If in the settings tab of the scheduled task it is set to "Stop the existing instance", Get-ScheduledTask returns NULL for the value of MultipleInstances. The other three possible values return a string.

To test:
Edit the properties of an existing scheduled task, or create a new one. On the Settings tab, change "If the task is already running, then the following rule applies" to the value "Stop the existing instance".

Execute in PowerShell:
$task = Get-ScheduledTask -TaskPath '\' -TaskName 'your task name'
$task.settings.MultipleInstances.GetType()

Expected behavior:
$task.settings.MultipleInstances should be a [string]

Actual behavior:
$task.settings.MultipleInstances is null

Note that the value of MultipleInstances is available in the CimInstanceProperties:
$task.settings.CimInstanceProperties.Item('MultipleInstances').Value

The value 3 corresponds to "Stop the existing instance".

When I attempt to communicate with serial devices using PowerShell in Ubuntu 18, I get an “access denied” message when I try to open the port. I can create the port object with no problem:

$port = new-object system.io.ports.serialport ttyACM0

And I can verify the created port:

Echo $port

…yields all the specifics. But when I try to open the port so that I can begin reading or writing:

$port.open()

…access is denied. Is this a procedural error on my part, or a short-coming in the cross platform PowerShell itself? I’ve tried this with onboard serial ports as well as USB to serial devices with no success.

Trying to alter value with a method:
$x = 2
Add-Member -InputObject $x -MemberType ScriptMethod -Name "AlterValue" -Value {param ([int]$NewValue) $NewValue; $this = $NewValue}
$x.AlterValue(3)
$x
No error (even with Set-StrictMode -Version Latest), no update either.

$y = 'b'
Add-Member -InputObject $y -MemberType ScriptMethod -Name "AlterValue" -Value {param ([string]$NewValue) $NewValue; $this = $NewValue}
$y.AlterValue('a')
Error: Method invocation failed because [System.String] does not contain a method named 'AlterValue'.
Then trying like this:
$y | Add-Member -MemberType ScriptMethod -Name "AlterValue" -Value {param ([string]$NewValue) $NewValue; $this = $NewValue}
Runs without error, but $y.AlterValue('a') results in the same error as above. Same if I only wanted to implement the simple method $y | Add-Member -MemberType ScriptMethod -Name "Get" -Value {$this}, $y.Get() fails.

Add-Member accepts any crap as -InputObject:
Add-Member -InputObject crap -MemberType ScriptMethod -Name "AlterValue" -Value {param ([int]$NewValue) $NewValue; $this = $NewValue}
Runs without error, even with Set-StrictMode -Version Latest.

I do not have PS Core to test it, but might be the same.

Windows PowerShell.exe supports a -Version command-line switch, which aligns the current PowerShell session to a particular version of PowerShell, e.g. powershell.exe -Version 2.0 will get you a PS shell which uses .NET 2.0 and PowerShell v2. This is still useful, because I still have to write scripts that work in older environments, even though I am running WinPS 5.1 myself.

However, semi-recent Windows Updates have added configuration to powershell.exe.config (I think to support newer TLS ciphers), which are incompatible with powershell.exe -Version 2.0.

The following simple code is a minimal test point:

$wc = New-Object Net.WebClient

$wc.DownloadString(&#39;<a rel="nofollow noreferrer" href="https://www.google.com&#39;">https://www.google.com&#39;</a>)

In native, current powershell.exe, this executes without issue. In powershell.exe -Version 2.0, this throws an exception Configuration system failed to initialize which, if you traverse the inner exceptions, gets you to Unrecognized configuration section uri.

Since powershell.exe.config is a TrustedInstaller-owned file, it is artificially difficult to change this, and one could reasonably expect any changes I make to be overwritten by another Windows Update.

For posterity, the current content of powershell.exe.config is:

<configuration>

  <uri>

    <schemeSettings>

      <add name="http" genericUriParserOptions="DontUnescapePathDotsAndSlashes"/>

      <add name="https" genericUriParserOptions="DontUnescapePathDotsAndSlashes"/>

    </schemeSettings>

  </uri>

  <runtime>

    <AppContextSwitchOverrides value="Switch.System.Net.DontEnableSystemDefaultTlsVersions=false" />

  </runtime>

</configuration>

As such (if no current option exists), I propose allowing for the powershell.exe application to read from version-specific .config files, depending on which version is targeted by the -Version command-line parameter.

(I am undecided whether this should also be influenced by Set-StrictMode, but this may also need to be considered.)

(EDIT: UV is mangling my simple test case above; it should be $wc.DownloadString("A URL"))
(EDIT2: Oh, the irony...)
(EDIT3: Added current content of powershell.exe.config for posterity; UV has mangled the XML tags, though)

I have a Powershell script to duplicate the shares from one machine onto another that is in the process of being mirrored. I am testing my script, including it's error handling by attempting to recreate all shares when half the drives have not been populated on the new machine. This should generate loads of "cannot create share, path not found" errors.

Thus, this code within the loop:
Try {
New-SmbShare -Name "$($line.{Share Name})" -Path "$($line.{Folder Path})"
echo "Created share $($line.{Share Name})" >>$logFile
} Catch {
Write-Error -Message "Exception Creating Windows share $($line.{Share Name}). Error is $_" -TargetObject $line
echo "FAILED creating share $($line.{Share Name})" >>$logFile
}

The placement of the echo commands SHOULD generate my log file with one line for each success and a different line for each failure. It does not.

When I run this code, I get a Get-SmbShare-like output of all of the individual Set-SmbShare calls, with a ton of red error messages about paths that could not be found interspersed. These messages do not resemble the message in my code above.

When I look at my log, I see a success line for every share, even the ones that failed.

Apparently New-SmbShare is handling it's own error, spitting out a useless error message (taking 6 lines to tell me path not found without identiying the path), and returning success to the calling code.

Is there a parameter I can use to tell this command to pass errors to me to handle?

TPM isn’t the only workable option for disk encryption and in fact, is almost guaranteed to provide the user with a false sense of security.

Sure, some encryption is better than none, but considering the fact that Microsoft has broken the trust it had with it's customers, when they were caught red-handed with their hands in the cookie jar, as well as their brazen Win10 campaign tactics that literally upended several businesses and that of the lives of so many other end users who woke up one morning to find all their files were gone because their computers were automatically upgraded to Win10 without user consent-------Do we really think we should trust Microsoft with our Data after all that **** that they caused to so many countless customers?!-------I mean really?!-------Talk about kicking the customer while their down?!

Just because Microsoft made a brand new shiny little OS and decided to make it their , with all it's overblown and overzealous glitter and gold, does not mean they deserve any sort of reprieve for any of this that they have caused to happen to so many loyally paying customers! Microsoft and all it's ******!

There are plenty of other encryption solutions out there that don't have to involve Bitlocker and the TPM...

When you map a network drive to your computer and look at the available storage, the GUI shows you the storage available as set by any hard-quotas configured in File Server Resource Manager. However, when you run any sort of PowerShell script to query the drive, you get the result of the drive without any quota in place.

It'd be great to have a query which shows the storage available and used with the quota factored in.

As an example, I just had to write a script which emails me our share sizes once a day but instead of simply being able to query each share, the script invokes "get-fsrmquota" on every file server, stores the data and then has to pull data out of it instead if a quota exists.

I hope this makes sense, if you have any queries don't hesitate to shout.

Simple script to find cluster Listener fails to accept pipeline in version 7. Works fine in version 5.1

$CurCluster = Get-Cluster -Name $ClusterName #Sets the Current Cluster to the clustername

$Listener = ($CurCluster | Get-ClusterResource | Where-Object { $.ResourceType -eq 'Network Name' -and $.OwnerGroup -ne 'Cluster Group' }).Name #Gets the Listener Name if configured - if not conifugred then this will exit

Running this code in PS 7 generates this error:

Get-ClusterResource: The input object cannot be bound to any parameters for the command either because the command does not take pipeline input or the input and its properties do not match any of the parameters that take pipeline input.

In Powershell 7 the object type is different than version 5.1

Ver: 7
IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType

True True PSObject System.Object

Ver: 5
IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType

True False Cluster Microsoft.FailoverClusters.PowerShell.ClusterObject

On Windows 10 / Server 2012 / 2016 I can set the "short time format" by using the Get-UICulture and Set-Culture commandlets to the 12 hour format with AM/PM indicators.
However, I can not change it from 12 hour format to 24 hour format. It remains in the 12 hour format - meanwhile there is no problem to set the 24h format from the Settings app in Windows.

(In contrast to that, the LongTimePattern works fine both ways)

Steps to reproduce

(Get-UICulture).DateTimeFormat | Select ShortTimePattern,LongTimePattern | fl
$modCulture = Get-UICulture
($modCulture.DateTimeFormat).ShortTimePattern = "h:mm"
($modCulture.DateTimeFormat).LongTimePattern = "h:mm:ss"
Set-Culture $modCulture

(Get-UICulture).DateTimeFormat | Select ShortTimePattern,LongTimePattern | fl
($modCulture.DateTimeFormat).ShortTimePattern = "HH:mm "
($modCulture.DateTimeFormat).LongTimePattern = "HH:mm:ss"
Set-Culture $modCulture
(Get-UICulture).DateTimeFormat | Select ShortTimePattern,LongTimePattern | fl

Expected behavior

It should change the short time format to 24h format "HH:mm"

Actual behavior

The time format never gets set to 24h format. It remains in the AM/PM 12 hour format.