MSDN.  I’m currently building Windows 8 and Server 8 machines – more news when they are up and running

Quirks of Get-member and WMI objects

I have been asked about discovering the methods available on a WMI object. I’ve mentioned the GetMethodParameters method a few times but it can be difficult to find.  Normally if we want to discover the methods on an object we would do this

Get-WmiObject Win32_Service | Get-Member -MemberType method

which gives this list

Change

ChangeStartMode

Delete

GetSecurityDescriptor

InterrogateService

PauseService

ResumeService

SetSecurityDescriptor

StartService

StopService

UserControlService

we will ignore the terminal services object that also appears

To dig into the underlying object we use .psbase (or Get-Member -MemberType method –View base)

(Get-WmiObject Win32_Service).psbase | Get-Member -MemberType method

gives us this list

Address

Clone

CopyTo

Equals

Get

GetEnumerator

GetHashCode

GetLength

GetLongLength

GetLowerBound

GetType

GetUpperBound

GetValue

Initialize

Set

SetValue

ToString

Note that the object type is System.Management.Automation.PSMemberSet

When we use Get-WmiObject we are looking at an instance of the WMI class. To look at the class itself

[wmiclass]"Win32_Service" | Get-Member -MemberType method

but this just shows a Create method

If we drop into the base object now

([wmiclass]"Win32_Service").psbase | Get-Member -MemberType method

we get

Clone

CompareTo

CopyTo

CreateInstance

CreateObjRef

Delete

Derive

Dispose

Equals

Get

GetHashCode

GetInstances

GetLifetimeService

GetMethodParameters

GetPropertyQualifierValue

GetPropertyValue

GetQualifierValue

GetRelated

GetRelatedClasses

GetRelationshipClasses

GetRelationships

GetStronglyTypedClassCode

GetSubclasses

GetText

GetType

InitializeLifetimeService

InvokeMethod

Put

SetPropertyQualifierValue

SetPropertyValue

SetQualifierValue

ToString

Which shows the Method we want and a few other potentially interesting methods to test out.

PowerShell User Group–20 September 2011

When: Tuesday, Sep 20, 2011 7:30 PM (BST)

Where: 
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Aleksandar Nikolic presents on PowerShell remoting and the customisation of remoting end points.
Aleksandar’s presentation at the PowerShell Deep Dive was excellent – don’t miss this one

Notes

Richard Siddaway has invited you to attend an online meeting using Live Meeting.
Join the meeting.
Audio Information
Computer Audio
To use computer audio, you need speakers and microphone, or a headset.
First Time Users:
To save time before the meeting, check your system to make sure it is ready to use Microsoft Office Live Meeting.
Troubleshooting
Unable to join the meeting? Follow these steps:

1. Copy this address and paste it into your web browser:
   https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups/join
2. Copy and paste the required information:
   Meeting ID: 3GJGF5
   Entry Code: d6`S<^zjM
   Location: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/usergroups

If you still cannot enter the meeting, contact support

Notice
Microsoft Office Live Meeting can be used to record meetings. By participating in this meeting, you agree that your communications may be monitored or recorded at any time during the meeting.

Test for domain membership

Quick function to determine if a given machine is in a domain or workgroup

function test-domain{             
[CmdletBinding()]             
param (             
[parameter(Position=0,            
   Mandatory=$true,            
   ValueFromPipeline=$true,             
   ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true)]            
   [string]$computer="."             
)             
BEGIN{}#begin             
PROCESS{            
 Get-WmiObject -Class Win32_ComputerSystem -ComputerName $computer |            
 select Name, Domain            
            
}#process             
END{}#end            
            
}

Feed the function a computer name or IP address and it will return the name and domain. If the computer is in the domain we get the full domain name – if its in a workgroup we get the workgroup name (WORKGROUP by default)

Invoke-WmiMethod–Type mismatch error

Sometimes when we try to use Invoke-WmiMethod with an argument list we get an error

PS> Invoke-WmiMethod -Class Win32_Share -Name Create -ArgumentList "c:\test", "Test57", 0
Invoke-WmiMethod : Type mismatch
At line:1 char:17
+ Invoke-WmiMethod <<<<  -Class Win32_Share -Name Create -ArgumentList "c:\test", "Test57", 0
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [Invoke-WmiMethod], ManagementException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : InvokeWMIManagementException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.InvokeWmiMethod

Going back to basics this technique works – its how we did things in PowerShell and it still works great.

$s = [wmiclass]"Win32_Share"
$s.Create("c:\test", "Test57", 0)

As we have seen – this fails

Invoke-WmiMethod -Class Win32_Share -Name Create -ArgumentList "c:\test", "Test57", 0

According to the documentation the full list of the parameters for the method is:

Path
Name
Type
MaximumAllowed
Description
Password
Access

so we are really doing this

$path = "c:\test"
$name = "Test57"
$type = 0
$password = ""
$description = ""
$max = 100
$access = $null
$s = [wmiclass]"Win32_Share"
$s.Create($path, $name, $type, $max, $description, $password, $access)

when we did this

$s.Create("c:\test", "Test57", 0)

we were just ignoring the last four parameters.

BUT

if we look at the parameter list using
$s.psbase.GetMethodParameters("Create")

it shows the parameters in this order
Access
Description
MaximumAllowed
Name
Password
Path
Type

so this works
Invoke-WmiMethod -Class Win32_Share -Name Create -ArgumentList $access, $description, $max, $name, $password, $path, $type

If you get the Type mismatch error then its a good time to check the parameter order.

PS – I haven’t verified that the Invoke-WmiMethod expects the parameters in alphabetical order

PowerShell and WMI webcast

Webcast: Get the most from PowerShell and WMI

I will be presenting the above webcast next week.

Date: Wednesday, September 7, 2011.  Thats tomorrow

Time: 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM CDT

Thats 6pm UK time

Register for the web cast at

http://powershell.com/cs/media/p/11256.aspx