PowerShell Team

Automating the world one-liner at a time…

Windows Management Framework (WMF) 4.0 Update now available for Windows Server 2012, Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, and Windows 7 SP1

As part of the November 2014 Update (KB3000850), we released updates to PowerShell 4.0 for Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2. We are now pleased to make these same PowerShell 4.0 updates available for Windows Server 2012 (KB3119938), Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (KB3109118), and Windows 7 SP1 (KB3109118) via WMF 4.0 Update packages. At...

Windows Management Framework (WMF) 4.0 Update is coming your way …

Updated 05/03/2016 – On Jan 19th 2016, we had published the Windows Management Framework (WMF) 4.0 update packages for Windows Server 2012 (KB3119938), Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (KB3109118), and Windows 7 SP1 (KB3109118) . At this time, these update packages are only available by request through the aforementioned links. See WMF 4.0 ...

Documenting DSC

We have a new team of content developers focusing on documenting Desired State Configuration (DSC). Led by our manager Steve Kaczmarek, the team comprises Jaime Ondrusek, Corey Plett, and Eric Slesar. A little background:   Steve – I joined Microsoft in 2003 and manage the Management and Automation content development team. In ...

PowerShell DSC Does Exchange!

One of the more complex products to deploy and configure has just been made easier with the release of the xExchange PowerShell DSC Resource Module.   Mike Hendrickson, the creator of these resources, has begun documenting how to use PowerShell DSC to deploy & configure Exchange in the article Introducing the xExchange Module for...

Continuing the DSC Resource Kit Additions – Wave 7 is Live

The DSC Resource Kit Wave 7 update has been published, and is now available. You can download all of the resources from the DSC Resource Kit (All Resources) topic, and also find them by using PowerShellGet. This wave contains 4 new DSC Resources, which brings the total count of resources over 90 since last December.   In ...

Introducing the Azure PowerShell DSC (Desired State Configuration) extension

UPDATE 11/4/2014: For information on using PSCredential objects, please refer to this blog post. UPDATE 11/21/2014: For information on OS support, and other features, please refer to our release history. For the latest information regarding DSC Extension, refer to the product documentation. .......... Earlier this year Microsoft ...

Chef with PowerShell DSC Now Public!

Many of you have seen the demos done by our friends at Chef, which show how they planned to leverage PowerShell DSC. Those plans are now public as of the publishing of the PowerShell DSC Cookbook for Chef announced in the recent blog post by Adam Edwards. Check it out here:  http://www.getchef.com/blog/2014/07/24/getting-ready-for-chef-...

Creating a Secure Environment using PowerShell Desired State Configuration

Introduction: Traditionally, IT environments have secured their business critical information against external threats by adding additional layers of security to the org’s network (e.g. firewalls, DMZs, etc.).  However many of today’s attacks are coming from inside the network so a new “assume breach” approach must be adopted. In ...

DSC Resource Kit Wave 4 is Live!

The value and number of PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) resources coming from Microsoft continues to grow. As of the release of DSC Resource Kit Wave 3, we were up to 50 total.   Now, we're happy to announce the DSC Resource Kit Wave 4.  This wave contains 16 new DSC resources, taking us up to 67 total resources ...

Wish I can author DSC Resource in C#!!

In previous blog, we learned how one can use their PowerShell skills to author DSC resources very easily. Still there are folks (we met some at TechEd NA) who want to author their DSC resources using C# because they are more productive with it than PowerShell language. Well, you can fully leverage the power of DSC by writing your resources in ...