Script Center

Microsoft Usability is conducting a study focusing on the remoting feature of PowerShell version 2 from July 22 to July 29, 2008. This is a great opportunity for IT administrators who have experience working with PowerShell to provide feedback and help improve the user experience of PowerShell version 2.

The study will be conducted in a lab setting on Microsoft’s main campus in Redmond, Washington. It is important for you to know that you do not need to prepare anything for this. We want to learn from you, the experts, to determine what needs to be improved in our software. We highly value your feedback and will be offering you a gratuity option in appreciation of your time and participation.

If you are interested or know someone who could be interested in participating, please email us at uccoord@microsoft.com with Powershell in subject line. For information on other studies and to learn more about Microsoft's User Research program email us.

Who said “Everyone talks about the need for new scripting tools, but no one ever does anything about it?” As it turns out, Michael Murgolo and Ed Wilson have both done something about it. Michael has released an updated version of his Elevation Power Toys (making it a breeze to run scripts as an administrator in Windows Vista), while Ed has put together the PowerShell Scriptomatic, a tool for writing WMI scripts using Windows PowerShell. Both of these utilities come highly-recommended.

There’s a brand-new CTP (Community Technology Preview) release of Windows PowerShell, the second such release in the past six months. What’s in the new release, and is it worth your time and effort to look into it? There’s only one way to find out: take a peek at the Scripting Guys preliminary look at CTP 2. This set of articles includes an explanation of debut cmdlets like ConvertTo-XML and Get-Random, as well as an introduction to new technologies like PowersShell eventing and transactions. Note that only a portion of the new CTP release has been documented. What does that mean? That means that, if you’re going to start somewhere with PowerShell 2.0, you really should start here.

The bobbleheads are being sent out right now. We’ve sent out most everything else, except the User Group Challenge Prizes and Sudden Death Challenge T-shirts. We hope to get to those before the next Scripting Games.

Find out how to write boot configuration data scripts for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008

VBScript Squares

Write your own WMI providers? Isn’t that, well, impossible? As it turns out, it’s not impossible. (That doesn’t mean it’s easy, but it’s definitely not impossible.) For more information, check out this article by Gabriel Ghizila (and edited by legendary Scripting Guy Dean Tsaltas).