RSSNext Windows PowerShell will have GUI, remote management support
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published May 6, 2008, 6:15 PM
Two of the single most begged for features for PowerShell, the devastatingly useful scripting tool now made an integral part of Windows Server 2008 and Exchange Server 2007, are being addressed in the Community Technology Preview for version 2.0.
As Microsoft now confirms, there will be a unique graphical front end for editing scripts and running commands and cmdlets (compiled PowerShell keywords). And yes, Virginia, there will be a newly supported remote link to servers running Server Core, the new minimal Windows installation introduced in WS2K8.
PowerShell can't run on Server Core natively because it requires the .NET Framework, which Microsoft has considered exporting to a command-line-only version, though it has yet to provide a roadmap for such a version. But Server Core systems are meant to be left running and then left alone anyway, and existing Microsoft management tools can run graphically on remote machines, monitoring and managing multiple Server Core installations simultaneously.
As PowerShell's key architect and creator Jeffrey Snover told BetaNews this afternoon, while existing users have found a way to manage Server Core remotely using a variety of extensions, PS 2.0 will use the same channel Microsoft's graphical tools, like System Center, use: the WS-Management library. An updated version of the WinRM (Remote Management) toolkit, numbered 2.0, also entered public beta yesterday; this will provide the direct and unencumbered link between PowerShell running on a .NET-endowed server, and multiple Server Core systems in the network. The PS 2.0 CTP requires this beta version for its connectivity.
"Windows ships with a WINRM native (win32) command which allows you to manage remote machines via WS-MGMT," Snover told BetaNews. "This allows you to manage remote Server Core machines. The output of the WINRM cmdlets can be TEXT or XML. When you run this command from PowerShell, you get to leverage PowerShell's excellent XML support to provide an easy and rich scripting experience for Remote Server Core machines."
Among the other completely new features scripters can expect to see is the new graphical script editing console, which harbors its own PowerShell instance. No longer will you need to run PowerShell from a text window the way you would run the command prompt (CMD.EXE). At the bottom is a kind of "immediate window" for running commands on the fly, inspired by a similar Microsoft tool that first appeared in Visual Basic 1.0 in 1991.
And in this blog post from late March from another side of the Microsoft campus, B# language developer Bart de Smet writes about PS 2.0's task prioritization, which now enables some tasks to be run with background priority. This feature is actually made possible, de Smet describes, by PS 2.0's new support of WS-Management (WS-MGMT). For complete support of this library, a script service also needs to be able to respond to system events -- in other words, to launch a cmdlet at the time something specific happens -- and PS 2.0 will add event support as well.
Sure wish we had a command line system like this for Windows XP.
I wish Windows was like Linux, in that you can boot to a straight ascii command line and do work if the GUI is giving you problems.
Batch files with long file name support and the like would sure be a cool thing to have.
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|You can install PS on windows XP...
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|Found it only a few weeks ago. Strange.
Now everyone is talking about PS..
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|Ya you can have this, it is called DOS and Windows98...
Vista has mini PE boot environment, no GUI even. Or PE with minimal GUI, even though it still uses that extra 128-256KB to fire up the GUI.
(Gawd the RAM usage on a GUI is just so expensive on today's hardware, we could save almost a full 256KB if Windows had a command line boot like Linux. However the XWindows on top of Linux adds significantly more overhead being not part of the core OS, so which is better again?)
This is like the NT days comparing it to Novell and administrators crying cause NT booted to a GUI 'wasting resources', when in fact the GUI of NT consumed virtually no RAM, and no CPU cycles over a Command Line blinking cursor server interface.
This is also why it amazed these fools when NT was faster than Netware and was 100 times easier to administer for small companies with limited IT people.
PS Powershell is more than a Command Line, it is the first incarnation of a CLI that works directly with NT at an Object level. NT unlike *nix is object oriented for i/o, etc.
Prior to PowerShell, the command line in NT worked much like a DOS/Unix copy and also worked within the UNIX style context of being non-object based and textual.
So PowerShell is not only quite interesting in the abilities it exposes, but is also a great example of opening up the differences of the NT architecture that understands and is designed with an object model in contrast to *nix that doesn't understand anything past in/out in textual references.
(Go look up PowerShell for more information on this aspect, since it is the first serious Command Line Interface for NT utilizing its Object design instead of a std i/o metaphor still carried over from 1970s *nix.)
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|Windows Server 2008 will also have an option of installing without a GUI. This will give you a console only OS that can be administered by a graphical interface from an external machine. So you'll get your command line based OS with the still easy to manipulate GUI.
Or, using tools like PowerShell - you'll be able to administer your OS's (any Windows OS for now) via a commandline based tool.
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|Been around in beta for years. Search on code name "Monad"
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|Sure NT didn't use any resources until you moved the mouse and the CPU shot to 100% effectively hanging the machine any users connected to it.
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|Yeah, cuz that happened to everyone...
/sarcasm
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|DudeBoyz - "boot" to a command line? On a server? Why would you ever want to have to boot a server anymore? When your server is running one or more resources that need to be up and available, the idea of booting a system just for doing administrative work is ridiculous.
Exampe - Even Microsoft (disclaimer: I work for 'em) improved the Server in 2008, with the ability to simply stop the AD Directory Service on a running domain controller in order to defragment or check the integrity or move the directory database to a new location. Previously you had to "boot" the server into a special administrative mode to do this... which means that if server is also a DHCP or DNS or file server or any other role.. well, too bad. And that's unacceptable in today's datacenters.
-Kevin
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|What kind of moron posts something like this? If you had an NT based machine lock up from MOUSE MOVEMENT?!?, then you need to put the computer back in the box and take it back to the K-mart you bought it from. You're too stupid to play with these "new-fangled 'lectric typewriters"!
Get a life!
Linux is FAR easier to support than Windows boxes are. Why? BECAUSE THEY CAN'T DO HARDLY ANYTHING ANYWAY! Functionality means that more things can break. And granted, while early inovations caused us IT peeps to pull our hair out figuring out ways to stabilize the systems, BSODS are 90% the cause of the programmers of third party software/drivers not playing nice, not by the OS.
Read a book and leave this inter-web thingy alone. You'll just get hurt here.
FYI, I am an MCSE and RHCE. I use the right tool for the job. I don't use a hammer to drive a nail, turn a screw, AND drill a hole. Even VMS still has merit in certain situations.
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|BetaNews reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Foul language and personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Actually the whole reason for finding this site was because of a TechNet newsletter. So I must be mistaken because I have always thought that Microsoft took the apporch of intgity to heart. I appreciate your approch to head off post such as the one made be keyboard_cowboy on May 15, 2008. ("What kind of moron posts something like this? If you had an NT based machine lock up from MOUSE MOVEMENT?!?, then you need to put the computer back in the box and take it back to the K-mart you bought it from. You're too stupid to play with these "new-fangled 'lectric typewriters"!)
That was a personal unnecessary attack on someone who had a question. Maybe it was a simple question but ask yourselves. How many of you know everything there is to know about all the OS's and the fact that many OEM Techs or Retail Techs don't truly understand that it is only with good software that makes good hardware work or that only quailty hardware works with good software. A bad BIOs written by OEM Software engineers can make even the most war worn techs go crazy trying to tech the OEMs, because they are the only ones who can fix it. Due to the ACPI compliance most OEM's are still trying to write things that work. So I plead for you kindness to others and put your self in their shoes. People come to areas like this for help not insults.
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