Friday, October 31, 2008

Windows PowerShell Virtual User Group Meeting #7

Windows PowerShell Virtual User Group Meeting #7

Time: November 13th, 2008 at 12PM EST (noon; New York time)
Place: Online via Live Meeting 2007

-----------------------------------------------------------
To sign up:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Registration site: http://www.clicktoattend.com/?id=133189
Event Code: 133189
-----------------------------------------------------------

This is our seventh virtual event. Invited speakers that will talk about various PowerShell-related topics: Nathan Winters (Exchange MVP), Joel (Jaykul) Bennett, Idera (vendor)

To join:
https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/winserver_usergroup/join?id=4RS44G&role=attend&pw=8%5E-%5CzqX

Video:
Video will be delivered via the Microsoft Live Meeting client

Audio:
For attendees, audio will be delivered via the Internet using your computer's speakers. There will not be a call-in number for this meeting (as was the case in the past).

Unable to join the meeting? Follow these steps:
1.Copy this address and paste into your web browser:
https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/winserver_usergroup/join
2.Copy and paste the required information:
Meeting ID: 4RS44G
Entry Code: 8^-\zqX

Agenda:
12:00PM-12:10PM: Introduction
12:10PM-12:35PM: Nathan Winters (MVP)
12:40PM-1:00PM: Joel Bennett
1:05PM-1:30PM: Idera
1:30PM-1:35PM: Closing

Speaker topics:
*Nathan Winters (MVP): "Exchange 2007 from PowerShell". Nathan will show how PowerShell can be used with Exchange 2007.
*Joel (Jaykul) Bennett: "PoSh Tools for the Huddled Masses". Joel, a prominent PowerShell developer, is always full of surprises. This should be a "must attend" for everyone.
*Idera (vendor): Idera will demo their PowerShellPlus product. PowerShellPlus is a editor with strong PowerShell support.

Notes:
All details related to this event will be posted on http://www.powershellcommunity.org.
(NOTE: This is delivered via Live Meeting 2007. It is possible that you may have to download and install the Live Meeting 2007 client which can take possibly up to 10 minutes typically.)

Monday, October 27, 2008

Command Shell: Set-MaintenanceWindow with an end time of now

Reported on MS Connect HERE.

I view this more as an issue. Please vote if you come across this problem by following the link above. There is a bit more information if you follow the link also.

Summary:
----------------------
When a maintenance window has been created, if "Set-MaintenanceWindow -endtime $(get-date)" is used, it will output an error:
-------------------------------
Set-MaintenanceWindow : Cannot set scheduled end time to a time in the past
-------------------------------

There seems to be a small delay in processing the command, simply doing this works:
Set-MaintenanceWindow -endtime $(get-date).addseconds(1)

The cmdlet should gracefully accept a end time of "now".
----------------------

Command Shell: Get-MaintenanceWindow reports datetime in UTC

Reported on Microsoft Connect HERE.

See the summary below. Go to the above link to view the full details. I added this more as feedback versus adding it as an issue (it isn't an actual "trouble").

Please use the above link to vote on the issue if you think this should be resolved by the OpsMgr team.

Summary:
----------------------
Get-MaintenanceWindow reports StartTime and ScheduledEndTime property as the UTC time (ignoring the local timezone).

Example below, the current time is approximately:
Monday, October 27, 2008 7:15:14 PM

When the New-MaintenanceWindow cmdlet is used to create a maintenance window starting immediately, using Get-MaintenanceWindow immediately after, the StartTime shows as:
(Monday, October 27, 2008 7:15:14 PM)+6 (Timezone value)-1 (not DST)=10/28/2008 12:14:58 AM

So it appears, the StartTime property follows the above formula to display the value to the console via the Command Shell.

Get-MaintenanceWindow should report Date/time properties while accounting for the local timezone settings.
----------------------

Saturday, October 18, 2008

DPM: Getting the installed DPM version

I found an interesting post in the microsoft.public.dataprotectionmanager newsgroup where it was asked if there was a way to tell what version of DPM was installed on a remote server.

Unfortunately, DPM doesn't provide a built-in cmdlet to accomplish this apparently, but a VBScript solution was provided using WMI. Of course, I had to provide a simple PowerShell solution:

PS>get-wmiobject -computername some_computer win32_product -filter "Name = 'Microsoft System Center Data Protection Manager 2007'"|select version

(I don't have a DPM environment to test, so maybe someone else can help to confirm that this works?)

So even though DPM doesn't provide this directly, we can obtain the info using the get-wmiobject cmdlet to do a WMI query.

Command Shell: Microsoft introduction video

This has been available online for several months, but I wanted to add a link to it on my blog.

Roger Sprague from the OpsMgr team did this great into video on the Command Shell HERE.

Definitely worth watching for people new to the OpsMgr Command Shell.

Friday, October 10, 2008

TechDays: Canada's answer to TechEd

[Update October 24th, 2008: Unfortunately, the Halifax event has been removed from the list of cities where the event will be held.]

TechDays is something new for Microsoft Canada. A quote from the event's home page:

"With up to forty 200+ level sessions, Tech•Days is the learning conference on current and emerging technologies such as Virtualization, Group Policy in Windows Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 Resource Governor… and much more."

The closest event to my home town is Halifax, on December 17th, 2008.

**Early bird pricing (50% off!) ends October 15th, 2008.**

I'm honored to have been accepted as a speaker for a session on PowerShell and WMI. The official title is:

"Automating the Management of Windows Servers using PowerShell and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)"

For more information, check out some of the posts on this HERE.

I'm really looking forward to this event, and hope to meet and talk with others interested in PowerShell.

Fortunately, HERE is a letter to help convince your boss that you should attend this event.

Re-awarded: Microsoft MVP 2009

October 1st this year was a pretty big day for me: I find out if I've been re-awarded as a MVP. Well, I got re-awarded this year.

I'd like to thank Microsoft for having such a program for recognizing community contributions, and thank my MVP lead, Sasha Krsmanovic, for always being there to help.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Upcoming book: Microsoft SQL Server 2008

I recently wrapped up another authoring opportunity: I've contributed a chapter on the new PowerShell features in SQL Server 2008 for an upcoming book from SAMs: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Management and Administration.

It's cool to start seeing PowerShell showing up just about everywhere in new Microsoft related books coming out from all the various publishers.

Current release date is set for November 10th, 2008.