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• Steven Murawski
PowerShell for Admins

Configuring a Desired State Configuration Client

Once we have our pull server in place and we’re starting to create configurations, we need to set up our client nodes to be able to connect to the pull server and how we want the node to behave. The High Points Overview Configuring the Pull Server (REST version) Creating Configurations (one of two, two of two) Configuring Clients (this post) Building Custom Resources Packaging Custom Resources Advanced Client Targeting Examining the Local Configuration Manager The Desired State Configuration agent included in Windows Management Framework 4 (or natively on Server 2012 R2 / Windows 8.

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• Don Jones
Training

PowerShell "Scripting and Toolmaking" Classroom Training Course Now Available to Microsoft Training Centers

Attention Microsoft training centers! Microsoft’s Courseware Marketplace now offers course 55039AC, “Windows PowerShell Scripting and Toolmaking.” Designed as a 5-day course, it’s a spiritual “Part 2” to Microsoft Official Curriculum course 10961. With 10961, the goal was to provide a founding in PowerShell basics, in a somewhat product-neutral way. That is, the course doesn’t cover Exchange, or SharePoint, or AD; it focuses on pure PowerShell. Unlike its predecessor, 10325, the 10961 course kind of “stops short” of actual scripting.

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• Don Jones
PowerShell for Admins

Why Get-Content Ain't Yer Friend

Well, it isn’t your enemy, of course, but it’s definitely a tricky little beast. Get-Content is quickly becoming my nemesis, because it’s sucking a lot of PowerShell newcomers into its insidious little trap. Actually, the real problem is that most newcomers don’t really understand that PowerShell is an object-oriented, rather than a text-oriented shell; they’re trying to treat Get-Content like the old Type command (and why not? type is an alias to Get-Content in PowerShell, isn’t it?

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• Don Jones
PowerShell for Admins

The Shell vs. The Host

One thing that’s often very confusing about PowerShell is the difference between the shell itself - what I’ll call the engine in this article - and the application that hosts the engine. You see, you as a human being can’t really interact directly with PowerShell’s engine. Instead, you need a host application that lets you do so. The standard console - PowerShell.exe - is one such host; the Integrated Script Environment (ISE) is another.

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• Don Jones
PowerShell Summit

More Summit Speaker Names Leaked

So, I got hold of one of the Summit planning spreadsheets and have the list of speaker names. Now, these folks haven’t yet confirmed, so there are obviously possible changes, but here’s who’ll be invited based on their proposals: Augh, they caught me! The complete session list isn’t yet finalized, and there are a few on the “final cut list” that may not actually physically fit, so stay tuned… Lotta Jasons in there.

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• Steven Murawski
Tips and Tricks

Desired State Configuration – General Availability Changes

PowerShell DSC, along with Windows Server 2012 R2 has reached General Availability!  Yay! However, there is (at least one so far) breaking change** **in Desired State Configuration (DSC). Fortunately, the change is in an area I haven’t blogged about yet.. creating custom resources.  Unfortunately, it does mean I’ll have to update the GitHub repository and all my internal content (should be done by early next week). The short version is that DSC resources are now resources inside modules, rather than each resource being independent modules.

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• Don Jones
PowerShell Summit

Did you attend the 2013 PowerShell Summit?

I’m looking to hear from folks who attended the PowerShell Summit North America 2013. Specifically, I’d love to hear what you thought of it. What value did you get? If someone were considering attending in 2014, what advice would you offer them? How should they approach the boss? What did you, personally, “take home” from the Summit in the way of new information or skills? Drop a comment below. Some comments might be re-published as standalone posts as we try to help people understand what the Summit is all about, and why they might want to attend.

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• Don Jones
Training

Why the HECK Do You Want to be Taught .NET in a PowerShell Class?!?!?!

Ok, that post title is deliberately provocative. Twitter and all that. So look, we’re designed this advanced PowerShell class. One of the top five constant suggestions I get whenever I say “advanced” and “PowerShell” is “.NET Framework.” And I get it. When there’s no cmdlet, .NET has a ton of goodies that can solve a lot of problems. Maybe you don’t like turning to it, but you’ll do it if you have to.

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• Don Jones
Training

Questions about an Advanced PowerShell Class Design

As we continue collecting responses to an outline survey about an Advanced PowerShell class, I’ve come up with a couple of questions and would appreciate any feedback you’d care to leave here. Keep in mind that we’re a bit bound by this course being Microsoft Official Curriculum. I gotta make sure, in other words, that the average MCT can teach it. Ahem. I also have to face facts that people don’t read or obey course pre-requisite suggestions, and that a lot of people taking the course will have zero programming background.

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• Steven Murawski
PowerShell for Admins

Building a Desired State Configuration Configuration – Part 2

Ok, let’s get back to creating a DSC configuration.  If you haven’t read the last post in this series, go back and do that now, I’ll wait.  Now with that out of the way, let’s get back to it… The High Points Overview Configuring the Pull Server (REST version) Creating Configurations (one of two, two of two - this post) Configuring Clients Building Custom Resources Packaging Custom Resources Advanced Client Targeting Picking Back UP Now that we have some of the basics down, we can start to look deeper at how composable these configurations are.

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