Tuesday, May 27, 2008

NEW: Windows PowerShell Refcard by Bruce Payette

A very cool reference card, aka "refcard", has just been put up HERE.

It is written by one of the lead PowerShell developers at Microsoft, Bruce Payette.

What's great is it gets right to the point for PowerShell newcomers. Make sure to pass the word around.

WinRM 2.0 CTP (May 2008) install on Server Core--UPDATE

In my last post HERE, I indicated that there seems to be an issue with the new WinRM 2.0 CTP (May 2008) and Server Core 2008.

The WinRM team has confirmed the issue. They expect to ship a updated CTP some time in June that should address this issue with Server Core.

Monday, May 26, 2008

WinRM 2.0 CTP on Server Core--won't install

The latest and greatest PowerShell v2 CTP2 requires a new WinRM 2.0 CTP so that remoting will work on Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008. As Aleksandar Nikolic pointed out to me last week, it appears the WinRM CTP won't install on Server Core.

All I see is a message stating "The update does not apply to your system".

I've just fired off an email to the WinRM PM at Microsoft to get her feedback on this issue.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

SCOM: Installing the Command Shell elsewhere

I've been learning a lot about System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) 2007 lately. I had wondered if one could easily make the Command Shell available on other systems.

I came across this great post HERE on doing just this.

It is very detailed. I haven't tried it out yet, but it definitely looks like it covers everything.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

MS Press author: Windows Server® 2008 Administrator's Companion

Now that the book is officially released, I can publically announce that I contributed about 80 pages to the newly released Windows Server® 2008 Administrator's Companion.

I wrote a complete chapter on PowerShell aimed mostly as a quick overview/introduction for administrators that are new to PowerShell.

Key topics are reviewed, and then some examples are provided using the concepts discussed.

Many thanks for Charlie Russel for the opportunity! He also helped out a lot with the editing process, writing the introduction section, and valuable input throughout the chapter.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

My virtual user groups

I run a virtual PowerShell user group and have meetings roughly every 2 months. I recently had meeting #5.

My question to all my readers: Are you watching the recordings of my sessions? The live audience is dropping from each meeting to the next (and I know I'm not putting much of a marketing push on the upcoming meetings).

Do you have any kind of feedback on the user group? Positive and negative comments welcome and appreciated.

I'm doing this as much for PowerShell users out there as I am for my own personal education.

Tell me what you think!

CTP2: get-random -maximum

Just something to note, when using the -maximum flag to the new get-random cmdlet, you're actually defining a value that is considered exclusive. In other words, you might think the following will give you numbers between 1 and 10 (10 being inclusive):

get-random -minimum 1 -maximum 10

In actuality, the above gives you numbers starting at 1 to 9 inclusively:

CTP2>1..100|foreach-object{get-random -min 1 -max 10}|
>> group-object|sort-object name|
>> format-table -a name,@{label="Count";exp={"#"*$_.count}}
>>

Name Count
---- -----
1 ###################
2 #######
3 ##########
4 ###########
5 #####
6 ######
7 ##############
8 ###############
9 #############

CTP2>

The above is just a quick way to show the results visually. Each "#" represents the number of times that particular number showed up after 100 tries.

Friday, May 2, 2008

Windows PowerShell User Group #5--VIDEOS

Finally, I'm posting the videos and slides from my fifth user group meeting announced HERE.

I'm limited to 20-25MB/file for my SkyDrive account. I have problems uploading files if they are bigger than that. Sorry!

*Marco Shaw introduction.


*Bart De Smet (Microsoft): Focus on extensibility (cmdlets and providers) and discuss v2 features: script cmdlets and internationalization.





-PowerPoint presentation (PowerPoint 2007 required, PPT 2007 viewer available online)


*Steven Nelson (Microsoft): MSDN/SDK PowerShell documentation.


*Marco Shaw closing.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

New book coming: Windows PowerShell Pocket Reference

Lee Holmes is at it again: Windows PowerShell Pocket Reference. This should be handy to carry around, and a good update to his earlier quick reference PDF.