Tag: Powershell

Information

Testing a variable with the value of zero

Tonight, while working on my previous script, I ran into an interesting problem when testing the presence of a value.

Consider this:

PS C:\> [int]$IntValue0 = 0
PS C:\> [int]$IntValue1 = 1
PS C:\> [string]$StringValue0 = "0"
PS C:\> [string]$StringValue1 = "1"
PS C:\> $IntValue0
0
PS C:\> $IntValue1
1
PS C:\> If ($IntValue0) { "exists" }
PS C:\> If ($IntValue1) { "exists" }
exists
PS C:\> if ($StringValue0) { "exists" }
exists
PS C:\> if ($StringValue1) { "exists" }
exists
PS C:\> if ($IntValue0 -eq $null) { "null" }
PS C:\> if ($IntValue0 -lt 1) {"less than 1" }
less than 1
PS C:\> $IntValue0.GetType()

IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType
-------- -------- ---- --------
True True Int32 System.ValueType

My short lesson: when setting an integer value to 0, you can’t test for it using If ($Value), as that will return false. … [ Continue reading ]

Personal

Update: Create-LabUsers Tool

Just when you thought it couldn’t get more awesome.

It has.

By popular request, I have added a few new features (and fixed an annoyance).  First, the bug fix:

-Count 1

Yes, it’s true. If you ran the Create-LabUsers script with -Count 1 with the -InflateMailboxes parameter, you’d run into an issue because of how I calculated the $MaxRecipients value. … [ Continue reading ]

Configuration

Update to Create-LabUsers tool

Update: I’ve added a shortlink for this tool: http://aka.ms/createlabusers.

Because you didn’t ask for it, I went ahead and added to it.

Well, that’s a lie.  I actually had some really great ideas and feedback, so I’ve added a few new features that I wanted to draw attention to:

  • Detect existing Exchange session – If you cancel the script to create mailboxes while it’s running, you previously needed to run a Remove-PSSession to close the open Exchange session. 
… [ Continue reading ]
Personal

Random things with Get-Random

Today’s post is less about anything in particular than it is about jotting a few things down for personal reference.

I learned a couple of things over the last week while developing a tool. I’m sure I learned them once before, but as a person with finite storage and recall capacity, this tidbits were replaced by something I perceived to be of more timely import at the time (such as my kids’ birthday gifts, picking up a suit at the cleaners, a really great Detroit style pizza recipe I’ve finally put the finishing touches on, and how I’ve recently become a fan of grass-fed butter (well, technically butter made from milk produced by grass-fed cows, since you can’t really get butter to eat anything successfully)).… [ Continue reading ]

Scripting

Trapping your favorite exceptions

Like most folks, I hate errors.

As a scripter, I hate seeing blood on the screen–to me, it means failure that I didn’t anticipate.  When you’re trying to put tools out there for other folks to use, nothing toasts your peer’s or customer’s confidence like a tool that doesn’t fix itself or errors out without explanation.… [ Continue reading ]

Identity

Update to the “Find Duplicate Address” tool

Last week, I saw some internal discussion about trying to locate the source of a duplicate object error on-premises.  While an advanced administrator will be able to figure it out by looking at the Connector Spaces for connected directories, it’s not necessarily obvious to a lot of people (especially if you’re not experienced with our identity management products).… [ Continue reading ]