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Archive for the ‘PowerShell’ Category

PowerShell: avoid Write-Output, use Return only for ending execution, use $Output variable for returning additional output

Posted by jpluimers on 2021/02/18

Recently, I bumped into [WayBack] Write-Output confusion for the upteenth time.

Luckily I had the below links archived, basically invalidating the use of Write-Output, and invalidating the answer at [WayBack] powershell – What’s the difference between “Write-Host”, “Write-Output”, or “[console]::WriteLine”? – Stack Overflow.

[WayBack] Write-Output vs. Return vs. $Output · Issue #46 · PoshCode/PowerShellPracticeAndStyle · GitHub

Jaykulcommented on Aug 2, 2016

@maekee to sum up this long thread:

In other programming languages with a return statement, the return statement is contractual: nothing returns output from a function except the return statement. Thus, for people with experience in other languages, the presence of code like return $output in PowerShell is misleading. They think: “oh, ok, PowerShell has a return statement” and don’t realize that any un-captured result values get output also — and don’t even realize they can output multiple times.

The reasoning for, and objection to, Write-Output is similar. People like it because:

… always explicitly sending an object to a stream… makes it easier to understand [the code] at a glance in the future.

The problem is that this can lead to a false sense of security. If you see Write-Output you assume that output can only come from lines with Write-Output, when in reality it can come from any command or method call. Or at least, any that doesn’t start with an assignment (or [void] cast), or end with out-null …

So while some people like it because it highlights the spots where you intentionally output something — other people argue it’s presence distracts you from the fact that other lines could output.

Therefore

Since return cannot always be used (sometimes you need to write output more than once), you should prefer Write-Output and use return only for ending execution. But since Write-Output can lead to false expectations and in addition is slightly slower, (and worse, can be overwritten by functions or aliases) …

We recommend:

Use return only for ending execution.

Avoid Write-Output (although you may want to use for it’s -NoEnumerate switch). Instead, when you want to make output clearer, just assign output to a relevantly named variable. and put that a variable on a line by itself to signal explicit output.

and

Jaykulcommented 12 hours ago

TIL Write-Output -NoEnumerate is broken on PowerShell 6 and has been for 16 months or longer — there’s no plan to fix it. In summary:

DO NOT USE Write-Output — EVER.
[WayBack] Write-Output -NoEnumerate outputs PSObject[] rather than Object[] and generally doesn’t respect the input collection type · Issue #5955 · PowerShell/PowerShell · GitHub

Via:

[WayBack] Joel Bennett on Twitter: “

Write-Output considered EVEN MORE harmful! Most #PowerShell experts recommend against Write-Output

Now, I find there is a long standing bug in PowerShell 6’s -NoEnumerate switch.

I no longer accept PRs which use Write-Output”

–jeroen

Posted in CommandLine, Development, PowerShell, PowerShell, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Windows command prompt: decrementing loop

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/12/30

I needed a decrementing loop on the Windows command prompt, but that seems very hard from batch files without programming your own kind of while loop:

PowerShell to the rescue to loop back from and including 463 down to and including 290:

PowerShell -Command "for ($i=463; $i -ge 290; $i--) { Write-Host "Value " $i}"

This outputs:

Value 463
Value 462
...
Value 291
Value 290

In a similar way, you can execute a cmd command, but then you need to be careful on how to pass parameters: the \" is important to you can have quotes within quoted strings..

PowerShell -Command "for ($i=463; $i -ge 290; $i--) { & echo \"Value $i\"}"

gives this:

Value 463
Value 462
...
Value 291
Value 290

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Batch-Files, CommandLine, Console (command prompt window), Development, PowerShell, PowerShell, Scripting, Software Development, Windows | 1 Comment »

On Windows 7 and 8.x too: Completely disable Windows 10 telemetry collection – twm’s blog

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/12/10

From [WayBack] Completely disable Windows 10 telemetry collection – twm’s blog:

So I don’t forget: According to an article in c’t magazine, disabling the “DiagTrack” service (“Connected User Experience and Telemetry”) will completely disable user tracking in Windows 10. They also say that they did not see any negative effects.

Source: [WayBack] Telefonierverbot in c’t 01/2019 page 172 (in German)

I saw at least one system where the service is not shown when you run Services.msc: it did not list DiagTrack, nor Connected User Experience and Telemetry. How awful is that!

The service can also be installed non older Windows versions: [WayBack] Just found DiagTrack running in Services – Tips and Tricks

Sometimes, it gets re-enabled. I think this happens during major Windows updates.

To inspect, stop and disable

Run all commands from the console the below bold commands. The non-bold text was the output on my system. If instead of the cmd.exe console, you run a PowerShell console, then remove the bits PowerShell -Command " and " at the start and end of each command.

The first command does not require an Administrative (UAC Elevated) command prompt; the last one does.

However, the first command, needs the | Select-Object * bit as otherwise most of the fields will not be displayed, excluding for instance StartType.

powershell -Command "Get-Service -Name DiagTrack | Select-Object *"


Name                : DiagTrack
RequiredServices    : {RpcSs}
CanPauseAndContinue : False
CanShutdown         : True
CanStop             : True
DisplayName         : Connected User Experiences and Telemetry
DependentServices   : {}
MachineName         : .
ServiceName         : DiagTrack
ServicesDependedOn  : {RpcSs}
ServiceHandle       :
Status              : Running
ServiceType         : Win32OwnProcess
StartType           : Automatic
Site                :
Container           :

On an Administrative command-prompt:

powershell -Command "Set-Service -Name DiagTrack -StartUpType Disabled"
powershell -Command "Get-Service -Name DiagTrack | Stop-Service"

Two notes:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Batch-Files, CommandLine, Development, Power User, PowerShell, PowerShell, Scripting, Software Development, Windows | Leave a Comment »

powershell – Format-Table forgets some properties, but Format-List shows them all. Why? – Stack Overflow

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/11/12

Reminder to self: finish the script that initiated this 2013 question (yes ages ago!) [WayBack] powershell – Format-Table forgets some properties, but Format-List shows them all. Why? – Stack Overflow.

The question was based on code I was really happy I saved in the WayBack machine: WayBack: how-to: Print/List installed programs/applications sorted by date | Tech Off | Forums | Channel 9

So here the question and the answer.

Question

Given the below PowerShell 3 script, Format-Table does not list all properties as columns (it skips NoRemove), but Format-List does, and you can force the properties to be there using Select-Object.

Out-GridView behaves the same as Format-Table and also skips NoRemove

Why is that?

Note: this is from a much less restricted Where-Object clause, where it looks like Format-Tabledoes inspect more than just the first object in the array to guess the columns.

The example comes from Channel 9 how-to: Print/List installed programs/applications sorted by date which forgot to initialize the first Get-ItemProperty (gp) as an array so you got an error like this:

Method invocation failed because [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey] doesn't contain a method named 'op_Addition'.

Example code:

$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryKeys = (@(Get-Item HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*)) + 
(Get-Item HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*) + 
(Get-Item HKLM:\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\*) | 
  Where-Object { $_.ValueCount -eq 1 }

$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryKeys.GetType().FullName
$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryKeys | Get-Member

$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryNameValues = $nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryKeys | 
  Get-ItemProperty

$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryNameValues.GetType().FullName
$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryNameValues | Get-Member

$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryNameValues |
  Format-Table

$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryNameValues |
  Format-List

$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryNameValues |
  Select-Object SystemComponent, NoRemove, PSPath, PSParentPath, PSChildName, PSProvider |
  Format-Table

I used GetType().FullName and Get-Member to inspect the underlying types.

$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryKeys starts with all installed software (user, system x64 and system x86) filtered by registry keys having only 1 value (empirically those are the ones you cannot uninstall).

The first part of the output shows that $nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryKeys is a System.Object[] of type Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey with all the right members. Hence the ability to perform a Where-Object filter on the ValueCount property even though the code-completion does not show that.

$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryKeys exposes also a few PowerShell “Extended Type System” NoteProperty properties including Property that contain the registry Name/Value pairs under the key and a bunch of PS* coming from the registry provider.

$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryNameValues is also a System.Object[] but now of typeSystem.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject because of the Get-ItemProperty which expands the Name/Value pairs in the Property of each $nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryKeysitem into properties. For the first item in my output, it adds the SystemComponent property. For the second item it adds NoRemove. And it adds a bunch of PS* coming from the registry provider.

Format-Table output:

SystemComponent PSPath                                                                                                                                    PSParentPath                        
--------------- ------                                                                                                                                    ------------                        
              1 Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Connection Manager             Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registr...
                Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\WIC                            Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registr...
              1 Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Connection Manager Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registr...
                Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\WIC                Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registr...

Format-List output:

SystemComponent : 1
PSPath          : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Connection Manager
PSParentPath    : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
PSChildName     : Connection Manager
PSProvider      : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry

NoRemove     : 1
PSPath       : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\WIC
PSParentPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
PSChildName  : WIC
PSProvider   : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry

SystemComponent : 1
PSPath          : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Connection Manager
PSParentPath    : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
PSChildName     : Connection Manager
PSProvider      : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry

NoRemove     : 1
PSPath       : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\WIC
PSParentPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall
PSChildName  : WIC
PSProvider   : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry

Select-Object output:

SystemComponent NoRemove PSPath                                                                                                                                    PSParentPath               
--------------- -------- ------                                                                                                                                    ------------               
              1          Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Connection Manager             Microsoft.PowerShell.Cor...
                1        Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\WIC                            Microsoft.PowerShell.Cor...
              1          Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\Connection Manager Microsoft.PowerShell.Cor...
                1        Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\WIC                Microsoft.PowerShell.Cor...

Edit: my environment

PS C:\Users\Developer> Get-CimInstance Win32_OperatingSystem | Select-Object Version, Caption | Format-List
$PSVersionTable

Version : 6.2.9200
Caption : Microsoft Windows 8 Pro

Name                           Value                                                                                                                                                          
----                           -----                                                                                                                                                          
PSVersion                      3.0                                                                                                                                                            
WSManStackVersion              3.0                                                                                                                                                            
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1                                                                                                                                                        
CLRVersion                     4.0.30319.18051                                                                                                                                                
BuildVersion                   6.2.9200.16628                                                                                                                                                 
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0}                                                                                                                                                
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.2

These 2 return the same table:

$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryNameValues |
  Format-Table

$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryNameValues |
  Format-Table *

Answer 1

If you don’t specify the property names or ‘*’ for all of them, Format-Table will print by default just the first 4 (the default value of $FormatEnumerationLimit), not ure why you get only three in the ft output. Format-List will show all only when the type of objects doesn’t have a format view for Format-List.

Comment

I did a $nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryNameValues | Format-Table * which also skips NoRemove. Something fishy is going on here.

And if you add -Force?

This also fails: $nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryNameValues | Format-Table * -Force

I can see all properties when piping to fl (without -force) and with ft *.

What OS and PS version do you run? I’ve added mine to my question.

Answer 2

Did you try the following?

$nonUninstallableSoftwareRegistryNameValues |
  Select-Object SystemComponent, NoRemove, PSPath, PSParentPath, PSChildName, PSProvider |
  Format-Table -Wrap

Comment

That works (it is almost the same as the last entry in my example), but why can’t Format-Table figure this out by itself? Or maybe phrased differently: what criteria does Format-Table to determine which columns to pick?

–jeroen

Posted in .NET, CommandLine, Development, PowerShell, PowerShell, Scripting, Software Development | Leave a Comment »

Installing Windows software with Chocolatey: a few notes

Posted by jpluimers on 2020/10/28

I will limit myself to software that needs Administrative elevation in order to be installed. This is the default use-case for Chocolatey. It is way way easier than installing software all by hand, but there are a few things you need to know, hence these notes.

Administrative elevation

Since the default use case is installing software that requires Administrative elevation during install, Chocolatey needs to run with Administrative privileges in order to perform these installs.

If you were hoping for a way around this (for instance by having a client/service architecture), then just stop here.

Even though such a structure could technically be created, getting it stable and working it correctly with a truckload of software to be installed (much of which not available as packages during Chocolatey development in the first place) is a task too big.

Think of the size of the Windows Installer team at Microsoft to get installers working in the first place, the extra effort needed by Chocolatey volunteers to get the installers working from the console, then another much more complex layer of getting them running from inside a service and communicating everything back and forth to a non-elevated command prompt would be a nightmare.

I won’t even mention the security steps involved to ensure the non-elevated command prompt has enough rights to send installation instructions to the elevated service.

So the first step is to have an elevated command prompt for Chocolatey.

Being elevated, and Chocolatey needing to download installers requires a local temporary place for them.

By default, that place is %Temp%\chocolatey of the administrative user that elevated the Chocolatey command prompt.

This directory can grow quite big, so dir, so – since there is no choco cleanup yet [WayBack] you need to either:

install [WayBack] Chocolatey Gallery | (unofficial) Choco Cleaner (Script + Task) once, then every time you want to cleanup:
- wait for the default cleanup task to run on Sundays at 23:00 local time
- from an elevated console, run %ChocolateyInstall%\lib\choco-cleaner\tools\choco-cleaner-manual.bat
if you have a [WayBack] Chocolatey licensed edition, install [WayBack] FeaturesPackageReducer
run rd /s /q %Temp%\chocolatey% every now and then (cleans less than the above methods).

Install Chocolatey itself

Either the direct one below, or the more secure one (so you can inspect the intermediate [WayBack] install.ps1) at [WayBack] Installation using PowerShell from cmd.exe:

@echo off
SET DIR=%~dp0%
::download install.ps1
%systemroot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "((new-object net.webclient).DownloadFile('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1','%DIR%install.ps1'))"
::run installer
%systemroot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "& '%DIR%install.ps1' %*"

If you want to get rid of it, use [WayBack] Uninstallation.

Besides the one above and below, there are many more [WayBack] Installation: more install options

Output of direct install as Administrator (disclaimers apply):

C:\WINDOWS\system32>powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Command "[System.Net.WebRequest]::DefaultWebProxy.Credentials = [System.Net.CredentialCache]::DefaultCredentials; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1'))" && SET PATH="%PATH%;%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\chocolatey\bin"
Getting latest version of the Chocolatey package for download.
Getting Chocolatey from https://chocolatey.org/api/v2/package/chocolatey/0.10.11.
Downloading 7-Zip commandline tool prior to extraction.
Extracting C:\Users\JEROEN~1\AppData\Local\Temp\chocolatey\chocInstall\chocolatey.zip to C:\Users\JEROEN~1\AppData\Local\Temp\chocolatey\chocInstall...
Installing chocolatey on this machine
Creating ChocolateyInstall as an environment variable (targeting 'Machine')
  Setting ChocolateyInstall to 'C:\ProgramData\chocolatey'
WARNING: It's very likely you will need to close and reopen your shell
  before you can use choco.
Restricting write permissions to Administrators
We are setting up the Chocolatey package repository.
The packages themselves go to 'C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib'
  (i.e. C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\yourPackageName).
A shim file for the command line goes to 'C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin'
  and points to an executable in 'C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\lib\yourPackageName'.

Creating Chocolatey folders if they do not already exist.

WARNING: You can safely ignore errors related to missing log files when
  upgrading from a version of Chocolatey less than 0.9.9.
  'Batch file could not be found' is also safe to ignore.
  'The system cannot find the file specified' - also safe.
chocolatey.nupkg file not installed in lib.
 Attempting to locate it from bootstrapper.
PATH environment variable does not have C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\bin in it. Adding...
WARNING: Not setting tab completion: Profile file does not exist at 'C:\Users\jeroenAdministrator\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1'.
Chocolatey (choco.exe) is now ready.
You can call choco from anywhere, command line or powershell by typing choco.
Run choco /? for a list of functions.
You may need to shut down and restart powershell and/or consoles
 first prior to using choco.
Ensuring chocolatey commands are on the path
Ensuring chocolatey.nupkg is in the lib folder

Installing packages

For each package you want to install, run choco install #packageName#
If you want a quiet experience, add --yes to each install command
Optionally run refreshenv in each command-prompt to reflect any changes to the registry
- it works from cmd.exe or batch file: [WayBack] choco/RefreshEnv.cmd at master · chocolatey/choco · GitHub
- and as a PowerShell function: [WayBack] (GH-664) RefreshEnv Should also work in PowerShell · chocolatey/choco@7c84bb2 · GitHub

Compressing

If you run out of SSD or VM disk space, you can try compress using compact /c /s *.* in these directories:

C:\ProgramData\Package Cache
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\VisualStudio\Packages
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\ClickToRun\ProductReleases

PS: always watch the output and logs!

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Chocolatey, CommandLine, Conference Topics, Conferences, Development, Event, Power User, PowerShell, PowerShell, Scripting, Software Development, Windows | Leave a Comment »

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Archive for the ‘PowerShell’ Category

PowerShell: avoid Write-Output, use Return only for ending execution, use $Output variable for returning additional output

Jaykulcommented on Aug 2, 2016

Windows command prompt: decrementing loop

On Windows 7 and 8.x too: Completely disable Windows 10 telemetry collection – twm’s blog

To inspect, stop and disable

powershell – Format-Table forgets some properties, but Format-List shows them all. Why? – Stack Overflow

Question

Answer 1

Comment

Answer 2

Installing Windows software with Chocolatey: a few notes

Administrative elevation

Install Chocolatey itself

Installing packages

Compressing

Further reading

PS: always watch the output and logs!

The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

Subscribe

Archives

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Blog Stats

Meta title

Tag Cloud Title

Top Clicks

Top Posts

My badges

Twitter Updates

My Flickr Stream

Pages

All categories

Email Subscription

Archive for the ‘PowerShell’ Category

PowerShell: avoid Write-Output, use Return only for ending execution, use $Output variable for returning additional output

Jaykulcommented on Aug 2, 2016

Therefore

We recommend:

Jaykulcommented 12 hours ago

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Windows command prompt: decrementing loop

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On Windows 7 and 8.x too: Completely disable Windows 10 telemetry collection – twm’s blog

To inspect, stop and disable

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powershell – Format-Table forgets some properties, but Format-List shows them all. Why? – Stack Overflow

Question

Answer 1

Comment

Answer 2

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Like this:

Installing Windows software with Chocolatey: a few notes

Administrative elevation

Install Chocolatey itself

Installing packages

Compressing

Further reading

PS: always watch the output and logs!

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