Monitor Changes in a Folder

I receive a daily email from Powershell.com (www.powershell.com).  When I saw this script I said to myself, "There were times I really could have used this.".  Particularly when I wanted to know what files were affected when running an update.  I saved this file as Run-fileWatcher.ps1:


In this example, I created a folder called Test_Folder

# Change the $folder variable to the folder you want to monitor

$folder = "C:\Test_Folder"
$filter = '*'  # looks for all changes


 try
{
   $fsw = New-Object System.IO.FileSystemWatcher $folder , $filter -ErrorAction Stop # the FileSystemWatcher component watches for changes in the LastWrite and LastAccess properties of a file.
}


catch [System.ArgumentException] # checks for errors
{
   Write-Warning "Oops: $_"
   return
}

$fsw.IncludeSubdirectories = $true
$fsw.NotifyFilter = [IO.NotifyFilters]'FileName, LastWrite'

do
{
   $result = $fsw.WaitForChanged([ System.IO.WatcherChangeTypes]::All, 1000)
   if ($result.TimedOut) { continue }
 
   $result


   Write-Host "Change in $($result.Name) - $( $result.ChangeType)"

} while ($true)


While the script was running, I created a file called Test.txt.  Inside the file, I entered "This is a test."  I saved the file to c:\test_folder, and the output was:



When I deleted the file, the output was:



It should be possible to write the output to a file, but I haven't tested that yet.  I will put that on my list, as well as adding modification time and date.


I hope you found this helpful.  Again, go to www.powershell.com and sign up for their email.  Some of their scripts I use regularly.


Later,
Mike E

Finding Items in Group Policies

I have had occasion to look for specific information within a client's group policies.  In particular, what drives are being mapped for a group of users.  This client a quite a few organizational units (OUs) and, thus, quite a few groups policies (GPOs).  To simplify this process, I looked for a Powershell solution to help me.  This is what I found:

Param

    (

        # This section is the -StringToFind parameter

        [Parameter(Mandatory=$true,

                   ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true,

                   Position=0)]

        [String]

        $StringToFind

    )

    Begin

    {

    $GPOsToCheck = get-gpo -all |Sort-Object -property displayname # gather all GPO information and sort by displayname

    Write-Host " Checking through" $GPOsToCheck.count "GPO's"

    }

    Process

    {

   

$ListOFAffectedGPOs = @()

$count = 1

$GPOsToCheckCount = $GPOsToCheck.count

foreach ($item in $GPOsToCheck) # go through the list of group policies

{

$Result = Get-GPOReport -name $item.DisplayName -ReportType XML   

if ($Result -match $StringToFind) # check if Result variable information matches the string

{

$ListOFAffectedGPOs += $item.DisplayName

}

else

{

}

Write-Host "$count of $GPOsToCheckCount"

$count++ 

}

Write-Host "List of GPO's that contain $StringToFind"  -ForegroundColor Green

$ListOFAffectedGPOs

    }

    End

    {

    }




The syntax of the script is:
Get-GPOThatContains.ps1 -StringToFind password

Here is the output based on my home AD domain:

PS C:\scripts> .\Get-GPOsThatContain.ps1 -StringToFind password
 Checking through 9 GPO's
1 of 9
2 of 9
3 of 9
4 of 9
5 of 9
6 of 9
7 of 9
8 of 9
9 of 9
List of GPO's that contain password
Default Domain Policy
testdest
TestSource
Windows 7 Screen Lock

The script finds all GPOs, evaluates each policy for the string to find (in this case 'password'), and lists the policies that have that string.

I have found this script very useful when we need to quickly find a GPO entry or when onboarding a new client.

I hope you have found this helpful.  Please let me know if you have any questions.


Mike