Tools

Tools
Matthew Hodgkins
DevOps

Using PowerShell to enable ChatOps on Windows

ChatOps is a term used to describe bringing development or operations work that is already happening in the background into a common chat room. It involves having everyone in the team in a single chat room, then bringing tools into the room so everyone can automate, collaborate and see how automation is used to solve problems. In doing so, you are unifying the communication about what work gets done and have a history of it happening.

Steve Parankewich
DevOps

Improve Delivery of PowerShell Tools or Version Controlled Files

I am back this week with a quick how-to article on delivering, installing, or launching version controlled files. In the past I ran into problems when having administrators launch my PowerShell tools from a network share. The performance was slow when launching it across the WAN, and the file would often be locked when I tried to replace it with a newer version. I came up with a solution to the problem by using none other than PowerShell.

David Wilson
Events

Recap of the Dec 2015 PowerShell Editor Services Hack Week

Thanks to all those who participated in the PowerShell Editor Services Hack Week last week! Much progress was made on fixing bugs and adding new features to both PowerShell Editor Services and the PowerShell extension for Visual Studio Code. Here’s a quick summary of the contributions that were made during the week: Variable Display Improvements in the Debugger Keith Hill made many great improvements to how we display variable contents in the Visual Studio Code debugger.

David Wilson
Announcements

Join us for the PowerShell Editor Services Hack Week, Dec 6-13!

Do you wish your favorite editor had better PowerShell editing support? Do you have a great idea for a new feature for the PowerShell extension in Visual Studio Code? We’re dedicating next week, December 6th through 13th (Sunday through next Sunday), to hacking together on new features to enable better PowerShell support in any editor! Here’s the plan: On Sunday, December 6th at 11AM-12PM PST (7-8PM GMT) I’ll host a Crowdcast event to give an overview of PowerShell Editor Services, the PowerShell extension for VS Code, and other general ideas for contributions that people can make.

David Jones
Tools

Convert ISO and WIM to VHD with a module

Convert-WindowsImage.ps1 is a very popular method to create VHD’s with. However it’s not a module, and in it’s current form cant be added to one. So I have started a new project on GitHub called WindowsImageTools and posted the results to the PowerShell Gallery. It has a few functions so far. Convert-Wim2Vhd, to do the work, and New-UnattendXml because it hate having to edit XML to make minor changes. The resulting XML is universal in that it works on both 32 and 64 bit and will do a silent install (currently on Volume Media only).

Matt Laird
PowerShell for Admins

Store Secured Password in PowerShell Script

Automation is awesome, but what if you need to run a script with elevated privileges? If you are following security best practices then the account you login with most likely doesn’t have the required elevated privileges. Storing your password in plain text in your scripts is no good either. So what do we do? There are several options and each has there place, but I’ll show you my favorite below. Check out the full article by clicking on the link below.

Matt Laird
PowerShell for Admins

Find Location of Locked Out Accounts

I’m Locked Out, Help! If you’ve been a sys admin for more than a week you’ve probably heard this…“I’m locked-out, help!”. Normally the user has made their way to your cube and is impatiently tapping their foot waiting for you to magically solve there problem. So you find their account, reset their password and everything is right with the world…Or is it? Two minutes later they show up again because their account was locked-out before they even got back to their desk.

Matt Laird
PowerShell for Admins

Basic Exchange Monitoring

Hello Powershell.org! This is the first time I’ve posted for anyone outside of my own powershell blog site PowerShellMasters.com and I just want to thank PowerShell.org for everything they do for our community. I think most of you would agree that this site is one of the best PowerShell sites out there today and I am grateful for the opportunity to reach so many PowerShell people. OK enough with the touchy-feely stuff.

Matthew Hodgkins
Tips and Tricks

Automating with Jenkins and PowerShell on Windows

Take a minute think about how many PowerShell scripts you have written for yourself or your team. Countless functions and modules, helping to automate this or fix that or make your teams lives easier. You spend hours coding, writing in-line help, testing, packaging your script, distributing it to your team. All that effort, and then a lot of the time the script is forgotten about! People just go back to doing things the manual way.

Don Jones
Tools

SAPIEN's new WMI Explorer Released

We all know that working with WMI/CIM can be frustrating. So little of it is documented, and it can be tough to find the class that has the exact info you need. A long time ago, SAPIEN released a very nice WMI Explorer tool that, recently, was taken offline. The reason is that the company was producing an all-new, from-scratch replacement - and it’s now available. Their new approach is pretty interesting.