Author Archives: Administrator

You must have already noticed discrepancies in modules and corresponding commands[1] between PowerShell versions and releases. How can I keep abreast with constant changes in today’s ever fast-pace cloud technologies now that PowerShell is cross-platform commencing with version 6.x?

One way to find out yourself is illustrated here, paying attention to compare apples to apples i.e. Windows Desktop v.s. Windows Desktop. Otherwise, a big difference is to be expected between Windows Server 2016 and Windows 10 Desktop platforms running PowerShell 5.1.x for instance. Continue reading →

In the default installation of PowerShell Core 6.0 and Windows PowerShell 5.10 (PS5) with 13 and 89 modules discovered respectively, both PS versions have overlapping module names as illustrated:

CimCmdlets
Microsoft.PowerShell.Archive
Microsoft.PowerShell.Diagnostics
Microsoft.PowerShell.Host
Microsoft.PowerShell.Management
Microsoft.PowerShell.Security
Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility
Microsoft.WSMan.Management
PackageManagement
PowerShellGet
PSDesiredStateConfiguration
PSDiagnostics
PSReadline

An output with similar module names does not always mean that the number and type of commands in each of these modules correspond (see Part I of this blog series). Continue reading →

Because of the cross-platform heterogeneous support design goal in #PsCore6, many platform specific #powershell functionality on the Windows operating system simply cannot, may not or have not yet been migrated over. Since Microsoft does not always fully document details of changes across product versions, this series of blog posts will attempt to identify any similarities and differences between these two PowerShell editions from the command perspective in a typical deployment, namely that of Windows PowerShell 5.x and the newly Release to Manufacturing/Web (RTM/RTW) GA version of PowerShell Core 6.0.0.

Let us kick start with the topic of Modules where the key functionality of PowerShell resides. Out of the box, executing powershell.exe (<= PS5.1) and pwsh.exe (PSCore6) will load a basic set of commands from core modules with exactly the same names:

ModuleType Version Name
———- ——- —-
Manifest 3.1.0.0 Microsoft.PowerShell.Utility
Script 1.2 PSReadline

Even though module names and versions carry the same information, Continue reading →

PowerShell Core 6.0.0

• a new edition of PowerShell #PsCore6
• built on top of .NET Core “CoreCLR”
• cross-platform support from Windows, macOS to Linux (direct download)
• community driven (GitHub) and open-source
• built for heterogeneous environments and the hybrid cloud
• works side-by-side with Windows PowerShell[1] (3.0 and later)
• $PSVersionTable.PSEdition is set to Core
• process runs as pwsh(.exe) c.f. Windows Powershell = powershell(.exe)
• default installation path %programfiles%\PowerShell\
• starts as Administrator in %programfiles%\PowerShell\6.0.0
• new user profile path $profile = %userprofile%\Documents\PowerShell
• different $env:PSModulePath
• not available features – workflow, WMI[2],  Windows Presentation Foundation/Windows Forms, PowerShell ISE[3]
• Update-Help -force -UICulture “en-us” (help system independent of Windows Powershell)
• Windows PowerShell 5.10
  = “maintenance” mode
  =  last Windows client/server version i.e.  no new version planned

[1] built on top of .NET Framework 4.x “FullCLR”
[2] use the equivalent *-CIM* cmdlets
[3] use Visual Studio Code + PowerShell plugin

Announcing the GA & Enterprise supported version of #PowerShell Core 6! My sincere gratitude goes to everyone in the OSS Community who donated their time & supported the @Powershell_team make this release happened, Thx & Congrats! @OpenAtMicrosoft https://t.co/LcCljTOBIA

— Angel Calvo (@ANGELCALVOS) January 10, 2018

REFERENCES

1. PowerShell Core 6.0: Generally Available (GA) and Supported!
2. PowerShell 6.0 Roadmap: CoreCLR, Backwards Compatibility, and More!
3. Angel Calvo (Twitter): Announcing the GA & Enterprise supported version of #PowerShell Core 6!
4. Announcing PowerShell for Visual Studio Code 1.0!
5. What’s New in PowerShell Core 6.0
6. PowerShell Core Support Lifecycle
7. PowerShell documentation (en-us)

On a non-US system locale Windows machine[1], running this statement in a #powershell script will fail:

[datetime]$dt1 = (Get-Date).DateTime
Cannont convert value “Dienstag, 12. Dezember 2017 22:20:20” to type “System.DateTime”. Error: “The string was not recognized as a valid DateTime. There is an unknown word starting at index 0.”
At line:1 char:1
+[datetime]$dt1 = (Get-Date).DateTime
+
+ CategoryInfo : MetadataError: (:) [], ArgumentTransformationMetadataException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : RuntimeException

To resolve this, Continue reading →

To retrieve a comprehensive list of installed quick fix engineering hotfixes and patches[1] in Windows Update, you export into a format such as CSV with the help of the perennial $env:windir\Windows\System32\Wbem\WMIC.exe tool:

$file = “qfe.csv”
wmic qfe list full /format:csv > $file
#optionally run in MS-DOS
#wmic qfe list full /format:”%windir%\system32\wbem\en-us\csv.xsl” > “qfe.csv”

Subsequently, you can import the Comma Separated Variable file and… Continue reading →

Inspecting the Event Log (eventvwr.exe) can provide clues to the startup (Event ID 6005*) and shutdown (Event ID 6006) date/time of a Windows machine. To do this, one common approach is with Get-EventLog:

#requires -version 3.0
Get-EventLog -LogName system -ComputerName FS01 | ? EventId -eq 6006

Instead, a more efficient way without the #powershell pipeline can be achieved using Get-WinEvent:

Get-WinEvent -ComputerName FS01 -FilterHashtable @{ LogName=’system’; Id=6006 }

Look out for Event ID 6008 which records the date/time of unexpected system shutdown.

* Event ID: 12 Provider (Source): Kernel-General contains actual operating system start time.