• GFI study (PDF): 51% of organisations have not implemented email archiving. We belong to them. I plan to change this.
• Portable PowerShell even on Server Core http://is.gd/Ajs http://is.gd/1Q07
• Sysinternals updates: Desktop v1.0 (new virtual desktop tool), Ausruns v9.33 (automatically scans and exports now) http://is.gd/1PZC
• Microsoft is a big Linux vendor. http://is.gd/1PZ3 http://is.gd/1PZm How times change.
• First Look at the New VMware Server 2.0 RC1 (and How it Compares to ESXi) http://is.gd/1PYr A more positive view than mine http://is.gd/1PYA
• Microsoft eases virtualisation licensing. 90-day restriction will be removed on 1 September. http://is.gd/1PY6 http://is.gd/1PYh
• Windows 7 Server to be ‘minor release’ http://is.gd/1Kt0 The name will be Windows Server 2008 R2. How ugly! Why not just Windows Server 6.5?
• A third of new PCs being downgraded to XP, says metrics researcher http://is.gd/1KrF I wonder why those people buy new PCs.

• Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 update supports Server 2008 and Vista SP1 as host and guest. http://snurl.com/293jw #
• PowerShell on Server Core. Not officially supported but Jeffrey Snover blogs about it. http://snurl.com/293ko #
• Jeff Jones compiled a new Windows Vista vs Windows XP SP2 vulnerability report. Another proof that Vista is more secure than XP. http://snurl.com/299y2

PowerGUI is a free tool that allows you to create PowerShell scripts with a graphical user interface (GUI). It also comes with a nice PowerShell script editor that supports debugging. Version 1 has been available for some days already.

The main idea behind PowerGUI is to create PowerShell code by selecting objects, and performing actions on them. For instance, you can select Active Directory objects or Exchange objects manually or by using filters. Then you tell PowerGUI that you want to move these objects to a new location and it will create the corresponding PowerShell script which you can enhance with your own code.

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Aaron has a nice post about the command line interface of Server Manager in Windows Server 2008. I have been blogging about the graphical interface of Server Manager a while back. I somehow forgot to mention that Server Manager has a command line version. So I am taking this chance to make up for my omission, although the main intent of this post is to express my view about the value of these new command line capabilities of Vista and Server 2008 in general.

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Submitted by Darren Mar-Elia - Blog: The GPOGuy Group Policy Blog

The GPMC PowerShell cmdlets are a set of free cmdlets that wrap the functionality of Microsoft’s Group Policy Management Console (GPMC). The cmdlets provides functionality to PowerShell such as creating and deleting GPOs, linking and unlinking GPOs and modifying GPO permissions, to name just a few.

GPMC PowerShell Cmdlets

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Group Policy and PowerShell are both very powerful tools to automate IT management tasks. Specops Command combines both technologies giving you an even more powerful scripting solution.

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Yesterday, I blogged about my favorite four new PowerShell 2.0 features. The one I like most is Graphical PowerShell. Maybe “IDE” (Integrated Development Environment) is an exaggeration. Graphical PowerShell is still a very simple tool. But, I think, it is a good start, and I hope that Microsoft will keep on adding new features. In this post, you’ll find some screenshots and a short description of Graphical PowerShell.

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You can download Windows PowerShell 2.0 CTP (Community Technology Preview) now. I just skimmed over the release notes. The number of new features is quite impressive.

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With Vista’s UAC (User Account Control) enabled, you need an elevated command shell if you have to run commands with administrator privileges from the command line. This post explains how you can alter the Windows Explorer context menu to open an elevated command prompt in a certain directory using Microsoft’s Script Elevation PowerToys for Windows Vista. The elevate.cmd that comes with the PowerToys allows you to launch commands and scripts with administrative rights from a non-elevated command prompt. You can also use them to elevate other file types such as MSI or MSP easily.

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Some time ago I recommended focusing on PowerShell in the future when it comes to scripting. Jeffrey Snover from Microsoft also suggests making this move. He has a couple of hints to help you convert your VBScript scripts to PowerShell.

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