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A couple of months ago I had asked the PowerShell MVPs for suggestions on blog topics. Karl Prosser, one of our awesome MVPs, brought up the topic of scaling and queuing background jobs. The scenario is familiar: You have a file containing a bunch of input that you want to process and you don’t...

PowerShell ISE is a simple tool and in some cases it has the bare essentials. For instance, it does not have an option to save all files. On the flipside, it offers an Object Model from its first version that allows adding features beyond the essentials like this one and many more. If we had...

Merry Christmas.  To celebrate the holiday, here’s a quick Christmas tree written in WPK (the WPF PowerShell Kit).  You can get WPK as part of the PowerShellPack ( http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/PowerShellPack ). Here’s a screenshot: and Here’s the script: Import-Module WPK New-Polygon...

Just before the release of Windows 7, the Windows 7 Resource Kit PowerShell Pack was released.  Today, it hit 10,000 downloads. It contains 10 useful modules that help you do more with Windows PowerShell.  It has modules that can help every IT admin ( like the TaskScheduler module), and modules...

On October 15th I released a large collection of scripts called the PowerShellPack .  The PowerShellPack has tons of PowerShell V2 scripts that can be used to do all sorts of fun and practical things.  Today, we’ll show how to use a module in the PowerShell Pack to schedule sending a daily...

Here is a collection of tips and tricks to debug PowerShell Read Up There is a 7-part series of “ Debugging Monad Scripts ” that Jon Newman wrote a few years ago that covers a lot of tips, including error handling, traps, tracing, and covers a lot of V1 stuff. Clean code The best route, is to make...

A new feature of Windows PowerShell 2.0 lets you write custom cmdlet help for Windows PowerShell providers. This blog explains how to do it. (The topic will also be covered in excruciating detail in MSDN, but we don't want you to wait.) What's a Provider? A Windows PowerShell provider is a C#...

Here is a collection of differences between the PowerShell_ise.exe and PowerShell.exe, as well as workarounds and suggestion if you need them (assuming we have them :)) Limited support for interactive console apps, try cmd.exe, then try cmd.exe /k cmd.exe /c dir still works though, and more...

Hi writers and consumers of buggy scripts. This post explains the basics of the Graphical Debugger in the ISE. There’s a lot of good stuff, with some tips and tricks. The debugger support got the cmdlets and user interface. The cmdlets include Enable/Disable/Get/Set/Remove-PsBreakpoint and Get-PsCallStack...

I just posted a blog about our new File Transfer Cmdlets in which I artfully dodged a difficult question: How do you get the URL to do the file transfer? Sometimes you are going to have it but other times you’ll go to a website and it can be bloody impossible to find the URL that you need to download...

Have you had a file copy fail? Does that drive you crazy or what? How about when it is a REALLY big file and it takes a couple of hours and JUUUUUST before it finishes something happens to interrupt the transfer and you have to start all over again. Does that make you want to shove a sharpened #2 pencil...

Everyone needs to get good with Advanced Functions – this is the easiest path to the best semantics for everyone. In previous posts we’ve shown how you can add a few simple attributes and get a TON of stuff for free. There is a LOT more to advanced functions. You can go VERY VERY far with advanced functions...

I decided to experiment with a screencast. This is my first and I have no idea what I’m doing so please forgive me if it sucks. I’d like to know whether you find this format useful or not and then specific feedback about how to make the screencast better (e.g. I recorded it at 1024x768 - is that good...

There are so many powerful features in V2, it is hard to know where to begin. This one is going to blow to top of your head off when you understand what it enables you to do. In this blog, I talk about Proxy Cmdlets which is the ability for one Cmdlet to call another. You could always do this but...

James Brundage posted a blog entry How To Write a Console Application in PowerShell with Add-Type which used a here-string.   One user (lcr) copied and pasted the text and got the following error: Unrecognized token in source text. At line:1 char:72 + Add-Type -OutputType ConsoleApplication...

I write a lot of scripts, and, since I blog some of what I write, my home computer has been running Windows PowerShell CTP2 since it came out. Since CTP3 has a number of changes from CTP2, I've got to update my home script library to work with CTP3. While this guide might not have every change that happened...

In my previous blog post , I mentioned that we were all very proud and optimistic about W7 and WS08R2. There are tons of reasons for this including how well the project has been run, the hardcore focus on quality and performance, the great new features, etc. Another reason we are so optimistic is the...

Wow - the NY Times is Johnny-on-the-spot with their analysis of the 10 best features of Windows 7 for IT Pros HERE . It turns out that PowerShell is responsible for 3 of them! Come review time, I'm telling my boss that we're responsible for 30% of the value of W7. :-) !!! Just to be clear - I'm totally...

Yes that’s right, it’s not a typo. At today’s PDC, all attendees received a Pre Beta of WS08R2 & W7 (there are advantages to going to the PDC J ). Every version has PowerShell installed by default. The one exception is Server Core were we are trying to make everything an optional install. Our vision...

I’m giving the following session at the PDC in LA in a couple of weeks: PowerShell: Creating Manageable Web Services Learn how to create management web services using Windows PowerShell. Topics include: how to script against of a large set of machines, how to manage raw HW devices using WS-MAN and Web...