Basic Debugging in SAPIEN PowerShell Studio 2015

I wanted to share a little debugging trick with SAPIEN PowerShell Studio 2015. Logic bugs are not a fun. Essentially, your script is doing exactly what you told it to do, but it is not what you wanted it to do. Most likely, the contents of memory are not what you expected. SAPIEN PowerShell Studio 2015 has both a Variable and a Watch window to help you in your debugging efforts. Take a look at this code:

There is nothing wrong with it. I just want to use very basic code. By pressing Ctrl – F5 you will run this code normally. Pressing F5 runs the code in Debug Mode. In Debug Mode, nothing special happens. You have to set a break point.

Above, I clicked on line 16 and pressed F9. This is where execution of the code will stop and allow you to examine the contents of memory. Press F5 to see what happens next.

You can see the arrow beside line 16. This is where we currently are suspending execution. The Variables window is opened and I scrolled to the bottom of the list to see our variables. Variable Z is not in memory since we stopped execution on its line. While scrolling through this list, you may notice that all data in memory is being displayed. If you want to focus on a specific variable and ignore the rest, use the watch window. Right click X and select Add to Watch. Now click on the Watch tab.

Each time you run this code, this variable will be in the watch window until you remove it.

By pressing F5 again, you will resume script execution.

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Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services allow you to create a directory service that allows applications to have access to user accounts, groups, and authentication similar to Active Directory Domain Services. The big advantage here is that the schema of the directory service will not be bound by the rules of an Active Directory database. Exchange 2007/2010, for example, use an instance of AD LDS on the Edge Transport Server to provide for user authentication from the internet. Because your Active Directory database is not exposed to the internet, this is more secure. Applications will handle most of the dirty work should they require AD LDS. You may want to make sure the database is being backed up and also have a restore plan in place. Should the database become corrupt, the application that uses that database will fail. This document will walk you through backing up and restoring an instance of AD LDS using the dsdbutil.exe command. Fi...

Jason Yoder, MCT

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