April 2014 | PowerShell

Understanding Import-DscResource Keyword in Desired State Configuration

PowerShell TeamApril 25, 2014Apr 25, 201404/25/14

Desired State Configuration resources are used to model and change the state of different components of the system. In an earlier blog post, we discussed details about deploying and discovering those resources and introduced Import-DscResource dynamic keyword. In this post, we will discuss some more details about the usage and internal w

Debug Mode in Desired State Configuration

PowerShell TeamApril 22, 2014Apr 22, 201404/22/14

The DSC engine caches resources implemented as a PowerShell module for efficiency purposes. This can sometimes turn out to be annoying, when you are authoring a resource and testing it simultaneously. The only way to cause DSC to load the newer version every time is to explicitly kill the process hosting the DSC engine. As part of the WMF5 CT

A World of Scripts at your Fingertips – Introducing Script Browser

PowerShell TeamApril 16, 2014Apr 16, 201404/16/14

<Today we have a guest blog entry from Microsoft Customer Services & Support and the Garage> Update: Version 1.1 of the Script Browser is out. Check out the announcement here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/onescript/archive/2014/04/29/here-comes-the-update-of-script-browser-amp-script-analyzer-1-1.aspx To

Collecting the Output of Remoting Commands

PowerShell TeamApril 16, 2014Apr 16, 201404/16/14

One question we often get around PowerShell Remoting is "How do I collect the output of remoting commands into a different file for each computer?" For example, you want to invoke a remote command across 1,000 machines as a multi-threaded job and then create 1,000 text files for their output. This is in fact impressively easy in Pow

What’s in a name? Using prefixes in PowerShell.

PowerShell TeamApril 7, 2014Apr 7, 201404/7/14

We’ve talked about this in the past but it’s time for a reminder. PowerShell uses prefixes in front of nouns to avoid name collisions. Imagine how many collisions there would be if people used the noun “USER” directly. Instead, we have cmdlets *-ADUser, *-VPNUser, and *-RDUser. The use of the pr

Windows Management Framework V5 Preview

PowerShell TeamApril 4, 2014Apr 4, 201404/4/14

The Windows Management Framework V5 Preview is out! Check out Jeffrey Snover's announcement here. The preview contains updates to PowerShell Desired State Configuration, as well as two new features: NetworkSwitch cmdlets and Windows PowerShell OneGet. OneGet is designed to dramatically simplify how you discover and install software packa

Configuring an Azure VM using PowerShell DSC

PowerShell TeamApril 3, 2014Apr 3, 201404/3/14

Update 8/7/2014: We just published the Azure PowerShell DSC Extension, which simplifies the configuration of Azure VMs with PowerShell DSC. Please refer to this blog post for more information At the //build/ conference today, Jeffery Snover demonstrated bringing up an Azure virtual machine and configuring it using DSC and the Custom Scri

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