PowerShell Team
Automating the world one-liner at a time…
Latest posts
Monad Manifesto – the Origin of Windows PowerShell
Attached is a public version of the original Monad Manifesto. This is not a Windows PowerShell whitepaper nor is it an accurate description of how V1.0 works. This is a version of the original Monad Manifesto which articulated the long term vision and started the development effort which became PowerShell. Many of the elements described in this document have been delivered and those that have not provide a good roadmap for the future. The document has been updated for publication. Confidential information has been culled and examples are updated to reflect the current syntax. Enjoy! Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]...
PowerShell Webcasts available
Don Jones is doing a series of PowerShell WebCasts over at Microsoft.com. There are the one coming up: You can get more information about this series including links to previously recorded webcasts HERE. Enjoy! Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]Management Partner ArchitectVisit the Windows PowerShell Team blog at: http://blogs.msdn.com/PowerShellVisit the Windows PowerShell ScriptCenter at: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx
Installing PowerShell on Vista/"Longhorn" Server
1. I am new to PowerShell and would like to install it on my Vista machine. The following page http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/powershell/download.mspx gives you links to various PowerShell downloads. Choose the one that best matches your operating system, platform and language requirements. 2. I am using a “Longhorn” build greater than 5600 and I do not find an installable for my version of “Longhorn” server We currently support Windows PowerShell RC2 for “Longhorn” IDS (5600). This means that you wil...
Detecting Conflicts between Aliases, Functions, and Cmdlets
Version 1.1 of the PowerShell Community Extensions has just been release so I decided to kick the tires. After I installed it, I noticed that some conflicts and then realized that there might be conflicts between my customizations and the Aliases, Functions and Cmdlets that they delivered. Here is how I detected what needed to be resolved: PS> gcm -type cmdlet,function,alias |group name |where {$_.count -gt 1}Count Name Group----- ---- ----- 2 Get-FileVersionInfo {Get-FileVersionInfo, Get-FileVersionInfo} 2 help {help, help} 2 man ...
Scripting Pro VIP Interview
Scott Ottaway and I recently did an interview with Karen Bemowski. You can read it here. Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]Windows PowerShell/MMC ArchitectVisit the Windows PowerShell Team blog at: http://blogs.msdn.com/PowerShellVisit the Windows PowerShell ScriptCenter at: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx
Why Can’t I Pipe Format-Table to Export-Csv (and get something useful)?
Ken's PowerShell blog has an entry Remote Services and PowerShell where he wrote a function to get services from a remote machine using WMI. He formatted the data using FT (format-table) and then went on to export the data to CSV. He pointed out that the following would NOT work rget-service remotemachinename netlogon | ft -autosize name,startmode,state,status,startname | export-csv services.csv Instead you should use: rget-service remotemachinename netlogon | Select-Object name,startmode,state,status,startname | export-csv services.csv Let's take a minute to explore why the first command does not work. Let's ...
Invoke-Expression
I fixed a bug in Start-Demo (Script attached) that is worth exploring. The heart of Start-Demo is to get a line from file, display it and then run it showing the output. To do this I used Invoke-Expression (For simplicity sakes, I'm going to show you the code assuming that the line to execute is $LINE – the actual code is a bit more complicated) Invoke-Expression $($LINE + " | out-host") We want to run the command and pipe it's results to out-host. This "mostly" works. I noticed the failure as I started to do more complicated demos. I particular, I wanted to execute the following 2 lines: $y = Get-Process$y |...
How does the RemoteSigned execution policy work?
You might have wondered how the "RemoteSigned" execution policy protects us from running unsigned PowerShell scripts downloaded from the internet. We use the URL Security Zones API related to "Attachment Execution Service" (AES) introduced in Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1. Internet Explorer and Outlook Express are among the applications that participate in the AES system, while FireFox, Microsoft Office Outlook and Live Messenger do not follow AES. AES-participating applications call the Save method of IAttachmentExecute interface to add a Zone.Identifier alternate data stream...
Managing SQL with PowerShell – PowerSMO
Dan Sullivan has been doing some great things using PowerShell to manage SQL. Dan wrote that Addison-Wesley book "A Developer's Guide to SQL Server 2005" along with Bob Beauchemin. He has now started a series of articles on this topic at simple-talk.com. Here are the first two but Dan told me that he'll be writing more so you might want to bookmark the search for all Dan's articles: BTW – if you are new to PowerShell, these are worth reading as they also provide a very good and pithy introduction to PowerShell. Enjoy! Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]Windows PowerShell/Aspen ArchitectVisit the Windows PowerShell Team blog...