PowerScripting Podcast

A Podcast about Windows PowerShell.

Listen:

In This Episode

We have a great show lined up for you today.  We’ll be talking with Eric Madariaga from /n Software. And of course we have news, tips, resources, and more!  And be sure to listen till the end when we’ll be giving away free commercial licenses for /n Software’s Net cmdlets!

News

• There’s a new PowerShell podcast in town Get-Scripting ! I guess the rule is you have to have a Jonathan to have a PowerShell podcast (with apologies to the other Jonathan)
• If you missed Marco’s session on the NetCmdlets don’t sweat it. It was postponed until next month
• MVP Marco Shaw has posted his plans for future VUG meetings.
• PowerGUI 1.5.1 is now out.  Some new stuff includes:
  • VMware VI client integration 
  • Online search for PowerShell scripts (using poshcode.org!)
  • enhancements to code completion

Interview

Do you have the muscle to bring home the prize? Check out the details here.

Tonight, we’re talking to Eric Madariaga with /n Software.  VP of Marketing.

1. Background
   1. career
      1. been there for 10 years, started as web dev
   2. tell us about /n software
      1. dev tools
      2. components
      3. security, encryption, compression
   3. current position
      1. VP of Marketing
2. NetCmdlets
   1. product came out when?  It was very early
      1. Launched at TechEd EMEA 2006
   2. v2 is in beta?
      1. telnet
      2. amazon S3 cmdlet
         1. move files
         2. simpleDB
         3. EC2
3. PowerShell Server (formerly PowerShell Remoting)
   1. SSH server with a PowerShell shell
4. PowerShellToys / PowerShellASP
   1. IIS filter
   2. will be adding related products such as pasp web part for sharepoint
   3. PrimalScript integration (see screenshot)
      

       

5. Future
   1. Sharepoint Server
      1. move docs
      2. update lists
   2. Biztalk
6. Websites: http://nsoftware.com, http://powershelltoys.com

A Podcast about Windows PowerShell.

Listen:

In This Episode

We have a great show lined up for you today.  We’ll be talking with Brandon Shell (PowerShell MVP) and Steve Murawski (Mind of Root podcast co-host) in a roundtable discussion.  And of course we have news, tips, resources, and more!

News

Thanks to iTripoli for sponsoring this segment.

“Admin Script Editor provides a true integrated scripting environment for PowerShell.  Advanced features include an integrated PowerShell debugger, advanced code generating tools for Active Directory, Databases, XML files and the exclusive PowerShell forms designer.  Come see for yourself– Admin Script Editor v3.5 is availble for a 45 day trial at AdminScriptEditor.com.”

• VMWare is kicking off a PowerShell scripting contest
  • 1st prize: Airfare, hotel and admission to VMWorld 2008 in Las Vegas
  • 2nd prize: Macbook air with VMWare Fusion
  • 3rd prize: XBox 360 Elite
• Marco Shaw is doing NetCmdlets presentation for the UK User group on July 31st
• PowerShell Team Blog : PowerShell Build Environment for Windows SDK – The Windows SDK team would like your feedback on what features you would like most in a future Windows SDK. One of your choices is a PowerShell Build Environment.
• Introducing psake – James Kovacs  – psake is a build automation tool written in PowerShell. It avoids the angle-bracket tax associated with executable XML by leveraging the PowerShell syntax in your build scripts.

Roundtable

Today’s roundtable is brought to you by Quest Software.

Do you have what it takes to be the ultimate script warrior? Find out with Quest’s PowerPack Challenge ’08.

Quest Software is sponsoring a PowerShell Scripting contest where you can test your skills and get paid. Just create some cool PowerShell scripts using Quest’s PowerGUI and then post them to our site. You’ll get a score and our celebrity judges will weigh in as well.

Do you have the muscle to bring home the prize? Check out the details here.

We are speaking tonight to to Brandon Shell from bsonposh.com and Steve Murawski from Mind of Root podcast.

Here are a few notes from the panel discussion:

1. “How to help the IT firefighter learn a new scripting language”
   1. how to make time?
   2. WMI classes
      1. win32_operatingsystem
      2. win32_computersystem
      3. win32_process
      4. win32_services
   3. AD
   4. training classes
2. Covering too much V2?  <sepeck> well, more thaqt there is this whole world of people who still are just discovering that there are basics to cover.
3. XML?
4. Polymon

Resources

• Hal brings us a couple of scripts for saving credentials
• Getting Started with PowerShell 2 – Part 3
• Video of Ben Pearce’s session from TechEd about PowerShell and WMI has been posted
• Jeffery Hicks has been busy over at the Sapien blog
  • Fun with History
  • Fun with debug messages

Tips

• noble musings: Spreading Exchange 2007 mailboxes between databases with PowerShell
• Precision Computing – PowerShell Execution Policies in Standard Images – Once in awhile, we get questions about the best practice for PowerShell’s execution policy when it is included as part of a standard desktop image. This is one of the main reasons that PowerShell ships with a “Restricted” execution policy.
• PowerShellers: The “#requires” statement

A Podcast about Windows PowerShell.

Listen:

We have a great show lined up for you today.  We’ll be talking to Carter Shanklin from VMware about their PowerShell Toolkit.  He’s got some exciting NEW news to share with us, so that’s cool.  We’ll also bring you news, resources, tips and whatever else we can scrape up.

News

This segment is brought to you by Quest Software.

Do you have what it takes to be the ultimate script warrior? Find out with Quest’s PowerPack Challenge ’08.

Quest Software is sponsoring a PowerShell Scripting contest where you can test your skills and get paid. Just create some cool PowerShell scripts using Quest’s PowerGUI and then post them to our site. You’ll get a score and our celebrity judges will weigh in as well.

Do you have the muscle to bring home the prize? Check out the details here.

• PowerShellASP (powershelltoys.com) – PowerShellASP is an ASP-like template language for Web Applications; templates contain a mixture of markup (HTML, XML or whatever you want to generate) and inline PowerShell code. At runtime, templates/pages are fully translated to PowerShell code and exe
• Codeplex project PowerShell Pages (codeplex.com/powershellpages)- PowerShell Pages is an ASP like language, based on the PowerShell runtime. Using a simple HTTP Handler, ASP.NET can render pages scripted using PowerShell script (including cmdlets, and CLR/.NET objects) to the web. Simple, fast and intuitive programming
• VMware Toolkit 1.0 is out of beta!  (vmware.com/go/powershell)
  • 125 cmdlets
  • focus on VM lifecycle and ESX server deployment and configuration

Interview

Today’s news is brought to you by iTripoli.

“Admin Script Editor provides a true integrated scripting environment for PowerShell.  Advanced features include an integrated PowerShell debugger, advanced code generating tools for Active Directory, Databases, XML files and the exclusive PowerShell forms designer.  Come see for yourself– Admin Script Editor v3.5 is availble for a 45 day trial at AdminScriptEditor.com.”

1. Background
   1. long time developer in Unix-land
   2. VMware for 8 months
2. Current Role
   1. Product Manager
3. Solving Problems
   1. change CD drives on 1500 VMs
4. VMware Toolkit for Windows
   1. Works on VMS 2.0
   2. Lab Manager, VDM — future potential
   3. 125 cmdlets
   4. focus on ESX & VC
      1. side one: VM lifecycle
      2. side two: VM host deployment
   5. 1.0 released TODAY!
   6. download: http://vmware.com/go/powershell
   7. blog: http://blogs.vmware.com/vipowershell
   8. for help
      1. online docs
      2. community (link from download site)
5. Discussion
   1. VM automation
      1. they are working on it, will use VIX
   2. Developers & PowerShell
      1. key is powershell is application focused
      2. scripts write like you think the task should work
   3. Excel automation
      1. great for general powershell — not vmware specific
   4. v2 ctp module?

Resources

• There is now an online reference for the Quest AD Cmdlets- Thanks Dmitry
• Video on edge.technet.com about PowerShell and Exchange with Desmond Lee

Tips

• Jeffrey Snover reminds us to update your GAC!  This really speeds up the start time for a powershell console.
• Enabling WinRM with Powershell / Get-Powershell – Don’t forget you can use Configure-WSman.ps1 to configure WinRM using PowerShell.
• you can get a much faster file count of a directory by doing a get-item on the parent folder and calling the getFiles() method. Thanks Jaykul!
  • measure-command {
    $folder = get-item ‘\\server\share’
    Write-Host ($folder.getfiles()).count} # 524 Milliseconds
    Measure-Command {(gci ‘\\server\share’).count} # 1min 18 sec
  • note that getfiles() will not count any directories

Cmdlet-of-the-Week

• out-host has a -Paging parameter

Gotcha

• Vista Event Logs and PowerShell – Ben Pearce points out that you can NOT use Get-EventLog to access all the new logs that are in Vista.

Talk to you next week!  Don’t forget to follow Jonathan and Hal on Twitter.

Hi everyone.  We just wanted to let you know that this week’s show will not come out until Friday.  This is a one-time thing, we will be back to our normal Monday release schedule soon.

In the meantime, you can get a preview of the topics we’ll be discussing here and here.

Talk to you Friday!

A Podcast about Windows PowerShell.

Listen:

In This Episode

We have a great show lined up for you today.  With us via Skype will be MVPs Kirk Munro and Dmitry Sotnikov both from Quest.  And no show would be complete without News, Resources, and Tips!

News

Today’s news is brought to you by iTripoli.
“Admin Script Editor provides a true integrated scripting environment for PowerShell.  Advanced features include an integrated PowerShell debugger, advanced code generating tools for Active Directory, Databases, XML files and the exclusive PowerShell forms designer.  Come see for yourself– Admin Script Editor v3.5 is availble for a 45 day trial at AdminScriptEditor.com.”

• Preview video up of a very interesting new open-source project called PoshBoard.  It’s a solid clone of iGoogle, including the AJAX widgets, but the widgets are…PowerShell code!
• And we have more videos.  Marco Shaw has posted the videos from PS VUG meeting #6.
• We’re really excited about PoshCode.org.  This is a new domain but an old resource with a bit of a facelift and some new features.  This is the same script repository back end featured at PowerShellCommunity.org and PowerShellCentral.com.  Joel Bennett is adding features to make this a very useful tool.

Panel

This segment is brought to you by Quest!

Do you have what it takes to be the ultimate script warrior? Find out with Quest’s PowerPack Challenge ’08.

Quest Software is sponsoring a PowerShell Scripting contest where you can test your skills and get paid. Just create some cool PowerShell scripts using Quest’s PowerGUI and then post them to our site. You’ll get a score and our celebrity judges will weigh in as well.

Do you have the muscle to bring home the prize? Check out the details here.

We decided to do something different for the interview section.  Instead of an interview, we picked a few topics and went at it round-robin.  Hope you like it!

1. Providers vs cmdlets (e.g. IIS7 providers)
2. Does PowerShell belong on a web server?
3. Aside from remoting–what is version two’s most killer feature?

Resources

This section is brought to you by SAPIEN Technologies

• DevInfra-US – Very cool English version of a French PowerShell blog. In his words: “Microsoft Infrastructure Development solutions with PowerShell, C#, ASP.NET and silverlight… Best Effort English translation from Devinfra.blogspot.com :)”
• Antoine from DevInfra has written three articles (one, two, three) on how to call PowerShell script from within an ASP page.  Very cool stuff!
• get-admin – This is a new “Enterprise Administration and Automation” blog by Glenn S. He starts off with a nice screencast showing you how to run a posh script as a scheduled task.
• HyperVoria | Hyper-V PowerShell library – now on Codeplex – Thanks to Steve Murawski for pointing this one out. The Codeplex project page is here.

Thanks for listening!  Don’t forget to follow Jon and Hal on Twitter.

A Podcast about Windows PowerShell.

Listen:

In This Episode

We have a great show lined up for you today.  We’re interviewing Peter Schulz with Citrix to talk about their PowerShell product Workflow Studio.  And as always: News, Resources, Tips, and more!

News

Today’s news is brought to you by SAPIEN Technologies.

• Windows PowerShell : IIS7 PowerShell Provider Tech Preview 2.  What’s new with TP2?
  • IIS7 Powershell provider now supports SSL (installing and acquiring a certificate, creating an ssl site binding)
  • Tech Preview 2 ships with 40 new cmdlets.
• PowerGUI hit a major milestone in surpassing 100,000 downloads!
• From the GPO Guy: New Version of GPMC PowerShell Cmdlets Released!
  • This new version represents a significant updgrade to the existing cmdlets. The biggest change is that we incorporated new functionality that became available in the version of GPMC that shipped with Vista, SP1 and Windows Server 2008.
• Sapien has released build 567 of PrimalScript 2007. New features include:
  • PowerShell Debugger now integrated into Professional and Enterprise Editions
  • PrimalSense for PowerShell operators
  • Parameter prompting for PowerShell scripts
• A new version of the GPMC PowerShell Cmdlets has been released

Interview

This interview is brought to you by iTripoli.
“Admin Script Editor provides a true integrated scripting environment for PowerShell.  Advanced features include an integrated PowerShell debugger, advanced code generating tools for Active Directory, Databases, XML files and the exclusive PowerShell forms designer.  Come see for yourself– Admin Script Editor v3.5 is availble for a 45 day trial at AdminScriptEditor.com.”

Our interview today is with Peter Schulz from Citrix.  Enjoy.  Here’s our notes from the conversation:

1. Intro
   1. Peter Schulz has been with Citrix for over 8 years in Consulting, Engineering, Product Marketing, and is now the Technical Product Manager for Citrix Workflow Studio, a new IT Process Automation tool that is currently available as a technology preview.
   2. Background
   3. PowerShell’s adoption inside Citrix
2. Workflow Studio
   1. Background / Why the acquisition?
   2. Features
      1. Overview
      2. Built-in tasks
         1. How are these made?
         2. Can a user create new ones?
         3. How often will Citrix be updating them?
         4. Selected Categories / tasks
            1. AD: Create Random Password
            2. input/output: user choice
            3. flow control: split task
      3. Can workflows be executed on remote systems directly?
      4. You can double-click on a task and you drill down into a function?  How does this work?
   3. Will the product remain free?
      1. There will always be a free version similar to what is in the tech preview now.  The commercial version will of course have more stuff in it.
   4. Ship date?
      1. Second half of this year
   5. How are customers using it so far?
   6. Vision / future plans
      1. .net 3.5
3. For more information?
   1. Peter’s blog: http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/petersc
   2. Workflow Studio download link: http://citrix.com/wfsinsider
   3. Community page: http://community.citrix.com/display/cdn/Citrix+Workflow+Studio

Resources

Do you have what it takes to be the ultimate script warrior? Find out with Quest’s PowerPack Challenge ’08.

Quest Software is sponsoring a PowerShell Scripting contest where you can test your skills and get paid. Just create some cool PowerShell scripts using Quest’s PowerGUI and then post them to our site. You’ll get a score and our celebrity judges will weigh in as well.

Do you have the muscle to bring home the prize? Check out the details here.

• Don Jones gives a great illustration of how the pipeline works in this month’s TechNet Magazine
• Jon Noble points us out to Updated PowerShell resources from TechNet Script Center
  • Two of the more comprehensive resources on Script Center have just been updated, the PowerShell Owner’s Manual and the Vbscript to PowerShell conversion guide.
• And Jaykul from HuddledMasses.org has posted part two of the powershell profile article we mentioned last week.
• Oisin brings us a script that will resolve all Aliases in a script. Uses CTP2 tokenizer

Tips 

• Variable expansion in strings. We’ve talked about it before, but I saw someone fighting with it just yesterday.
  • “$object.parameter something else” does not work. Use “$($object.parameter) something else” instead
• From Poshoholic: Essential PowerShell: Name your custom object types
  • One important thing that is often overlooked when people are writing scripts that do this is that they can also give those objects a type name.
• Sepeck on the #PowerShell IRC channel (irc.freenode.net) shared a link with us about his experiences with PowerShell help files.  It’s a good before-and-after story with a lesson.  🙂  He links to one of Don Jones’ articles with further advice on the topic.

One-Liner

• [system.directoryservices.activedirectory.domain]::GetCurrentDomain().DomainControllers | fl Name

A big thanks to Peter Schulz for coming on the show tonight.  We’re looking forward to interviewing the Kirk and Dmitry from the PowerGUI team.  Send in your questions!  As always, you can contact the show by email to feedback@powerscripting.net.  You can also leave us reviews on iTunes and comments on the blog.  Don’t forget to check out Quest’s contest details at quest.com/powerscripting.

Other ways to interact with us: Facebook Group (forums, networking), Twitter (jonwalz & halr9000)

A Podcast about Windows PowerShell.

Listen:

In This Episode

We have a ton of stuff foryou today.  News, Resources, Tips, and even an old favorite, the Cmdlet of the Week.

News

The news is brought to you by iTripoli.

“Admin Script Editor provides a true integrated scripting environment for
PowerShell.  Advanced features include an integrated PowerShell debugger,
advanced code generating tools for Active Directory, Databases, XML files
and more.  Let’s not forget about the exclusive PowerShell forms designer.
What’s coming up? Soon its innovative and feature-rich ScriptPackger tool
will offer support for the dynamic installation of cmdlets! Come see for
yourself– Admin Script Editor v3.5 is availble for a 45 day trial at
AdminScriptEditor.com.”

• EWeek lists PowerShell as #7 on the list of the best Microsoft products of all time
• SAPIEN has released ActiveXPoSH as a free download
  • The ActiveXPoSH COM component released with PrimalScript 2007 Service build 566 is now available as a free download from SAPIEN.com
• Microsoft is looking for people to participate in a PowerShell usability study July 22 to 29th

• Quest has released version 1.1 of their AD cmdlets (from Rod Trent at myITforum.com)
  • The theme of this release was native AD permission management and so we added the following cmdlets in the 1.1 release
    • Add-QADPermission
    • Get-QADObjectSecurity
    • Get-QADPermission
    • Get-QADRootDSE
    • Get-QARSAccessTemplate
    • Get-QARSAccessTemplateLink
    • New-QARSAccessTemplateLink
    • Remove-QADPermission
    • Remove-QARSAccessTemplateLink
    • Set-QADObjectSecurity
    • Set-QARSAccessTemplateLink

Resources

This segment brought to you by Sapien Technologies 

• Joel Bennett brings us a great blog post on setting up your user profile it’s called “Getting Started with PowerShell 2 – Part1”
• Tomas R. has written several articles on his blog that deal with integrating Biztalk with PowerShell.
  • Administering BizTalk with PowerShell: Part 1
  • Updated PS & BizTalk Posts
• MSDN Virtual Lab- What’s new in PowerShell V2 – from The PowerShell Guy
• Jonathan Medd created a PowerGUI powerpack for managing Exchange 2003
• Ben Pearce did a short video interview at Teched for Technet Edge

Tips

This segment brought to you by Quest Software.

Do you have what it takes to be the ultimate script warrior? Find out with Quest’s PowerPack Challenge ’08.

Quest Software is sponsoring a PowerShell Scripting contest where you can test your skills and get paid. Just create some cool PowerShell scripts using Quest’s PowerGUI and then post them to our site. You’ll get a score and our celebrity judges will weigh in as well.

Do you have the muscle to bring home the prize? Check out the details here.

• “Unix like command for tac?” (reverse cat, or in our case Tnetnoc-Teg)
  • Keith Hill proposes a neat solution using System.IO.FileStream which I found interesting simply because I had never seen that .NET object used before.  However, there was some discusssion on the IRC channel about this and Jaykul pointed out that it would be much faster (for moderate-size files) to just read the whole thing in and print it out in reverse.
  • $foo = gc .\tac.ps1; [array]::reverse($foo); $foo
• Brandon Shell shows us how to use ADSI to change the local admin password
• Hal has a script up called Get-Parameter.

CmdLet

• get-variable

A Podcast about Windows PowerShell.

Listen:

We have a ton of stuff for you today.  Our interview is with Thorbjörn Sjövold from Special Operations Software.  Also on tap: news (yes we have some today), resources, tips and even a gotcha.

News

The news is brought to you by Sapien Technologies.

• SDM Software – Group Policy Health cmdlet
• Portable PowerShell? Karl Prosser has a way to do it.
• Citrix has released a tech preview of their new Workflow Studio product.  To download a copy, go to the download page, but realize you have to have a My Citrix account (to which you can sign up for free).
• PowerGUI won the “Breakthrough Product of 2008” award at TechEd.  Congrats, guys!
• Dmitry blogs about a new MS Office Communication Server PowerGUI Powerpack
• We may see a new PowerShell V2 CTP drop in November to be timed with IT Forum Barcelona (the EU version of TechEd).  Jeffrey Snover also hints at a release date on his blog.

Interview

Our interview today is brought to you by Quest Software.

For a limited time, Quest is offering Powerscripting Podcast listeners a free copy of Jeffery Hicks upcoming book, Managing Active Directory with Windows PowerShell: TFM from Sapien Press.

Go to www.quest.com/powerscripting to register for your copy and download their free graphical user interface, script editor and Active Directory commands.

Resources

The resources are brought to you by iTripoli.

“Admin Script Editor provides a true integrated scripting environment for PowerShell.  Advanced features include an integrated PowerShell debugger, advanced code generating tools for Active Directory, Databases, XML files and more.  Let’s not forget about the exclusive PowerShell forms designer. What’s coming up? Soon its innovative and feature-rich ScriptPackger tool will offer support for the dynamic installation of cmdlets! Come see for yourself– Admin Script Editor v3.5 is availble for a 45 day trial at AdminScriptEditor.com.”

• Scriptform designer tip for the Admin Script Editor
• This is from a twitter fan stahler and his new blog “FatBeard’s Adventures in PowerShell“:
  • Change DNS & WINS on multiple machines “I was recently asked if I could change the DNS & WINS IP address on multiple servers via script. PowerShell to the rescue!”
• Jeffery Snover has a post on getting credentials from the command line -it’s a simple registry change
• Speaking of PowerGUI earlier, be sure to follow PowerGUI.org, and these developer blogs for news and tips about that product:
  • Dmitry’s PowerBlog
  • Kirk Munro’s Poshoholic
• Kirk Munro also brings us a great book review of the Windows PowerShell Pocket Reference (Lee Holmes)
• Also Kirk let us know about an interview that Dmitry did during Teched for ITTV
• Go check out “Benp’s Guide to Stuff“.  This is from Ben Pearce, a field engineer from Microsoft.  He’s got a great blog, but I wanted to mention that he’s also a great speaker.  He did a wonderful PowerShell & WMI presentation at TechEd.  He’s posted several of his demos on his website.

Gotcha

• This is from a longtime Citrix expert Brian Madden (brianmadden.com).  The article is from April, but I just came across it the other day.  The key part of the article is this quote:  “a student in our 5-day Citrix Master class in Ausralia a few weeks ago told of doing the “right” thing. He said that he had taken the time to learn PowerShell and rewrote all of his VBS Citrix login scripts in PowerShell. The result? Login times went from about 2.5 seconds to over 15 seconds per user!”
  • What’s the lesson here?  Don’t use PowerShell for login scripts? I would say it is a non-issue for single-user workstations, but may be something to consider for your Citrix or Termainl Server app servers.  Hopefully we’ll see this improve for V2.
  • There’s some amusing commentary on the article, you may want to check that out.

Please email us (feedback@powerscripting.net) tips and feedback!  We also love iTunes reviews and blog comments.  Other ways to interact with us: Facebook Group (forums, networking), Twitter (jonwalz & halr9000)