Email separator in Powershell

Question: I'm trying to send an email with multiple recipients in Powershell, and getting an exception error message: Exception calling "Add" with "1" argument(s): "An invalid character was found in the mail header: ';'." When I revert to send the email to one recipient - the email is successfull . What is the correct way to pass multiple recipients for powershell email. Some more information that may assist in troubleshooting. 1) When I hardcode the email addresses in the Powershell code e.g $emailTo = "user1@org.com,user2@org.com" it works ok . 2)When I attempt to pass the values in as input parameters... Read more →

Adding SSMS to the PATH variable with Powershell

Question: I've installed the latest SQL Server Management Studio onto a server. I can find the ssms.exe through the directory - but I cannot start the SQL Server Management Studio through the cmdline - i.e type "ssms" in the command line. How can I fix this problem? Answer: I had a similar problem recently when installing SSMS 18.4. I downloaded the binary - installed without any errors - but then couldn't execute "ssms" from the command line. To solve this issue I added the directory with ssms.exe into the PATH variable and applied this as a machine wide change ,... Read more →

How to get ODBC drivers using Powershell

Question: I had a question from a developer who was troubleshooting an application to SQL Server connection via a DSN using ODBC. They wanted the SQL Server ODBC Driver names and platform (32 bit|64 bit) used to connect . They will use this information to check application compatibility . Although i can just RDP onto the server and grab the information through the ODBC gui - how can I use Powershell to get these ODBC details? Answer: You can extract the ODBC Driver name and platform via the Powershell cmdlet - Get-OdbcDriver. There are various options including to run the... Read more →

How to list computer shares with Powershell and WMI

Question: How can I list shares from a server using Powershell and WMI ? I've been tasked with auditing servers and identifying shares which are not authrorized Answer: The two main methods I use are 1) Get-Smbshare and 2) get-WmiObject -class Win32_Share. Get-Smbshare examples --list all SMB shares on a server Get-Smbshare --list all SMB shares on a specific server Get-Smbshare -CimSession "my_server_name get-WmiObject -class Win32_Share examples --list all share on the current server get-WmiObject -class Win32_Share --list all shares on a remote server get-WmiObject -class Win32_Share -computer my_computer Read more on Powershell and server management How create a drive... Read more →

How to fix Exception caused by space in text for Powershell form

Question: I'm building a Powershell form GUI utilising the System.Windows.Forms API. I'm getting an error when passing text value back to be processed from a text box defined by : $CommentsTxtBox = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox Exception calling "ExecuteReader" with "0" argument(s): "Incorrect syntax near 'mytext'." When I then take the space out of the Comments value – i.e change “New Value” to “NewValue” I get the New value generated message. So the space within the text value is generating the error How can I fix? Answer: The quick answer is to place ' ' around the incoming value where you are... Read more →