Introduction

As a PowerShell enthusiast, I’m excited to dive into the practical challenges presented in this PowerShell interview scenario. PowerShell is a powerful and versatile tool that can streamline various administrative tasks, and in this post, we’ll explore how to tackle the two key scenarios outlined in the provided content.

Scenario 1: Capitalizing User Names and Assigning Administrator Rights

In this scenario, we have a CSV file containing a list of user names that are incorrectly capitalized. Our goal is to output a JSON file with the names properly capitalized and randomly assign the ‘Administrator’ property to one of the users.

To accomplish this, we can use the following PowerShell script:

# Import the CSV file
$users = Import-Csv -Path 'names.csv'

# Capitalize the names
$users | ForEach-Object {
    $_.Name = [System.Globalization.CultureInfo]::CurrentCulture.TextInfo.ToTitleCase($_.Name.ToLower())
}

# Randomly assign the 'Administrator' property to one user
$users[Get-Random -Maximum $users.Count].Administrator = $true

# Convert the data to JSON and export to a file
$users | ConvertTo-Json | Set-Content -Path 'users.json'

This script first imports the CSV file containing the user names. It then capitalizes each name using the ToTitleCase() method from the System.Globalization.CultureInfo class. Next, it randomly selects one of the users and assigns the ‘Administrator’ property to that user. Finally, the script converts the modified user data to a JSON file.

The resulting JSON file will be valid, with correctly capitalized names and one user designated as an administrator.

Scenario 2: Monitoring Running Services and Their Users

In this scenario, we need to retrieve a list of all running services on a computer, including the user the service runs as, and output the information to a CSV file with headers and no extraneous metadata.

To accomplish this, we can use the following PowerShell script:

# Get a list of all running services
$services = Get-Service | Where-Object {$_.Status -eq 'Running'}

# Create a custom object with the service name and user
$serviceInfo = $services | Select-Object @{Name='ServiceName';Expression={$_.Name}}, @{Name='RunAsUser';Expression={(Get-Process -Id $_.ProcessId).UserName}}

# Export the data to a CSV file
$serviceInfo | Export-Csv -Path 'running_services.csv' -NoTypeInformation

This script first retrieves a list of all running services using the Get-Service cmdlet and filters out any services that are not in the ‘Running’ state. It then creates a custom object that includes the service name and the username of the user the service is running as. Finally, the script exports this data to a CSV file, ensuring that no extraneous metadata is included.

The resulting CSV file will have a header row with the column names ‘ServiceName’ and ‘RunAsUser’, and the data will be neatly organized without any unnecessary information.

Conclusion

In this post, we’ve explored two practical PowerShell scenarios that demonstrate the versatility and power of this tool. By leveraging built-in cmdlets and techniques like data manipulation and file I/O, we were able to efficiently address the challenges of capitalizing user names, randomly assigning administrator privileges, and monitoring running services and their users.

These examples showcase how PowerShell can streamline administrative tasks and help maintain the integrity and security of your systems. I hope this post has been informative and inspiring, and that you can apply these techniques in your own PowerShell projects.

For the original content, please refer to the PowerShell Interview Practical repository.