PowerShell.org needs your help
Published April 30, 2014We are trying to raise the money to purchase equipment to record the sessions at future PowerShell Summit’s
http://powershell.org/wp/2014/04/28/help-us-record-the-powershell-summit-sessions/
If you can help us – please do.
There have been some amazing sessions this year – when you watch people’s jaws drop you know the content is great.
If we can record the sessions attendees can see the sessions they missed and non-attendees can see what they are missing
Thank you
Update on Office error
Published April 29, 2014Back in this post http://richardspowershellblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/powershell-3-and-word/
I showed that this code
$word = New-Object -ComObject "Word.application"
$word.visible = $true
$doc = $word.Documents.Add()
$doc.Activate()
$word.Selection.Font.Name = "Cambria"
$word.Selection.Font.Size = "20"
$word.Selection.TypeText("PowerShell")
$word.Selection.TypeParagraph()
$word.Selection.Font.Name = "Calibri"
$word.Selection.Font.Size = "12"
$word.Selection.TypeText("The best scripting language in the world!")
$word.Selection.TypeParagraph()
$file = "c:\test1.doc"
$doc.SaveAs([REF]$file)
$Word.Quit()
Wouldn’t work because of an error in the way [REF] was treated. I had a comment left on the post saying it worked on PowerShell v4.
I’ve tested on PowerShell v4 on Windows 8.1 with Office 2013. It works. I can’t vouch for other combinations but it looks the problem has been resolved.
If you have the opportunity please try it and let me know if it doesn’t work for your particular combination of PowerShell v4, Windows and Office
PowerShell Summit NA 2014–day 1
Published April 29, 2014Day one of the Summit has been and gone and it has lived up to expectations. With more attendees and more sessions than last year this is the place to be if you want your PowerShell questions answered.
One of the highlights of day 1 was Steve Muraski’s sessions on DSC. He has recorded them and will be making them available – I’ll post the link when available.
To the Summit
Published April 25, 2014Off to the PowerShell Summit tomorrow morning – 3 days of wall to wall PowerShell with some of the most knowledgeable people in the world. Its going to be fun.
More details of the European Summit will be coming soon – remember its 20 September – 1 October in Amsterdam
Working with Server Core–Domain join
Published April 21, 2014Windows Server can be installed in two ways – full fat GUI or Server Core. The latter is Windows without Windows. The GUI components are stripped off and you’re just left with the core components. This results in a smaller server – I’ve got 2 machines running in my Hyper-V test environment. Both are set to use dynamic memory with 512MB startup RAM. The full GUI machine needs 1126MB while the Server Core version needs 566MB.
With Server Core all you get is a prompt for administration – unfortunately its cmd.exe but typing powershell starts PowerShell – including running a profile.
Without a GUI you need to use the command line to do everything – I’ll be doing my demos at the PowerShell Summit from Server Core machines so some things will have to wait until after then – and I’m going to do a series on posts on administering Server Core machines.
I’ve already shown you how to test if your machine is activated. This how you join it to the domain.
Make sure that the IP and DNS server addresses have been set so the machine can find a domain controller.
$cred = Get-Credential
Add-Computer -Credential $cred -DomainName sphinx -Restart
Create a credential for the account that can join the machine to the domain. use Add-Computer and supply the credential and domain name. The –ReStart parameter forces a restart post domain join.
if you want to see the results of calling Add-Computer then drop the restart switch and use Restart-Computer whenever you want the restart to happen
Subnets and prefixes
Published April 19, 2014Sounds a bit like an old time role playing game but is actually a useful piece of knowledge.
You can define a subnet mask in 2 ways. Either use the full mask e.g. 255.255.248.0 or define the number of bits in the mask e.gg 21 which is known as the prefixlength in the PowerShell networking cmdlets.
But can you relate a full subnet mask to the number of bits. Some are obvious but the others I need to work out.
Time for a quick PowerShell function:
function show-subnetmask{
foreach ($prefixlength in 8..30) {
switch ($prefixlength){
{$_ -gt 24}
{
$bin = ('1' * ($prefixlength - 24)).PadRight(8, '0')
$o4 = [convert]::ToInt32($bin.Trim(),2)
$mask = "255.255.255.$o4"
break
}
{$_ -eq 24}
{
$mask = '255.255.255.0'
break
}
{$_ -gt 16 -and $_ -lt 24}
{
$bin = ('1' * ($prefixlength - 16)).PadRight(8, '0')
$o3 = [convert]::ToInt32($bin.Trim(),2)
$mask = "255.255.$o3.0"
break
}
{$_ -eq 16}
{
$mask = '255.255.0.0'
break
}
{$_ -gt 8 -and $_ -lt 16}
{
$bin = ('1' * ($prefixlength - 8)).PadRight(8, '0')
$o2 = [convert]::ToInt32($bin.Trim(),2)
$mask = "255.$o2.0.0"
break
}
{$_ -eq 8}
{
$mask = '255.0.0.0'
break
}
default
{
$mask = '0.0.0.0'
}
}
New-Object -TypeName psobject -Property @{
PrefixLength = $prefixlength
Subnetmask = $mask
}
}
}
Most people will be using subnets between 8 and 30 bits in length so start with that range and for each value work through the switch statement. If the value is 8,16 or 24 the subnet mask can be set directly. Otherwise it needs to be calculated. The calculations are the same – the difference is which octet of the subnet mask is affected.
For instance if the prefix length is between 16 and 24 (exclusive)
$bin = ('1' * ($prefixlength - 16)).PadRight(8, '0')
$o3 = [convert]::ToInt32($bin.Trim(),2)
$mask = "255.255.$o3.0"
break
Convert the number to a binary representation – the amount you need to subtract depends on the octet with which you are working
Convert the binary to an integer and insert into the subnet mask string.
An object is output that has the subnet mask and prefix length as properties.
Put the function in a module on your module path and you’ll be able to use it as a quick lookup when you need to convert subnet masks to prefix lengths or vice versa
WMI against remote machines
Published April 16, 2014WMI is a great tool for managing your Windows machines – I’d argue that PowerShell wouldn’t be as powerful as it is without WMI. If you question that remember that 60% of the additional cmdlets in Windows Server 2012 & 2012 R2 are CDXML based i.e. publish a WMI class as a PowerShell module.
PowerShell 2.0 introduced a suite of WMI cmdlets:
Get-WmiObject
Invoke-WmiMethod
Register-WmiEvent
Remove-WmiObject
Set-WmiInstance
PowerShell 3.0 introduced the CIM cmdlets:
Get-CimAssociatedInstance
Get-CimClass
Get-CimInstance
Get-CimSession
Invoke-CimMethod
New-CimInstance
New-CimSession
New-CimSessionOption
Register-CimIndicationEvent
Remove-CimInstance
Remove-CimSession
Set-CimInstance
So which should you use?
There are a number of differences.
The WMI cmdlets return live objects and the CIM cmdlets return inert objects. This isn’t too much of an issue if you use Invoke-CimMethod. I’d also recommend using Invoke-WMImethod over creating an object and calling the method on that.
The real difference is in the protocol used to access remote machines. The WMI cmdlets use DCOM and the CIM cmdlets default to WSMAN. At this point you may be thinking that you can just use the CIM cmdlets but the remote machine must be running WSMAN 3.0 which comes with PowerShell 3.0 or 4.0.. The CIM cmdlets can’t connect to WSMAN 2.0 which is the PowerShell 2.0 version.
At that point you have to use a CIM session that drops back to DCOM or run Get-WMIobject through a PowerShell remoting session.
Overall the CIM cmdlets win – especially when you consider Get-CimClass and Get-CimAssociatedInstance
PowerShell versions
Published April 15, 2014I’ve been using the CIM cmdlets for a number of posts recently and had a comment that a reader got a message that Get-CimInstance didn’t exist on their Windows 7 machine.
Windows 7 ships with PowerShell 2.0; Windows 8 with PowerShell 3.0 and Windows 8.1 with PowerShell 4.0.
You need PowerShell 3.0 or 4.0 to have the CIM cmdlets.
You can install PowerShell 3.0 or 4.0 on Windows 7. You need to go to the Microsoft download site, download and install the appropriate version of Windows Management Framework (WMF 3 contains PowerShell 3.0 and WMF 4 contains PowerShell 4.0).
You can tell which version of PowerShell you are running by looking in the $psversiontable automatic variable:
£> $psversiontable
Name Value
---- -----
PSVersion 4.0
WSManStackVersion 3.0
SerializationVersion 1.1.0.1
CLRVersion 4.0.30319.34014
BuildVersion 6.3.9600.16394
PSCompatibleVersions {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.2
Status of Office software
Published April 14, 2014You can also use the SoftwareLicensingProduct CIM class to test the status of your Office products.
Get-CimInstance -ClassName SoftwareLicensingProduct -Filter "Name LIKE 'Office%'" |
where PartialProductKey |
select Name, ApplicationId, LicenseStatus
You need to be careful with Office as you might find a lot more options than you expected. On my machine I found this:
Get-CimInstance -ClassName SoftwareLicensingProduct -Filter "Name LIKE 'Office%'" | select Name -Unique | sort name
Office 15, OfficeO365ProPlusR_Grace edition
Office 15, OfficeO365ProPlusR_Retail edition
Office 15, OfficeO365ProPlusR_Subscription1 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365ProPlusR_Subscription2 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365ProPlusR_Subscription3 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365ProPlusR_Subscription4 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365ProPlusR_Subscription5 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365ProPlusR_SubTrial1 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365ProPlusR_SubTrial2 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365ProPlusR_SubTrial3 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365ProPlusR_SubTrial4 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365ProPlusR_SubTrial5 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365SmallBusPremR_Grace edition
Office 15, OfficeO365SmallBusPremR_Retail edition
Office 15, OfficeO365SmallBusPremR_Subscription1 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365SmallBusPremR_Subscription2 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365SmallBusPremR_Subscription3 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365SmallBusPremR_Subscription4 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365SmallBusPremR_Subscription5 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365SmallBusPremR_SubTrial1 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365SmallBusPremR_SubTrial2 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365SmallBusPremR_SubTrial3 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365SmallBusPremR_SubTrial4 edition
Office 15, OfficeO365SmallBusPremR_SubTrial5 edition
Office 15, OfficeProjectProCO365R_Subscription edition
Office 15, OfficeProjectProCO365R_SubTest edition
Office 15, OfficeProjectProCO365R_SubTrial edition
Office 15, OfficeProjectProDemoR_BypassTrial180 edition
Office 15, OfficeProjectProMSDNR_Retail edition
Office 15, OfficeProjectProO365R_Subscription edition
Office 15, OfficeProjectProO365R_SubTest edition
Office 15, OfficeProjectProO365R_SubTrial edition
Office 15, OfficeProjectProR_Grace edition
Office 15, OfficeProjectProR_OEM_Perp edition
Office 15, OfficeProjectProR_Retail edition
Office 15, OfficeProjectProR_Trial edition
Office 15, OfficeProPlusDemoR_BypassTrial180 edition
Office 15, OfficeProPlusMSDNR_Retail edition
Office 15, OfficeProPlusR_Grace edition
Office 15, OfficeProPlusR_OEM_Perp edition
Office 15, OfficeProPlusR_Retail edition
Office 15, OfficeProPlusR_Trial edition
Office 15, OfficeVisioProCO365R_Subscription edition
Office 15, OfficeVisioProCO365R_SubTest edition
Office 15, OfficeVisioProCO365R_SubTrial edition
Office 15, OfficeVisioProDemoR_BypassTrial180 edition
Office 15, OfficeVisioProMSDNR_Retail edition
Office 15, OfficeVisioProO365R_Subscription edition
Office 15, OfficeVisioProO365R_SubTest edition
Office 15, OfficeVisioProO365R_SubTrial edition
Office 15, OfficeVisioProR_Grace edition
Office 15, OfficeVisioProR_OEM_Perp edition
Office 15, OfficeVisioProR_Retail edition
Office 15, OfficeVisioProR_Trial edition
which was a lot more than I expected.
It is possible to use WMI to set the product key – use the SoftwareLicensingService class
Checking license activation
Published April 13, 2014I’m building some virtual machines for my demo’s at the upcoming PowerShell summit. To make the demo’s, and setup, more interesting(?) I decided to use some Server Core instances.
The usual setup activities become a bit more interesting with Server Core – particular Windows activation.
Windows 2012 R2 will activate itself if the new machine has an Internet connection when it is created. With the GUI version of Windows you can check that Windows is activated using the System applet in Control Panel.
If you’re using Server Core you can use WMI to test activation:
Get-CimInstance -ClassName SoftwareLicensingProduct |
where PartialProductKey |
select Name, ApplicationId, LicenseStatus |
Format-List *
Use the SoftwareLicensingProduct WMI class and filter for PartialProductkey - that means a product key has been entered. You can then select the name of the product the ApplicationId and the LicenseStatus:
Name : Windows(R), ServerStandard edition
ApplicationId : 55c92734-d682-4d71-983e-d6ec3f16059f
LicenseStatus : 1
A License status of 1 indicates that its licensed – i.e. activated
More on using WMI to test and set activation in chapter 13 of PowerShell and WMI – www.manning.com/siddaway2