PowerShell – Blogabout.Cloud

The pain in the a** that is special characters. Understanding what is and isnt supported when migrating to the Microsoft Cloud.

By Author on April 12, 2019April 12, 2019Leave a Comment

So in recent months, I have been working a number of large organisation that have issues with special characters that are affecting their migration to the Microsoft Cloud. Yes, I IDFix does an excellent job of correcting a lot of the issues. However, in recent time I have been rolled into customer sites to troubleshoot and report on special characters contained in Distribution Lists and Shared Mailboxes which cannot be migrated to Exchange Online.

What special characters are supported in Office 365?

So first of all, what is and is not supported. The below table gives an excellent break down what the character can be supported in UserNames, Password and Email Addresses.

Allowed In
Character Name	Character	User Name	Password	Email Address
Accent	`	No	Yes	No
Ampersand	&	No	Yes	No
Angle Brackets	< >	No	Yes	No
Apostrophe	’	No	Yes	Yes***
Asterisk	*	No	Yes	No
At Symbol	@	No	Yes	No
Backslash	\	No	Yes	No
Braces	[ ]	No	Yes	No
Brackets	{ }	No	Yes	No
Circumflex	^	No	Yes	No
Colon	:	No	Yes	No
Comma	,	No	Yes	No
Dollar Sign	$	No	Yes	No
Equal Sign	=	No	Yes	No
Exclamation Point	!	No	Yes	No
Hyphen	–	Yes*	Yes	Yes*
Number Sign	#	No	Yes	No
Parentheses	( )	No	Yes	No
Percent Symbol	%	No	Yes	No
Period	.	Yes*	Yes	Yes*
Pipe	\|	No	Yes	No
Plus Sign	+	No	Yes	No
Question Mark	?	No	Yes	No
Quotation Mark	“	No	Yes	No
Semicolon	:	No	Yes	No
Forward Slash	/	No	Yes	No
Tilde	~	No	Yes	No
Underscore	_	Yes**	Yes	Yes**
Uppercase Letters (A-Z)	A-Z	Yes	Yes	Yes
Lowercase Letters (a-z)	a-z	Yes	Yes	Yes
Numerals (0-9)	0-9	Yes	Yes	Yes

In order to test for the special characters above I have created the following script


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cls

 $array = @('~', '!', '#', '$', '%', '^', '&amp;', '(', ')', '-', '.+', '=', '}', '{', '\', '/', '|', ';', ',', ':', '&lt;', '>', '"')

 $samaccountarray = @('[', '\', '"', '|' , ',' , '/', ':', '&lt;', '>', '+', '=', ';', ']')

 foreach ($char in $array) {

 Write-Host "Please Wait... Detecting",$char," in samaccountname" -ForegroundColor Yellow

 $objects = Get-distributiongroup

 foreach ($object in $Objects)

 {

 try {

  if ($object.SamAccountName -like "*$char*") 

 {

 Write-Host "Special Character",$char,"detected in SamAccountName",$object.samaccountname -ForegroundColor Red

 

 }

 else

 {

 #Write-Host "Special Character",$char," not detected in " $object.UserPrincipalName

 }

 }

 catch

 {

 Write-Host "Great News!! we was unable to detect",$char,"in samaccountnames for all Distribution List" -ForegroundColor Green

 }

 }

 }

Get-SpecialCharacters (8 downloads)

If you are interested in understanding what IDFix does and what special characters are not supported, please see this link

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/office365/enterprise/prepare-for-directory-synchronization?redirectSourcePath=%252fen-us%252farticle%252fPrepare-to-provision-users-through-directory-synchronization-to-Office-365-01920974-9e6f-4331-a370-13aea4e82b3e

Regards

The Author – Blogabout.Cloud

Get Disabled Users who have an Exchange Mailbox with PowerShell

By Author on April 1, 2019April 1, 2019Leave a Comment

If there’s one thing most IT department are not great at its removing Exchange Mailboxes for Disabled Users. So here’s a quick Powershell win to determine who within your Exchange organisation has a mailbox and a disabled AD account.

On-Premises Users


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$Mailboxes = Get-Mailbox | where {$_.RecipientTypeDetails -eq 'UserMailbox'}

$Disabled = @()



Foreach ($Mailbox in $Mailboxes) {

    if((Get-ADUser -Identity $Mailbox.SamAccountName).Enabled -eq $False){

        $Disabled += Get-MailboxStatistics $Mailbox.SamAccountName | Select -Property DisplayName,TotalItemSize

    }    

}

$Disabled | Export-Csv -Path $env:userprofile\desktop\DisabledADUserwithMailbox.csv -NoTypeInformation

Cloud Users


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Connect-MsolService

  

  $Mailboxes = Get-Mailbox | Where-Object {$_.RecipientTypeDetails -eq 'UserMailbox'}

  $Disabled = @()



  Foreach ($Mailbox in $Mailboxes) {

    if((Get-msolUser -userprincipalname $Mailbox.userprincipalname).Enabled -eq $False){

        $Disabled += Get-MailboxStatistics $Mailbox.userprincipalname | Select-Object -Property DisplayName,TotalItemSize

    }    

  }

  $Disabled | Export-Csv -Path $env:userprofile\desktop\DisabledAzureADUserwithMailbox.csv -NoTypeInformation

Regards

The Author – Blogabout.Cloud

Method invocation failed because [System.Management.Automation.PSObject] doesn’t contain a method named ‘op_Addition’.

By Author on April 1, 2019April 1, 2019Leave a Comment

While constructing a PowerShell script for gathering information about Distribution Lists within a customers environment, I ran into the following error

Method invocation failed because [System.Management.Automation.PSObject] doesn’t contain a method named ‘op_Addition’.

This error was being generated by a missing array within my PowerShell code


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# Call Distribution Lists

$dist = @(Get-DistributionGroup -resultsize unlimited)



# Start Transcript

Start-Transcript -Path $env:USERPROFILE\desktop\DLsandMember.txt



# Report on Distribution List

foreach ($dl in $dist)

{

  

  $count =@(Get-DistributionGroup $dl.samaccountname).count

  $report = New-Object -TypeName PSObject

  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'Group Name' -Value $dl.Name

  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'samAccountname' -Value $dl.samaccountname

  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'Group Type' -Value $dl.grouptype

  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'DN' -Value $dl.distinguishedName

  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'Manager' -Value $dl.managedby

  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'Member Depart Restriction' -Value $dl.memberdepartrestriction

  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'Member Join Restriction' -Value $dl.memberjoinrestriction

  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'PrimarySMTPAddress' -Value $dl.primarysmtpaddress

  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'EmailAddress' -Value $dl.emailaddresses

  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'GrantSendOnBehalfto' -Value $dl.GrantSendOnBehalfto

  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'EmailAddressPolicyEnabled' -Value $dl.EmailAddressPolicyEnabled

  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'Number of Members' -Value $count

  Write-Host ('INFO: {0} has {1} members' -f $dl.name, ($count))

 

  $reportoutput += $report

}



# Stop Transcript

Stop-Transcript

By adding the following lines to my above script I was able to successful export the required information into an Array and dump out to CSV.


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# Array

$reportoutput=@()

Regards

The Author – Blogabout.Cloud

PowerShell – ForEach do action X or do Y

By Author on March 28, 2019March 28, 2019Leave a Comment

PowerShell is one of the greatest tools within any IT Professional toolkit, it enables you to do far more than any GUI available to you today. In my life as a Consultant for a Global Microsoft SI (System Integrator), I face challenges every day where PowerShell has come to the rescue. One of the best cmdlet I use in a lot of script is

ForEach which is the alias name of ForEach-Object

Imagine you need to modify an ExtensionAttribute for your entire organization or grant a permission to a subset of users, ask yourself this? How would I do this in a GUI? and the answer would be “with great difficulty or very time consuming”. This is Foreach-Object comes into play, in the below example I need to modify the PrimarySMTPAddress due to special characters being used

In order to correct this, I will be using a source CSV file which contains SamAccountName for the identity of each DistributionList and the correct PrimarySMTPAddress.

Now for the most important element, the powershell script which will be used to modify the PrimarySMTPAddress. The below script has been designed to achieve the required outcome but also includes the ability to;

Be ran using native PowerShell for On-Premises Exchange Servers (2007 through to 2019)
Be ran against Exchange Online

So as we can see the Foreach command is being used in the following;

For each $row within the $csv which is being imported try and get the distribution list using the column heading SamAccountName
- If the Identity cannot be found the script will move to the catch
- If the Identity can be found the script will set the distribution list using the column heading PrimarySMTPAddress
The catch is alert if there are any unsuccessful attempts at setting the PrimarySMTPAddress

Simples!!

 Clear-Host
 $file = "$env:USERPROFILE\OneDrive\Desktop\groups.csv"
 $csv = import-csv -Path $file
 region Exchange Module SnapIn
 # Exchange 2007
   #Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.Admin;
   # Exchange 2010
   #Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.E2010;
   # Exchange 2013/2016
   #Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.SnapIn;
 endregion
 Transcript
 Start-Transcript -Path $env:USERPROFILE\OneDrive\Desktop\Get-DistributionGroup.txt
 Foreach ($row in $csv)
 {
   try {
     Get-DistributionGroup -Identity $row.SamAccountName | Set-DistributionGroup -PrimarySmtpAddress $row.PrimarySmtpAddress
     Write-Host 'INFO:' ($row.SamAccountName),'Primary SMTP Address has now been modified to',($row.PrimarySmtpAddress) -BackgroundColor Green
   }
   catch
   {
     Write-Host 'ERROR:' ($row.SamAccountName),'Primary SMTP Address has not been modified to',($row.PrimarySmtpAddress) -BackgroundColor Red
   }
 }
 Stop-Transcript
 Get-DistributionGroup

I have included Start-Transcript as this will dump out all Write-Host entry whether they was successful or not.

Regards

The Author – Blogabout.Cloud

Import Exchange PowerShell Module into your PowerShell ISE console

By Author on March 27, 2019March 27, 2019Leave a Comment

When working with Exchange there may be a requirement to create a PowerShell script using PowerShell ISE. Even if you run ISE on a Exchange Server you are unable to get the Exchange cmdlet in ISE, so the workaround for this is to use the following command;

If you are trying to add the Exchange cmdlets to your client machine you will need to Install the Exchange Management Tools from the Exchange installation media

The command to import the Exchange modules is different for each version – please use the appropriate command below:

Exchange 2007

2007	Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.Admin;

Exchange 2010

2010	Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.E2010;

Exchange 2013, 2016, 2019

2013-2019

Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PowerShell.SnapIn;

Regards
The Author – Blogabout.Cloud

Do I have duplicate Recipient Alias within my Exchange organization?

By Author on March 5, 2019March 12, 2019Leave a Comment

So do you know if you have duplicate recipient alias within your Exchange organisation? Heres a quick script that will look at your Exchange Environment and download all recipient address into a handy csv file you to play with.

The script

 Clear-Host
  $start = [datetime]::Now
  Start Transcript
  Start-Transcript -Path "$env:USERPROFILE\Desktop\Mailbox Alias\mailboxaliaslog.txt"
  Get-Recipent
  $Mailboxes = Get-Recipient -ResultSize Unlimited -RecipientType UserMailbox |
  Sort-Object -Property @{ Expression = { $_.EmailAddresses.Count } } -Descending
  $Results = foreach( $Mailbox in $Mailboxes ){
      $Stats = $Mailbox | Get-MailboxStatistics
 
$Properties = [ordered]@{     FirstName          = $Mailbox.FirstName     LastName           = $Mailbox.LastName     DisplayName    = $Mailbox.DisplayName     TotalItemSize      = $Stats.TotalItemSize     PrimarySmtpAddress = $Mailbox.PrimarySmtpAddress     } $AltAddresses = $Mailbox.EmailAddresses |     Where-Object { $_ -match '^smtp:' -and $_ -ne $Mailbox.PrimarySmtpAddress } $i = 1 Write-Host ('INFO: Working {0}.PrimarySmptAddress' -f $Mailbox) foreach( $Address in $AltAddresses ){     $Properties.Add( ('AltAddress{0}' -f $i), $Address -replace '^smtp:' )     $i++     } [pscustomobject]$Properties } 

 $Results |
 Export-Csv -Path "$env:USERPROFILE\desktop\MailboxAliasReport.csv" 
 $end = [datetime]::Now
 $resulttime = $end - $start
 Stop Transcript
 Stop-Transcript
 Write-Host ('Execution : {0}Days:{1}Hr:{2}Min:{3}Sec' -f $resultTime.Days, $resultTime.Hours, $resultTime.Minutes, $resultTime.Seconds)

Download

Get-RecipientAlias (13 downloads)

Is Get-ADUser a bit slow in getting required result? Hello ADSISearcher using PowerShell.

By Author on March 5, 2019March 5, 2019Leave a Comment

Sometimes Get-ADUser just isn’t enough if you are working thousands upon thousands of AD Objects. In a recent scenario, while resolving an Active Directory Health issue. I needed the ability to be able to compare AD Objects from 2 Active Directory Domains from within a resource forest.

What is ADSISearcher?

ADSISearcher is a command line driven LDAP Lookup procedure has the ability to query Active Directory. As ADSISearcher looks up Active Directory it enables a faster discovery of the required AD Objects.

My scenario

I need to ensure CustomAttribute10 in Child1.domain.com matches CustomAttribute10 in Child2.domain.com, yes I could use Get-ADUser | export-csv but this has proved to take to long and needed a faster solution.

ADSISearcher has proved to reduce the time required to execute this script and dumping out to a transcript file with “,” separating the text allows the information to be imported to excel if required.

The script

 Clear-Host
 Write-Host "You are currently running Version 1.0" -BackgroundColor DarkGray
 [string] $Menu = @'
 ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
          ADSISearcher for CustomAttribute10
          Created by @thewatchernode                          
   └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
 '@
 Menu
 $Menu
 Transcript
 Start-Transcript -Path "$env:userprofile\Desktop\Child1vsChild2.txt"
 Start Time
 $start = [datetime]::Now
 region Client Array
 $Child1LDAPFilter = '(objectclass=user)'
 $PageSize = 1000
 $Child1DN = 'DC=child1,DC=domain,DC=com'
 $Child1SB = 'DC=child1,DC=domain,DC=com'
 $Child1Searcher = [ADSISearcher]('{0}' -f $child1LDAPFilter)
 $Child1Searcher.SearchRoot = [ADSI]('GC://{0}' -f $Child1SB)
 $Child1Searcher.SearchRoot = [ADSI]('GC://{0}' -f $child1DN)
 $Child1Searcher.PageSize = $PageSize
 $Child1Objects = $Child1Searcher.FindAll()
 endregion
 region Collab Array
 $Child2SB = 'DC=child2,DC=domain,DC=com'
 $Child2DN = 'DC=child2,DC=domain,DC=com'
 endregion
 region Client vs Collab
 Foreach($Object in $child1Objects){
 $childca10 = $Object.Properties.'customattribute10'
   $Child2LDAPFilter = "(objectclass=user,customattribute10=$childca10)"
   $child2Searcher1 = [ADSISearcher]("{0}" -f $child2LDAPFilter)
   $child2Searcher1.SearchRoot = [ADSI]("GC://{0}" -f $Child2SB)
   $child2Searcher1.SearchRoot = [ADSI]("GC://{0}" -f $Child2DN)
   $child2Searcher1.PageSize = $PageSize
   #$AllObjects1 = $collabSearcher1.FindAll()
 $nullvalue = $object.Properties.'customattribute10' 
 if ($nullvalue -eq $null)
    {
     Write-Host 'INFO, Null Value Found in Child Domain 1,' $Object.Properties.samaccountname -BackgroundColor Red
    }
   else
   {
     try 
     {
       ($Object.Properties.'customattribute10' -eq $child2searcher1.Properties.'customattribute10')
       Write-Host 'Skipping, Attribute match found in Child domain 2 using Child domain 1,' $Object.Properties.samaccountname -ForegroundColor Green
     }
     catch
     {
       Write-Host 'INFO, No Attribute match found in Child domain 2 using Child domain 1,' $Object.Properties.samaccountname -BackgroundColor Red
     }
   }
 }
 endregion
 Stop Transcript
 Stop-Transcript
 End Time
 $end = [datetime]::Now
 $resultTime = $end - $start
 Write-Host ('Execution : {0}Days:{1}Hr:{2}Min:{3}Sec' -f $resultTime.Days, $resultTime.Hours, $resultTime.Minutes, $resultTime.Seconds)

Download

Get-ADSISearcher (14 downloads)

Regards

The Author – Blogabout.Cloud

QuickTip: PowerShell scripting – How long did it take to run the script?

By Author on February 18, 2019February 18, 2019Leave a Comment

Have you ever wondered how long it took to run your script? Well, you dont need to wonder anymore. The following couple of lines will provide a visual output how long it take to execute your script from start to finish

$Start = [system.datetime]::Now
{
Script run….
}
$End = [system.datetime]::Now
$resulttime = $End – $Start
Write-Host: (‘Execution Time : {0}Days:{1}Hours:{2}Minutes:{3}Seconds’ -f $Resulttime.Hours, $Resulttime.Days, $Resulttime.Minutes, $Resulttime.Seconds)

Regards

The Author – Blogabout.Cloud

Discovering Distribution Lists using PowerShell

By Author on February 15, 2019February 15, 2019Leave a Comment

Do you have a requirement to understand how many Distribution Lists exist within your Exchange organization or need to understand if they actually being utilized? Well, this is something I have come across recently while working for the customer. They have a mass of distribution lists across their organization which they are trying to tidy up before migrating to Office 365. The organisation I was working for had over 100,000 distributions list but the state of them was unknown so what challenges did I face?

The challenges faced

Unknown the number of DLs that had 0 members
Unknown the number of DLs that had 0 managers
Unknown the number of DLs that had invalid characters

The solution… PowerShell

So the following script was created to obtain the all the attributes listed before, this enable to put together a business case for which distribution lists should be deleted and which should be migrated.

Distribution List Name
SamAccountName
GroupType
DistinguishedName
Managedby
memberdepartrestriction
memberjoinrestriction
primartysmtpaddress
Number of Members

 [CmdletBinding()]
 param()
 # Call Distribution Lists
 $dist = @(Get-DistributionGroup -resultsize unlimited)
 # Start Transcript
 Start-Transcript -Path $env:USERPROFILE\desktop\transcript.txt
 # Report on Distribution List
 foreach ($dl in $dist)
 {
  $count =@(Get-DistributionGroup $dl.samaccountname).count
  $report = New-Object -TypeName PSObject
  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'Group Name' -Value $dl.Name
  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'samAccountname' -Value $dl.samaacountname
  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'Group Type' -Value $dl.grouptype
  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'DN' -Value $dl.distinguishedName
  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'Manager' -Value $dl.managedby
  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'Member Depart Restriction' -Value $dl.memberdepartrestriction
  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'Member Join Restriction' -Value $dl.memberjoinrestriction
  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'PrimarySMTPAddress' -Value $dl.primartysmtpaddress
  $report | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name 'Number of Members' -Value $count
  Write-Host ('INFO: {0} has {1} members' -f $dl.name, ($count))
  $reportoutput += $report
 }
 # Stop Transcript
 Stop-Transcript
 # Report
 $reportoutput | Export-Csv -Path $env:USERPROFILE\desktop\DistributionListReport.csv -NoTypeInformation -Encoding UTF8

Regards
The Author – Blogabout.Cloud

Merging Excel files using PowerShell, yes it can be done.

By Author on February 4, 2019February 4, 2019

Have you ever worked with Excel files where you wanted to match and compare Columns/Rows? In the past, this has been quite difficult tasks to achieve using the native commands within PowerShell.

So have you heard of the PowerShell module ImportExcel?

It’s is a PowerShell module that is available on the PowerShell Gallery and introduces a number of functions that allow you to work with Excel files using the good old blue background.

From this module we will be working with the following function;

Merge-Worksheet

Syntax
Merge-Worksheet [-Referencefile] [-Differencefile] [[-WorksheetName] ] [-Startrow ]
-Headername [[-OutputFile] ] [[-OutputSheetName] ] [-Property ] [-ExcludeProperty ]
[-Key ] [-KeyFontColor ] [-ChangeBackgroundColor ] [-DeleteBackgroundColor ]
[-AddBackgroundColor ] [-HideEqual] [-Passthru] [-Show] [-WhatIf] [-Confirm] []

Example usage of Function

The below shows the Reference and Difference Excel files that are being used in this example. I am going to merge the two excel files based on Column A the EmployeeNumber. During my testing, I have had issues using -HeaderName parameter. In this post I will not be specifying the headings and just modify the output file.

# Variables
$ref = “$env:USERPROFILE\desktop\test\ref.xlsx”
$dif = “$env:USERPROFILE\desktop\test\dif.xlsx”
$out = “$env:USERPROFILE\desktop\test\out.xlsx”

# Script Block
Merge-Worksheet -Referencefile $ref -Differencefile $dif -OutputFile $out -WorksheetName Sheet1 -Startrow 1 -OutputSheetName Sheet1 -NoHeader

As we can see from below, the output field has organised Column A and aligned the rows

Every useful if you are working with Excel files but only annoying thing is the HeaderName parameter not working.

Regards
The Author – Blogabout.Cloud

What special characters are supported in Office 365?

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On-Premises Users

Cloud Users

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Exchange 2007

Exchange 2010

Exchange 2013, 2016, 2019

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The script

Download

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What is ADSISearcher?

My scenario

The script

Download

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The challenges faced

The solution… PowerShell

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Example usage of Function

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