Category: Powershell

Adam Bertram shows how to write to a file using Powershell:

Set-Content is one of those core PowerShell cmdlets that I can’t do without. I still remember using VBscript before we could use PowerShell to write to a file. I remember always trying to remember what kind of object I needed to use and the method name. Was it FileSystemObject, FileObject or what? It was a pain! Also, even when I did recall the method name was CreateTextFile, I’d always forget to add True as the second argument.

Here’s an example of the monstrosity I’m talking about.

Click through to see how easy writing is with Powershell.

Chrissy LeMaire shows off a really cool Powershell prompt:

A few months back, dbatools wizard Fred created a prompt that was so awesome, I never had to use Measure-Commandagain. It was cool enough that a number of us ended up adopting it, so I figured I’d share.

Performance is important to us so that’s what the prompt is all about. Nothing fancy, just the current working directory and how long the command took to run.

The prompt shows how long the previous command took to run.  Click through for the code to do this.

Shane O’Neill shows us Powershell’s switch statement:

We send out notification emails if jobs fail as well but hey, we’re DBAs, we like a backup!

Since this used to be done manually, and since I like PowerShell, I created separate functions that can take individual log files and parse out the needed data in a nice, easy format.

My problem, and the reason for this post, was figuring out, based on the name of the file in a directory, which function to call…

Click through to see how to use the switch statement, as well as how to switch on an expression.

Cody Konior has a quick post showing how to see if you have the UseLargeFRS switch turned on for your SQL Server disks:

PureStorage has a pretty cool post that mentions the importance of formatting SQL Server disks with a 64KB clusters and the /L flag (also known as the UseLargeFRS switch on PowerShell’s Format-Volume cmdlet).

Why UseLargeFRS? It’s to help avoid DBCC CHECKDB failures on large/busy databases. But how do you work out whether it’s enabled or not? PowerShell to the rescue!

You can’t work this out remotely but you can do it locally.

Read on for the script.

Chrissy LeMaire has a good walkthrough on how to install a module from the Powershell gallery, using dbatools as an example:

It’s easy for PowerShell toolmakers to forget that new users may have questions about ExecutionPolicy and Repositories. If dbatools is the first module you’ve ever installed and used, this guide is intended to help you with all of your install/setup questions and concerns.

In order to emulate what your experience may be like, I spun up a fresh Windows 10 instance in Azure and went through all of the required steps which include addressing:

• Setting the Execution Policy

• Explicitly trusting Microsoft’s PowerShell Gallery repository

• Installing dbatools

• Explicitly trusting dbatools as a Publisher, before first use

If you’ve never installed dbatools before, Chrissy shows just how easy it can be.

Klaas Vanbenberghe shows how to update multiple variables in the same way using Powershell:

We turn to two cmdlets: Get-Variable and Set-Variable. They may seem redundant as we get and set variables all the time without those. Maybe you have even never heard of these two cmdlets.
Well here they prove their usefulness:
we will set the variables using their names, and use the current value as a starting point.
An important rule to remember is this:

$ is a token to indicate we’re dealing with a variable, but it is not part of the variable name!

It’s worth reading the whole thing.