⚙️ PowerShell Automation
A growing toolkit of PowerShell scripts for network discovery, system troubleshooting, and everyday IT administration, built to automate repetitive tasks and standardize how I diagnose issues across client environments.
Overview
I maintain a personal toolkit of PowerShell scripts built to automate the kinds of tasks that come up repeatedly in MSP work — network discovery, system health checks, and troubleshooting across storage, networking, and security. The scripts follow consistent conventions (standard param blocks, CSV export, colored console output, elapsed time reporting) so they're easy to reuse and extend.
The centerpiece is a network scanner that uses async pinging and multi-threaded runspaces to sweep a subnet quickly, with configurable port scanning, automatic subnet detection, ARP-based MAC address lookup, and manufacturer resolution via the macvendors.com API. Alongside it is a broader troubleshooting toolkit — roughly 20 scripts covering storage, system health, networking, user and security auditing, and reliability monitoring.
Technologies Used
- PowerShell
- Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI/CIM)
- Runspaces & Multi-Threading
- ARP / MAC Address Resolution
- Git & GitHub
Highlights
- Built an async, multi-threaded network scanner with configurable port scanning and subnet auto-detection.
- Added ARP-based MAC lookup with manufacturer resolution via macvendors.com.
- Wrote roughly 20 troubleshooting scripts spanning storage, system health, networking, and security auditing.
- Standardized every script with consistent param blocks, CSV export, and colored console output.
- Added elapsed-time reporting so long-running scans are easy to track.
- Wrote a driver-inventory script using the Windows Update Agent COM API and PnP driver data to flag outdated drivers.
Challenges
- Getting runspace pools to scale cleanly without overwhelming the network or the host machine.
- Handling inconsistent WMI/CIM responses across different Windows versions.
- Keeping script output format consistent as the toolkit grew from a handful of scripts to around 20.
What I Learned
Building this toolkit taught me a lot about PowerShell performance — especially runspaces versus simple loops for anything that touches the network — and reinforced how much time consistent script conventions save once a toolkit grows past a few one-off scripts.