PowerShell Team
Automating the world one-liner at a time…
Latest posts
Recent updates to DSC Resource Kit
We would like to share with you a summary of changes which happened in DSC Resource Kit over last few weeks. Since we’ve posted about the updates here last time, we’ve accepted 38 pull requests, closed 33 issues, updated 7 modules and added 4 new resources! Two resources were added to xNetworking module (xDNSConnectionSuffix and xNetConnectionProfile), one to xActiveDirectory (xADGroup), and yet another one to xCertificate module (xPfxImport). These new additions bring us to the total of 229 DSC resources! This would not be possible without the great help and support we are receiving from our commun...
PowerShell Language Design – Request for Comments
For a while now, we've been thinking about how to better incorporate the community into the PowerShell language design process. We believe this would improve PowerShell by: A Request for Comments (RFC) is a type of document used broadly in the industry, in various forms, as a way to collect feedback from customers and partners. We are adopting this concept as a way to get feedback on language design documents. This is something that is new to us, so we are starting smal...
Announcing PowerShell language support for Visual Studio Code and more!
Today I am very happy to announce Developer Preview releases of two new projects that I hope will take your PowerShell development experience to the next level. Write and debug PowerShell scripts in Visual Studio Code! The first release is a new extension for Visual Studio Code which provides improved PowerShell language support including IntelliSense, code navigation, real-time script analysis, and local script debugging. Previous releases of Visual Studio Code have provided basic PowerShell syntax highlighting support and code snippets. This summer I started working with a PowerShell team intern,&...
Compromising Yourself with WinRM’s “AllowUnencrypted = True”
One thing that’s a mixed blessing in the world of automation is how often people freely share snippets of code that you can copy and paste to make things work. Sometimes, this is a snippet of code / functionality that would have been hard or impossible to write yourself, and saves the day. Sometimes, this is a snippet that changes some configuration settings to finally make something work. For both types of code, you should really understand what’s happening before you run it. Configuration snippets are particularly important in this regard, as they permanently change the posture of the system. One disappointi...
Azure DSC Extension – Versions 1.0-2.3 no longer available
NOTE: For information on OS support, and other features, please refer to our release history. Today we retired versions 1.0 to 2.3 of the Azure DSC Extension. These versions use preview versions of WMF 5.0 whose signing certificates have expired, so it is no longer possible to install them. If any of these versions are already installed on your VMs they will continue to run, but you will not be able to install them on new VMs. Our PowerShell cmdlet, Set-AzureVMDscExtension still uses version 1.* as the default; you can install a different version with the –Version parameter: Starting with the soon-to-be-rel...
DSC Resource Kit updates are here!
You may be wondering what’s happening in the area of DSC Resource Kit and if that’s the case, read on. Over the last month we’ve accepted 47 pull requests, fixed 16 issues, updated 9 modules and added 5 new resources! The new resources are xExchMaintenanceMode, xExchMailboxServer, xExchTransportService and xExchEventLogLevel in the xExchange module as well as xDefaultGatewayAddress shipped as part of the Networking module. These new additions bring us to the total of 225 DSC resources! For details about the updates and bug fixes available in the recent releases, please scroll to the &ldquo...
Azure DSC Extension 2.8 & How to map downloads of the extension dependencies to your own location.
NOTE: For information on OS support, and other features, please refer to our release history. Overview Today, we released version 2.8 of the Azure DSC Extension, we added support to map downloads of the extension dependencies to your own location. This could be useful, if you want to configure the network, of a VM not to allow direct access to the Internet and host these files somewhere else. This blog will show you how to use this feature in Azure Cloud Service Manager (ASM). This assumes you already know how to use the DSC Extension as described in How to use WMF 4 with Azure DSC Extension in Azure Resour...
OpenSSH for Windows Update
Back in June, we announced our intentions to bring SSH to Windows by supporting and contributing to the OpenSSH community. Our objective was to not only port OpenSSH so that it worked well on Windows, but to openly contribute those changes back into the portable version of OpenSSH. Of the many options available, one clearly stood out: the previous work that NoMachine had already published in bringing OpenSSH to Windows. The NoMachine port was based on OpenSSH 5.9, so we’ve spent the time since our initial announcement working with NoMachine to bring this port in sync with OpenSSH 7.1. ...
Package Management Preview for PowerShell 4 & 3 is now available
We’re excited to announce the availability of Package Management related PowerShell modules targeted for PowerShell 4 and PowerShell 3. The MSI based installer can be downloaded from Microsoft Download Center! This preview consists of modules PackageManagement (formerly known as OneGet) and PowerShellGet. The versions of these modules exactly match those that shipped with WMF 5.0 August Production Preview. Since this preview contains only PowerShell modules, you do not need to reboot after installation. This preview installs exclusively on systems running PowerShell 4 or PowerShell 3 only. This preview will...