PowerShell Team
Automating the world one-liner at a time…
Latest posts
Updated DSC Resource Kit available in the PowerShell Gallery
We’ve been focusing on improving the quality of DSC Resource Kit during last few weeks and are glad to announce that all the fixes are now available in the newest versions of modules on the PowerShell Gallery. We’ve accepted 95 pull requests, fixed 29 issues and updated 20 modules! In addition to that, xWindowsUpdate module got a new resource - xMicrosoftUpdate – allowing to enable or disable Microsoft Update on your target nodes. For detailed list of changes, please scroll to the table at the bottom of this post. We encourage you to install the newest versions from the PowerShell Gallery and st...
PowerShell Runspace Debugging: Part 1
This is the fourth in a series of blogs discussing the new PowerShell 5.0 script debugging features. These new features are available through the PowerShell 5.0 preview, which is part of the WMF (Windows Management Foundation) 5.0 preview that you can get from HERE. In my last article I talked about the Debug-Job command. In this blog I will discuss Runspace debugging which is similar to debugging a job. Runspace debugging is an advanced activity, but is incredibly useful in the right circumstances. A Runspace is an instance of the PowerShell engine within a process. It defines the context in which a Po...
Azure DSC Extension v2.4 released
NOTE: For information on OS support, and other features, please refer to our release history. Today we released version 2.4 of the Azure DSC Extension, which adds support for WMF 5.0 Production Preview. This version of the Extension does not include any additional changes. Use "Set-AzureVMDscExtension -Version 2.4" to install this version on your VM (or you can use 2.* if you wish your VM to auto-update when a new version is released.) Please feel free to reach to us posting comments to this post, or by posting feedback on Connect.
Windows Management Framework 5.0 Production Preview is now available
We’re excited to announce Windows Management Framework 5.0 Production Preview, a new package introducing new and exciting management technologies, is now available for download on the Microsoft Download Center! As announced earlier, WMF 5.0 Production Preview differs from older previews of WMF 5.0 in the following ways: The following table provides an overview of all scenarios enabled by WMF 5.0 Production Preview. You can read more about these improvements, and other content in WMF 5.0 Production Preview, in the release notes (included in the download with the packages). WMF 5.0 Productio...
Development builds for DSC Resources are available
Note: This blog post is intended to people who participate in the development of DSC Resources on GitHub. We are pleased to announce that we've made developments builds available for all DSC Resource modules on GitHub. From now on, every time Pull Request gets merged, we produce a package with latest changes and upload it on a module-specific NuGet feed. The process is fully automated which means that early adopters/contributors can install and try newest versions of modules right after they are updated! It’s worth pointing out that PowerShell Gallery is still the “Go To” place for all releas...
Azure DSC Extension 2.2 & Updates to Publish-AzureVMDscConfiguration cmdlet for ASM & ARM in Azure PowerShell SDK version 0.9.7
NOTE: For information on OS support, and other features, please refer to our release history. Today we released version 2.2 of the Azure DSC Extension to support new functionality in the Publish-AzureVMDscConfiguration cmdlet. To get the latest changes in the publish cmdlet download Azure Powershell SDK version 0.9.7 In Azure Powershell SDK version 0.9.5 we introduced new set of cmdlets for deploying the Azure DSC Extension with Azure Resource Manager (ARM). You can read more on the DSC Extension ARM cmdlets here. Changes in Publish-AzureVMDscConfiguration cmdlet In the previous blog, we talked about addi...
Windows Management Framework (WMF) 5.0 Roadmap
In the next few weeks (August 2015) we will be releasing a supported “Production Preview” of Windows Management Framework (WMF) 5.0. Later, in Q4 of 2015, you should be able to download the RTM version of WMF 5.0. WMF 5.0 Production Preview will differ from previous previews of WMF 5.0 in the following ways: Both of the upcoming supported versions of WMF 5.0 (Production Preview and RTM) will incorporate feedback regularly provided by our community of WMF 5.0 Preview users. Please deploy WMF 5.0 Production Preview and provide early feedback to make WMF 5.0 RTM even better. Relation between PowerS...
PowerShell Gallery – New Security Scan
Quality and trust of PowerShell Gallery content have been a concern since the beginning. These issues were somewhat addressed with peer-monitoring via the Report Abuse and Contact Support links on each module details page. We even implemented a new cmdlet, Save-Module, which allowed users to assess a module’s contents before installing it. However, all these scenarios put the onus on the consumer to determine if a module is safe and of high quality. To improve further, we have begun checking that all modules on the Gallery meet a basic quality bar. Starting June 26, 2015, all modules i...
What's new in DSC Resource Kit
It’s been another busy month and we’ve seen lots of enthusiasm from many of you to help improve the DSC Resource Kit. In only the last couple of weeks we’ve merged 90 pull requests, 8 new resources have been added to 4 modules (xDefender, xExchange, xWebAdministration, xWindowsUpdate) and another 15 resources across 13 modules were updated! That brings the total number of resources in DSC Resource Kit to 220! We are also very happy to see incoming feedback in the form of new GitHub issues and want you to know that we are looking at all of them - since our last update, 18 issues were addressed an...