How to import a certificate into the Local USER’s store

IMPORTANT NOTE If your .CER certificate contains a private key, you can only import it through the MMC console. Neither the certutil nor the Import-Certificate cmdlet keeps the private key during the import process. The Import-PfxCertificate cmdlet keeps the private key, but it does not import .CER certificates. Import the certificate with Certutil The following […]

Credential prompt: command line or dialog box?

Technically there is no security difference between the two methods. It’s only a matter of preferences and the behavior depends of a single registry value. Be prompted at the command line Set the ConsolePrompting value to True Be prompted from a dialog box Set the ConsolePrompting value to False or anything else than True. Or […]

Parse log files with PowerShell

If you have to find information in unstructured log files, PowerShell offers a variety of cmdlets that can help you parse text files to extract the information you need. In my last article, I showed you how to search the Windows Event Log with Get-Event. That’s where you usually spot most of the pertinent messages. […]

How to convert MAML to Text

MAML is an XML-based markup language developed by the Microsoft User Assistance Platform team to provide user assistance. Among others, it is used in SCOM to format Knowledge articles. Here is how to convert a MAML string to standard readable text. Note: When you copy/paste code from a web site, quotes and backticks are often […]