As you already know we introduced PowerShell Desired State Configuration to the world at our TechEd NA 2013 Session . The session also introduced the notion of structural configuration (what) and environmental configuration (where) (at the 25:50 min mark...

Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC), just like any other Windows software, records errors and events in logs that can be viewed from the Event Viewer . However, the trick lies in effectively parsing these logs, so we know exactly why...

Continuing with the tradition of holiday gifts to the PowerShell community, the PowerShell team has just released DSC Resource Kit Wave-1 - a set of PowerShell modules that contain DSC resources and example configurations. The various modules that are...

PowerShell Workflow helps IT Pros automate the long running tasks, or workflows, that can affect multiple managed computers or devices at the same time. Windows PowerShell Workflow is designed to be robust and recoverable. The features that are built...

Script workflow debugging support is one of two major script debugging enhancements added in Windows PowerShell 4.0. The other new feature is script debugging in remote sessions, which is described in “ Windows PowerShell Remote Debugging ”. We introduced...

Windows PowerShell 4.0 includes two major enhancements to the script debugger. First, script debugging now works in remote sessions. Second, we’ve added debugging support for workflow scripts. This blog article describes the new remote debugging support...

We get a lot of questions about PowerShell Security Best Practices, and we got the chance to present an overview of them at this year’s (Microsoft internal) BlueHat conference . This was a 20-minute presentation, and focused on two parts: PowerShell Operational...

LCM and Meta Configuration To understand the concept of Meta Configuration, first we need to know what Local Configuration Manager (LCM) is, and what its responsibilities are. In short, LCM is the engine of Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration...

A Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) resource contains a module file (*.psm1), an optional data file (*.psd1),and a *.schema.mof file. Details about what each of those files should look like, and how you can create those files using...

Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration: Push and Pull Configuration Modes What are push and pull modes? The Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC) system has two configuration modes, which are referred to as push and pull...

DSC is a PowerShell extension that is part of Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1. DSC enables deploying and managing configuration data for software services and managing the environment in which these services run. A DSC Pull Server is a web-based...

At the heart of Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration are the resources. It is the resources which act behind the scenes for DSC to achieve its “make it so” philosophy. DSC ships with a number of resources in-box and you can take...

Now that you understand the value and need of Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration (DSC), and how to declaratively express the intent of machine configuration via the new configuration keyword , you might be wondering how the configuration happens...

Desired State Configuration is a new management platform in Windows Powershell that enables devOps scenarios on Windows. It enables system administrators and devOps to configure a system declaratively, enforce the configuration and reuse configuration...

One of the best things about PowerShell is its strong community. Events like the annual PowerShell Summit are a great way to get involved and learn more about PowerShell. As in the past, the PowerShell team will present several sessions at the PowerShell...

Some background A new breed of configuration management tools has been created to manage the platforms, applications, and infrastructure of the cloud, and keep the cloud running with high availability. The need for these new tools and infrastructure comes...

In the previous post for this series, we saw how System.Management.Automation.PowerShell class can be used to run PowerShell commands in a C# application. In all those cases, the runspace that we used was created in a default manner. In this post, we...

One thing I really like about Windows PowerShell ISE is its ability to expose its underlying script object model, to allow users to customize the scripting experience to suit their style and need. At the heart of customizing ISE is the $psISE object...

With the release of Windows Management Framework 4.0 (WMF 4.0), our package that lets you use management technologies from Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 on some of Microsoft’s older operating systems, we have been hearing one question fairly...

Windows Management Framework 4.0 , our package that lets you use management technologies from Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 on some of Microsoft’s older operating systems, is now available for you to download and install. This full-release...

In addition to being a scripting language, Windows PowerShell is also used as a platform in many applications. This is possible because the Windows PowerShell engine can be hosted inside an application. This blog post and the next will deal with the various...

Common Information Model (CIM) cmdlets have been around for a while, and come in handy when you are performing any CIM operation in PowerShell. They are easy to use, and provide a good user experience. In this blog post, I cover a few tips and tricks...

This post is a part of the nine-part “What’s New in Windows Server & System Center 2012 R2” series that is featured on Brad Anderson’s In the Cloud blog.  Today’s blog post covers management of network switches using CIM and WS-Man standards and how it applies to the larger topic of “Transform the Datacenter.”  To read that post and see the other technologies discussed, read today’s post: “What’s New in 2012 R2: IaaS Innovations.”

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This post is a part of the nine-part “What’s New in Windows Server & System Center 2012 R2” series that is featured on Brad Anderson’s In the Cloud blog.  Today’s blog post covers Out-Of-Band hardware management using new PCSVDevice cmdlets and how it applies to the larger topic of “Transform the Datacenter.”  To read that post and see the other technologies discussed, read today’s post: “What’s New in 2012 R2: IaaS Innovations.”

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We presented following sessions at this year’s edition of TechEd(s). At TechEd, we announced the newest feature in Windows PowerShell 4.0 – Desired State Configuration , so do check out the attached demos for it!! Desired State Configuration...