Troubleshooting Windows Server with PowerShell

Contents at a Glance......Page 8 Contents......Page 10 About the Authors......Page 16 About the Technical Reviewer......Page 18 Windows Troubleshooting Series......Page 20 Acknowledgments......Page 22 Introduction......Page 24 Chapter 1: Getting Started......Page 26 Getting to Know PowerShell......Page 27 GUI Tools vs. PowerShell......Page 28 Working with Variables......Page 29 Why All the Drives?......Page 30 The Natural Progression of Tool Building......Page 31 PowerShell Is Not Going Away......Page 32 Chapters in this Book......Page 33 Assumptions Used in this Book......Page 34 How to Let PowerShell Help You Learn More......Page 36 Summary......Page 40 More Reading......Page 41 What Can Windows Capture?......Page 42 Accessing the Event Log Information......Page 43 Scenario......Page 44 Finding Information with PowerShell......Page 45 Why Choose One cmdlet over Another?......Page 47 Getting Logs from Remote Computers......Page 48 Comma-Separated Values......Page 49 Formatting HTML for Readability......Page 52 HTML Formatting with a Function......Page 53 Can PowerShell Use the Event Log to Store Information?......Page 57 Summary......Page 58 Gathering Disk Space......Page 59 Disks First......Page 60 Logical Disks......Page 61 Listing Shares......Page 62 NTFS Permissions......Page 65 Getting the ACLs......Page 66 Setting the ACLs......Page 67 Hardware......Page 69 Computer System Information......Page 72 Processor Information......Page 73 Remote Queries......Page 75 Summary......Page 76 Obtaining a List of Installed Applications......Page 77 Using the CIM Object......Page 78 Using the Registry Keys......Page 82 Arrays......Page 84 Next Steps......Page 86 Summary......Page 87 Chapter 5: Windows Update......Page 88 Resolution......Page 89 Details of Get-HotFix Results......Page 90 Checking When a Computer Was Rebooted......Page 91 Improvements to this Code......Page 92 Improvements to this Function......Page 94 Pending Restarts......Page 95 Summary......Page 97 Working with Processes......Page 98 Filtering by Process ID or Name......Page 101 Sorting and Selecting Information Needed......Page 102 Working with Returned Data......Page 104 Collecting Information from a Remote Computer or Computers......Page 105 Other Ways to Improve the Script......Page 106 Starting and Stopping Processes......Page 107 When Start-Process and Stop-Process Are Useful......Page 108 Using WMI or CIM to Work with Processes......Page 109 Using the CIM cmdlets......Page 110 Summary......Page 111 Access to Services with PowerShell......Page 112 Actions on Services......Page 113 Enter WMI......Page 118 Reporting on Services or Providing More Presentable Information......Page 121 Summary......Page 124 Building Modules......Page 125 Desired State Configuration......Page 127 Applying Configurations: Make It So......Page 128 Starting or Stopping Services......Page 129 Working with DSC to Ensure IIS Is Installed......Page 130 PowerShell Remoting......Page 131 A Remote PowerShell Session......Page 132 Scheduled Jobs Options......Page 133 Scheduled Job Triggers......Page 134 Job Verification......Page 135 Getting Scheduled Job Results......Page 136 Summary......Page 137 Index......Page 138 This book shows you how to use PowerShell to quickly pinpoint, diagnose, and solve problems with your Windows Server environment, reducing the need for external tools, and ensuring you stay up-to-date with PowerShell as it quickly becomes one of the most useful tools in an administrator's toolkit. Authors Derek Schauland and Donald Jacobs take you through a range of examples, showing you how to gather information from different computer sources. Whether you are logged into the server locally or just wanting to check the status of a server from your local computer, the right PowerShell cmdlets can give you a lot of information quickly, and allow you to troubleshoot your servers from the command line with little interaction with the server's desktop. In this book, you'll learn how PowerShell can help you: Understand PowerShell versus the GUI Gather information from Windows event logs Gather information from your server, including memory, hardware configurations, and disk space available Find out what applications are installed on a server Find out which Windows updates have been installed on your computer Check the processes running on your computer and gather information about them, or start and stop them from the command line Quickly check if services are running, and stop or start them as needed Who This Book Is For Windows Administrators, IT Professionals and support personnel needing ways to quickly find and troubleshoot issues in their environment using the included tools. Those entering IT or wishing to develop their PowerShell skills will also benefit from this book.