Blogs, Articles, and Posts

  • Recover data from corrupted BitLocker drives with repair-bde and key packages
    Activating BitLocker encryption on a drive automatically generates a 48-digit numeric recovery password. This password is crucial if other unlocking methods fail and Windows prompts you with the BitLocker recovery console during startup.
  • Practical Graph: Working with Microsoft Lists using the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK
    Microsoft Lists are a powerful tool for end users to store and manage data stored in SharePoint Online sites. The Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK includes cmdlets to work with Microsoft Lists and this article explains how to use the cmdlets to add new lists, add items to lists, retrieve data from lists, and remove items from lists.
  • My PowerShell for Visual Studio Code extension settings
    I use Visual Studio Code to create and edit PowerShell scripts. The PowerShell Extension from Microsoft has some excellent features that will make your scripts more readable and consistent formatting-wise. In this blog post, I will show you my configuration and the options I use.
  • Register an Entra ID Application to Use with PnP PowerShell
    As the volume of threats increases rapidly, staying aligned with the recommended practices is essential to enhance security effectively. As part of this, the multi-tenant PnP Management Shell Entra ID app was deleted on September 9, 2024, to improve application security. This change now requires admins to register their own…
  • Semi-Dynamic Static PowerShell Function Definitions for a Dynamically Semi-Static World
    It’s been a while since I posted anything to my blog. I needed a break. But I needed a break from the break. I hope you don’t mind. This is admittedly an “edge case” scenario. The “need” (with air quotes) for this occurred within fairly uncommon set of circumstances, but I thought the methodology might be useful in other cases. Or maybe not. But if it’s of some help to you, that makes it worth the effort for me.
  • WSUS – Cleanup using Powershell with email notification output
    If you are using WSUS in your environment, you may want to run a scheduled task to cleanup old updates and compress some of the larger updates to free up space on your server. A good way of doing this is to run a Powershell script which will take care of all your cleanup requirements and as we are using Powershell, we can even get it to send us an email once it is complete with the output information on what the script has managed to clean up.

Projects, Scripts, and Modules

  • Microsoft 365 Licensing Report Script V1.94
    The Microsoft 365 Licensing Report PowerShell script has been upgraded to generate detailed license information and to deal with expired license subscriptions. You can download V1.94 of the script from GitHub. Before attempting to run the licensing report script, take the time to read previous articles to understand the basics of the script and how to generate the files used for pricing information.

Books, Media, and Learning Resources

  • Turn PowerShell Into Your Excel Automation Machine
    Get ready to see how PowerShell can transform the way you work with Excel.
  • Azure Functions & PowerShell
    Join me as I discuss PowerShell-based Azure Functions. we will go through local Function development and testing to deploy a Function to Azure and even an Account storage queue-triggered Function that creates a Resource Group and Storage account from a queue message.

Community

Fun

  • Shorten the Code – Win cool Prizes
    Welcome to the ScriptRunner Shorten the Code Challenge! This exciting competition invites PowerShell enthusiasts to demonstrate their scripting prowess by transforming a PowerShell script into concise, efficient code.

Events

Check out psweekly.dowst.dev for all past editions as well as a searchable archive.