PowerShell Team
Automating the world one-liner at a time…
Latest posts
High Level Architecture of Windows PowerShell Workflow (Part 2)
This is the second part of our post on the high level architecture of Windows PowerShell Workflow. Part 1 of this blog post provided an overview of the architecture and its various components. This post will go into more detail on the various subcomponents and provide some insight into the internals of Windows PowerShell Workflow. The component diagram for the PowerShell Workflow Executive is repeated (from part 1) for reference Each of the components in the diagram is discussed in detail below. 1. Workflow Compilation, Caching and Validation Windows Workflow Foundation deals with and understan...
High Level Architecture of Windows PowerShell Workflow (Part 1)
1 Summary In March we introduced Windows PowerShell Workflow (PSWF), which explained why we integrated workflows with PowerShell, and what were our major investment areas for our first release. In a recent post, Jeffrey Snover summarizes this decision: “We integrated the Windows Workflow Foundation engine into PowerShell to make it simple and easy to automate things that take a long time, that operate against a very large scale, or that require the coordination of multiple steps across multiple machines.” While these posts talked about workflows as robust multi-machine commands, it didn’t address a...
New V3 Language Features
We’ve already discussed the biggest new PowerShell language feature – workflows – in a previous post. In this post, I’m going to describe a number of small changes we’ve made to the language. Most of the changes described here don’t introduce any new syntax, but I think you’ll agree that most of these changes make various aspects of scripting in PowerShell simpler. To me, many of these features are what make PowerShell a joy to use. Member Enumeration To start, I’m going to describe a little feature that had no official name until I started...
Intellisense in Windows PowerShell ISE 3.0
This blog post applies to the Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) in Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. The ISE is also fully supported and available when Server 2012 is deployed using the Minimal Server Interface. To start ISE, type ise in a PowerShell console and press Enter Very few things can be considered “cool” in an interactive command-line environment. Intellisense sure counts as one of the few exceptions. While tab completion has always been a cornerstone of PowerShell usability (and continues to be), my struggle with tab completion is that after cycling through the 5th optio...
Windows Management Framework 3.0 RC is Available for Download
Yesterday we published an RC version of the Windows Management Framework 3.0. Windows Management Framework 3.0 RC makes some updated management functionality available to earlier versions of Windows. Windows Management Framework 3.0 RC can be installed on the following Operating Systems: Windows Management Framework 3.0 contains Windows PowerShell 3.0, WMI and WinRM. The package also includes a CIM provider that allows you to collect management data from servers with Windows Management Framework 3.0 installed with the new Server Manager in Windows Server 2012 RC. Feedback &...
Going to TechEd? Join Us to Build a Solution on Windows PowerShell 3.0
To cap off TechEd North America this year we are going to host a half day Windows PowerShell scenario walkthrough. The event will take place at the Rosen Center on Friday June 15 from 8am – noon. During this time we will collectively solve a problem from the ground up using many of the new features in Windows PowerShell 3.0 and Windows Server 2012. Starting from base Windows Server 2012 images, we will walk you through: You will need to bring your own laptop to follow along. Our room has space to accommodate 40 people. If you are interested please send a note to us at pow...
Running show-command for a cmdlet
Problem: Figuring out a cmdlet from its syntax can be overwhelming, especially for people new to PowerShell. PS C:\> get-command get-process -syntax Get-Process [[-Name] <string[]>] [-ComputerName <string[]>] [-Module] [-FileVersionInfo] [<CommonParameters>] Get-Process -Id <int[]> [-ComputerName <string[]>] [-Module] [-FileVersionInfo] [<CommonParameters>] Get-Process -InputObject <Process[]> [-ComputerName <string[]>] [-Module] [-FileVersionInfo] [<CommonParameters>] Get-command –syntax displays the syntax for the command. The top of get-he...
Microsoft Script Explorer for Windows PowerShell Beta 1 Now Available
We are very excited to announce the availability of Microsoft Script Explorer for Windows PowerShell (Script Explorer) Beta 1. Script Explorer is an extension of the Windows PowerShell content and guidance experience, combining the vast amount of knowledge held in the community with resources that are available from Microsoft. Script Explorer is integrated as an Add-On to Windows PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE). With Script Explorer, you can: · Discover information that is related to Windows PowerShell from across the community and Microsoft. · Search seamlessly across repositories suc...
Improved WMI experience in PowerShell 3.0
There is a famous quote often attributed to Jeffrey Snover, “IT Pros love and hate WMI. They love it because there is so much great stuff there. They hate it because it is complex to use”. Not to our surprise, most of the IT Pros and developers we talked to agree with this. This is going to change with Windows “8”. We listened to your feedback and have made heavy investment in this area. This blog post standards based management in Windows Server 8 by Jeffrey Snover and Wojtek Kozaczynski provides an excellent overview. I would like to highlight two important aspect of improved PS+WMI...