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One-liners

Some Powershell commands can be written as a "one-liner."

Start remote session & pipe commands

Create a session & assign it to a variable $s. Use that variable and Invoke-Command to run commands on the remote.

Start remote session, pipe commands
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## Create a session
$s = New-PSSession <computer-name>

## Run command(s) on the remove
Invoke-Command -Session $s { <command(s) to run> }

## Close the remote session
Remove-PSSession $s

Copy file from remote to local

Copy file from remote to local
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# Create a session
$Session = New-PSSession -ComputerName "Server01" -Credential "Contoso\User01"

# Copy item from remote $session to local -Destination)
Copy-Item "C:\MyRemoteData\test.log" -Destination "D:\MyLocalData\" -FromSession $Session

Pipe/tee Powershell command output to a file

Tee command output to file
<your powershell command> | Tee-Object -FilePath <output-filename>.log

Get machine uptime

On Linux, where everything is better and easier, you just run uptime to get a machine's uptime. On Windows, you have to do extra stuff because... Powershell...

Get machine uptime
(Get-Date) – (Get-CimInstance Win32_OperatingSystem).LastBootUpTime

Generate a battery report

On laptops or devices with portable power, you can generate a battery report with the following command (find the report at the path you put after /output):

Generate battery report
powercfg /batteryreport /output "C:\battery-report.html"

Count files in a directory

Count number of files in a directory
$FileCount = (Get-Childitem -Path "C:\path\to\parent" -File | Measure-Object).Count

Recursively remove all files in a path

Recursively delete all files
Remove-Item C:\path\to\parent\* -Recurse -Force

Export Event Viewer log history

Use the command below to export all Event Viewer events from a specific logging section (Application, Security, Setup, or System):

Export Event Viewer logs
Get-EventLog -LogName <Application|Security|Setup|System> | Export-Csv -Path C:\path\to\events_file.csv

Enable/disable Windows Defender Real-Time Protection

Enable real-time protection

Enable real-time protection
PowerShell Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring 0​
Enable real-time protection using boolean
PowerShell Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring $false​

Disable real-time protection

Disable real-time protection
PowerShell Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring 1​
Disable real-time protection using boolean
PowerShell Set-MpPreference -DisableRealtimeMonitoring $true

Export list of AD users in a group

Substitute an AD Group name for "$ADGroup" and a path to export the CSV file to for "$EXPORT_PATH" (example: c:\tmp\adgroup_members.csv):

Get members of AD group
Get-ADGroupMember -Identity "$ADGroup" | Export-CSV -Path $EXPORT_PATH -NoTypeInformation

Export user's 'Members Of' to CSV

Get-ADPrincipalGroupMembership USERNAME | Select Name | Export-CSV -path C:\Temp\file.csv -NoTypeInformation

Query AD user by email address, get "Enabled" status

Get user's 'Enabled' status from email address
Get-ADUser -Filter "EmailAddress -eq 'address@email.com'" -Properties EmailAddress | Select-Object Enabled

Get AD user's properties

Get AD user's properties
Get-ADUser -Identity <username> -Properties *

Get subset of AD user's properties

Query specific properties of AD user's profile
Get-ADUser -Identity <username> -Properties Name, AccountLockoutTime, LastBadPasswordAttempt, LastLogonDate, LockedOut, lockoutTime, Modified, modifyTimeStamp, PasswordExpired, PasswordLastSet

Unlock AD user's account

Unlock AD user account
Unlock-ADAccount -Identity $ADUsername

Export/Import winget packages

You can export your installed packages using the winget utility. The backup format is .json.

Export winget packages

Export winget packages
winget export -o C:\path\to\winget-pkgs.json

Import winget packages

Import winget packages
winget import -i C:\path\to\winget-pkgs.json

Format string parts with -NoNewline;

Using the -NoNewline; param, you can format different parts of a Write-Host string and break long lines into multiple.

For example to set the left part of a string to green and the right to red:

Format string colors
Write-Host "I am green, " -ForegroundColor Green -NoNewline; Write-Host "and I am red!" -ForegroundColor Red

To apply formatting to some parts of a long string, and to break it up over multiple lines, you can use a new line after the ; in -NoNewline;:

Multi-line Write-Host with -NoNewline
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Write-Host "This is the first part of a long string, with no formatting." -NoNewline;
Write-Host "This part of the string will appear inline (on the same line) as the previous string," -NoNewline;
Write-Host "and can even be broken up mid-sentence! Check the source code to see this in action." -NoNewline;
Write-Host "" -NoNewline;
Write-Host "And I'm purple, just because" -ForegroundColor purple -NoNewline;
Write-Host "Ok that's all."

Set/Unset environment variables

Warning

You must be in an elevated/administrative prompt for these commands.

Set environment variable

Set Machine (system-wide) variable
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("VARIABLE_NAME", "VALUE", [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::Machine)

You can also use it as a function:

Set-EnvVar function
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function Set-EnvVar {
    <#
        Set an environment variable. If -Target Machine or -Target User, the env variable will persist between sessions.

        Usage:
            Set-EnvVar -Name <name> -Value <value>
            Set-EnvVar -Name <name> -Value <value> -Target Machine

        Params:
            Name: The name of the environment variable
            Value: The value of the environment variable
            Target: The scope of the environment variable. Machine, User, or Process

        Example:
            Set-EnvVar -Name "EXAMPLE_VAR" -Value "example value"
            Write-Host $env:EXAMPLE_VAR
    #>
    param (
        [string]$Name,
        [string]$Value,
        [ValidateSet('Machine', 'User', 'Process')]
        [string]$Target = 'User'
    )

    Write-Host "Setting [$Target] environment variable "$Name"."

    If ( $Target -eq 'Process' ) {
        Write-Warning "Environment variable [$Target] will not persist between sessions."
    } else {
        Write-Information "Environment variable [$Target] will persist between sessions."
    }

    try{
        [System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable($Name, $Value, [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::$Target)
    } catch {
        Write-Error "Unhandled exception setting environment variable. Details: $($_.Exception.Message)"
    }
}

Unset environment variable

Set User env variable
[System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable("VARIABLE_NAME", "VALUE", [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::User)

You can use it as a function:

Remove-EnvVar function
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function Remove-EnvVar {
    <#
        Remove/unset an environment variable.

        Usage:
            Remove-EnvVar -Name <name>
            Remove-EnvVar -Name <name> -Target Machine

        Params:
            Name: The name of the environment variable
            Target: The scope of the environment variable. Machine, User, or Process

        Example:
            Remove-EnvVar -Name "EXAMPLE_VAR"
            Write-Host $env:EXAMPLE_VAR
    #>
    param (
        [string]$Name,
        [ValidateSet('Machine', 'User', 'Process')]
        [string]$Target = 'User'
    )

    try {
        [System.Environment]::SetEnvironmentVariable($Name, $null, [System.EnvironmentVariableTarget]::$Target)
    } catch {
        Write-Error "Unhandled exception removing environment variable. Details: $($_.Exception.Message)"
    }
}

HTTP requests

Check site availability

As a one-liner:

Check HTTP site availability
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$Site = "https://www.google.com"

while ($true) {
    try {
        ## Make HTTP HEAD request
        $response = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "$($Site)" -Method Head

        ## Output HTTP status code
        Write-Output "$(Get-Date) Ping site '$($Site)': [$($response.StatusCode): $($response.StatusDescription)]"
    } catch {
        Write-Error "$(Get-Date): Request failed. Error: $($_.Exception.Message)"
    }

    ## Pause for $RequestSleep seconds
    Start-Sleep -Seconds 5
}

As a function:

Get-HTTPSiteAvailable
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function Get-HTTPSiteAvailable {
    Param(
        [string]$Site = "https://www.google.com",
        [string]$RequestSleep = 5
    )
    while ($true) {
        try {
            ## Make HTTP HEAD request
            $response = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri "$($Site)" -Method Head

            ## Output HTTP status code
            Write-Output "$(Get-Date) Ping site '$($Site)': [$($response.StatusCode): $($response.StatusDescription)]"
        } catch {
            Write-Error "$(Get-Date): Request failed. Error: $($_.Exception.Message)"
        }

        ## Pause for $RequestSleep seconds
        Start-Sleep -Seconds $RequestSleep
    }
}

Open a list of URLs

This script iterates over an array of URL strings and opens them in your default browser.

mass_open_links.ps1
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## Declare an array of URL strings
$Links = @(
    "https://example.com",
    "https://example.com/example",
    "https://example.com/test"
)

## Iterate over URLs and open them
$Links | ForEach-Object {
    Write-Output "Opening URL: $_"
    Start-Process "$($_)"
}

Disable Microsoft Copilot

Disable Copilot & prevent re-install
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Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | where-object {$_.PackageName -like "*Copilot*"} | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -online

Generate GUIDs (unique IDs)

Generate unique GUID
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[guid]::NewGuid()

You can also assign the GUID to a variable for re-use:

Generate unique GUID and assign to variable
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$UniqueID = [guid]::NewGuid()

Turn monitor display off

Turn display off
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C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -command "(Add-Type -MemberDefinition '[DllImport(\"user32.dll\")] public static extern int PostMessage(int a, int b, int c, int d);' -Name f -PassThru)::PostMessage(-1, 0x112, 0xF170, 2)"