An authoritative learning resource to quickly get up to speed with new features and changes in Windows PowerShell is to consult the excellent built-in help system directly. This is provided that Update-Help is executed beforehand. Besides using ?* wildcards against the Get-Help (help or man) or Get-Command cmdlets to discover and learn more about a specific cmdlet set or feature, you should peruse the set of about_* help files to aid in your learning endeavours.
One good place to start is to run
help about_Windows_PowerShell_5.0 -ShowWindow
This help file continues to carry the same name under the production releases of Windows Server 2016, Windows 10 Anniversary Update or systems with WMF 5.1 installed. Interesting enough, it still refers to the former two as “Windows Server Technical Preview and Windows Technical Preview” in the documentation. Not surprisingly, certain inaccurate information remain such as references to a non-existence Compare-DscConfiguration, Test-ModuleManifest (which is already present in PowerShell 4.0) or “A new module, OneGet, lets you discover and install software packages …” (now formally call PackageManagement). Likewise, the provided links such as “What’s New in Windows PowerShell” contains information which are not necessarily updated# (Last Updated: 12/14/2016).
Now you may wonder what this blog post is all about?
Continue reading “HELP: PowerShell 5.1 / 5.0 What’s New (and More)”