Copy-VMFile and more

I'm setting up some labs and wanted to capture a few things. Here is a walk through of how to copy files from you Hyper-V host to Guest VMs. I touch on a few items that are a bit tricky and try to highlight some good techniques in using the amazing PowerShell.

Enjoy the video and let me know if more topics like this would be interesting or helpful.

Kevin

Old Friends, New Beginnings

I am so excited to have the opportunity to join my old friend, cohort in all things Group Policy and general good guy, Darren Mar-Elia. Darren has asked me to join his team to continue to deliver great solutions to the world. We are both passionate about the past, present and future of configuration management and configuration technologies in general.

It is an exciting time. Check us out at http://www.sdmsoftware.com and follow Darren (@grouppolicyguy) and me (@kevsully67) on twitter.

I'll begin to use this space as a general purpose, scratch-pad of sorts. I will also start blogging on the GPOGuy blog and be delivering some webinar content in the areas of configuration, powershell, Group Policy, DSC and more and more.

Find SDM Software on youtube, Facebook and wherever you wander. We'll try to be there.

Kevin

Setting up a lab

There are so many good reasons to have a lab available. There are very few reasons to not. IT organizations are constantly testing new releases, new configuration, and some widget that needs to be rolled out. We need to evaluate software and solutions that we want to implement in our production environments. With Windows 8+ and the latest versions of Hyper-V there are really no good reasons to not have a lab to use.

With that said, managing the lab in Hyper-V is very easy and to be honest, it is quite fun. If you are a VMWare shop, that is great. Either way there are some simple techniques and best practices that can be super helpful.

This video walks through some thoughts and ideas on how to manage your lab, how to setup the core environment and prepare for testing. We’ll try to follow up with additional content related to evaluating Specops solutions, but first things first…

Enjoy!

Why are my cmdlets not working? Duh!

PS C:> Get-VM

PS C:> 

What? I have multiple VMs running on my system. I use this cmdlet often. What? Why did it suddenly stop working?

So, what to do? Of course my first move is to look at the help system.

PS C:> Get-Help Get-VM -ShowWindow

I really like the 'ShowWindow' parameter. It dumps the complete help file into a separate window where you can filter, zoom, search and more. 

Unfortunately I didn't find anything. I don't get an error in the console. I started using bing. Or Google, whatever you choose. I use bing. Of course there are lots of forum threads and random links. Nothing to do but start reading. 

The 'ah-ha' moment suddenly becomes the 'duh' moment. I saw a thread on the Get-VM cmdlet not working. And a few people were adding very complicated troubleshooting including SC-VMM stuff etc. At the end of the long thread... someone posted "run the console as admin"... DUH! 

I always run my console as admin, but for some reason this time I forgot. And didn't check.

If you have a problem in PS, and it is bizarre/strange... make sure to check how it is running. It is simple, the title bar of the console will tell you if you are running as admin. Make sure to check.

If you are new to PowerShell, simply right-click on the PowerShell Icon in the task bar and choose your option. Simple...

Windows Management Framework 5.0 - September Preview

Like a kid in a candy shop - well a sort of geeky kid

The Windows Management Framework 5.0 came out yesterday twitter-verse was abuzz. Blogging, tweeting, re-tweeting, re-re-tweeting. Lots of interest it appears. It is fun to look at what is new, what improvements have been implemented and begin to see hints of more to come.

Some of the features are fully accessible now, some will take some additional thought. And for each of us those may be different things.

You can find the team announcement on their blog - PowerShell Team Blog.

I'm having a scattered multitasking Friday so I don't know how much time I can spend on this today but I'm excited to dig in. Thanks PowerShell team for delivering a good evaluation guide with these previews, really helpful!

Today I'm;

1. Setting up Azure Virtual Machine to begin testing some upcoming products!
2. Digging into some PowerShell/Azure synergy I haven't played with yet
3. Reviewing the WMF 5.0 September Release
4. Working on multiple sessions/webinars/conference proposals
1. DSC and Group Policy - compliance for the desktop
2. Longer is Stronger - why passphrases are powerful
3. PowerShell basics - training sessions for our customers

Some of my favorites from the team announcement are;

• Manage Zip files! - the little things are sometimes great!
• Compress-Archive
• Expand-Archive
• Lots of DSC stuff
• Register a PSRepository with PowerShell Get sounds interesting - hosted modules - work from anywhere? we will soon see
• Switch management - more evolution
• ISE updates to make working with DSC easier

Great job PowerShell team. 

Group Policy 002: The Cmdlets - New-GPO

Simple!

It really is. I want to create a new GPO from PowerShell. Of course there will be work to do later but just get the GPO created. 

I created a brief video walking through the process.

Enjoy!

C'Mon Man! - wasted time - PowerShell Help

PowerShell Help

I love the PowerShell Help System! I honestly do. I have surely drank the kool-aid and stopped trying to memorize everything in there. When I have a need I turn to...

1. Get-Command
2. Get-Module

When I have found a command that I believe will work I use

• Get-Help
• Get-Help -Full
• Get-Help -ShowWindow
• Get-Help -Examples

And...

• Get-Help -Online

If for some reason I'm still having issues I will go to the Internet and find resources to help. People who have had my problem before, and figure out what they have done.

The Problem

Why is it that people think it is helpful to copy the content of Get-Help -Full and post that as a blog post on their personal blog. No additional value, not scenarios where they used the cmdlet, nothing but the same exact content I can get from Get-Help -Full or Get-Help -Online. 

This is not helpful! It is distracting and hurts troubleshooting efforts.

OK, let me give folks the benefit of the doubt, let's assume they are trying to be helpful. Point to source of the info and post how you used the cmdlet. Learn the help system and know that all of that information is online. The system is absolutely awesome and we as a community need to support it and help it continue to grow. Let people know how great it is and how it helped you. Don't simply copy it and re-post. It is not adding any additional value.