Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy Ed Wilson talks about TechEd 2013 Day 1, and previews Day 2.

Monday, Day 1 of TechEd 2013 North America in New Orleans is over, and I am getting ready for Day 2. Last night we were late getting back to our hotel due to the Expo Hall reception and a late night dinner at my favorite New Orleans restaurant. To be honest, I was planning to write this blog post, but I simply crashed, and did not finish rebooting until this morning. Oh well. Here is what went on yesterday afternoon…

The first thing that happened was the Windows PowerShell Best Practices Birds-of-a-Feather session I did with Windows PowerShell MVP, Hal Rottenberg. The room was packed, and when I left, the lady at the door told me that she had turned away 150 people.

Note: For those who were turned away, I am doing another Birds-of-a-Feather session with Glenn Sizemore on Wednesday. It will also be a really cool session. Here is a picture of part of the room.

And here is a picture of another part of the room. The cool thing is that I turned up 30 minutes early to get set up, and the room was already full. It was a really good discussion, and both Hal and I really enjoyed the session. Several people who attended came by the Scripting Guys booth later and said they got a lot out of the event also. Groovy!!!

Following the Birds-of-a-Feather session, I headed back downstairs to the Expo Hall, where I had a book signing at the O’Reilly/MSPress booth. There again, they told me people had been lined up for more than 30 minutes for the signing. It was great to meet so many people I had met previously, such as a group from Toyota in Kentucky, and people who had competed in the Scripting Games from Columbus, Ohio. It was really a lot of fun. Here are the two who were first in line for the signing.

After the book signing, it was on to the Scripting Guys booth. This year I am sharing my booth with the people from PowerShell.org, so there were many very talented Scripting People around the booth for the meet-and-greet. At one point, Jeffrey Snover, Don Jones, Jason Helmick, Greg Shields (Concentrated Greg), and Chris Gannon were all hanging out and talking. 

Later the Scripting Wife, Hal, and Greg were clowning around a bit. In the background you can see Windows PowerShell MVP, Sean Kearney, in his trademarked Tilly hat.

Brian Wilhite was showing some of the attendees about using the CIM cmdlets in Windows PowerShell 3.0, and he had a crowd gathered around.

Here is the script he was showing and about which he was talking. It is actually pretty cool. It uses the Get-CimClass cmdlet to find WMI classes that have the SupportsUpdate qualifier. The script then produces a list of all classes and updatable properties–very cool, and useful too.

Get-UpdatableWMIClasses.ps1

$CimClasses = Get-CimClass -QualifierName SupportsUpdate
  Foreach ($CimClass in $CimClasses)
     {
         $Write = Get-CimClass -ClassName $CimClass.CimClassName |
             Select-Object -ExpandProperty CimClassProperties |
             Where-Object {$_.Qualifiers -like “*write*”}
         Foreach ($CimPropertyName in $Write.Name)
             {
                 [PSCustomObject]@{
                     CIMClass=$CimClass.CimClassName
                     CIMPropertyName=$CimPropertyName
                     CIMPropertyQualifiers=$Write.Qualifiers
                     }
             }
     }

So today, Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 2:00, I have a book signing at the TechEd 2013 conference book store. At 5:00 I am doing an Instructor Led Lab on Windows PowerShell 4.0 Desired State Configuration in Hall B Lab #3. Following that at 6:30, I have two Scripting Guys tables set up in the Ask The Experts in Halls G and H. The cool thing about the Ask the Experts is that several program managers from the Windows PowerShell team have agreed to come and answer questions. In addition, I will be there and Don Jones and several other really good Windows PowerShell people. It really will be an ask the experts event.

I hope you have a great day, and join me later today for more cool Windows PowerShell stuff.

Ed Wilson

Microsoft Scripting Guy