Tag: install

Jul102019July 10, 2019July 10, 20193Commentsby Thomas Maurer
PowerShell 7 Installer

How to Install and Update PowerShell 7

Posted in Microsoft, PowerShell, Software, Windows, Windows 10, Windows Server, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, Work

Currently, you can install the cross-platform version PowerShell Core 6 on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Early April the PowerShell team announced the next release called PowerShell 7. PowerShell 7 is built on .NET Core 3 and brings back many APIs required by modules built on .NET Framework so that they work with .NET Core runtime. While PowerShell Core 6 was focusing on bringing cross-platform compatibility, PowerShell 7 will focus on making it a viable replacement for Windows PowerShell 5.1 and bringing near parity with Windows PowerShell. Here is how you can install and update PowerShell 7 (preview) on Windows and Linux using a simple one-liner.

If you want to know more about the roadmap, check out Steves blog post.

One great example of how cross-platform PowerShell can work, check out my blog post: How to set up PowerShell SSH Remoting.

Install PowerShell 7 (Preview)

As mentioned PowerShell 7 is currently in preview. You can download and install it manually from GitHub. However, the easiest way to install it is to use the following one-liners created by Steve Lee (Microsoft Principal Software Engineer Manager in the PowerShell Team). You can also use the same one-liners with different parameters to install the current GA version of PowerShell 6.

If you are installing the PowerShell 7 Preview, this will be a side by side installation with PowerShell 6. You can use the pwsh-preview command to run version 7.

One-liner to install or update PowerShell 7 on Windows 10

Install and Update PowerShell 7

You can use this single command in Windows PowerShell to install PowerShell 7. The difference between the installation of version 6 versus version 7 is the -Preview flag.

iex "& { $(irm https://aka.ms/install-powershell.ps1) } -UseMSI -Preview"

There are additional switches to, for example, install daily builds of the latest PowerShell previews.

-Destination
The destination path to install PowerShell Core to.

-Daily
Install PowerShell Core from the daily build.
Note that the ‘PackageManagement’ module is required to install a daily package.

-Preview
Install the latest preview, which is currently version 7. This will

-UseMSI
Use the MSI installer.

-Quiet
The quiet command for the MSI installer.

-DoNotOverwrite
Do not overwrite the destination folder if it already exists.

-AddToPath
On Windows, add the absolute destination path to the ‘User’ scope environment variable ‘Path’;
On Linux, make the symlink ‘/usr/bin/pwsh’ points to “$Destination/pwsh”;
On MacOS, make the symlink ‘/usr/local/bin/pwsh’ points to “$Destination/pwsh”.

One-liner to install or update PowerShell 7 on Linux

Install PowerShell 7 on Linux

You can use this as a single command to install PowerShell 7 on Linux

wget https://aka.ms/install-powershell.sh; sudo bash install-powershell.sh -preview; rm install-powershell.sh

Depending on your distro you are using, this will register Microsoft’s pkg repos and install that package (deb or rpm).

You can also use the following switches:

-includeide
Installs VSCode and VSCode PowerShell extension (only relevant to machines with a desktop environment)

-interactivetesting
Do a quick launch test of VSCode (only applicable when used with -includeide)

-skip-sudo-check
Use sudo without verifying its availability (hard to accurately do on some distros)

-preview
Installs the latest preview release of PowerShell side-by-side with any existing production releases

To currently run the PowerShell Preview, you can run the following command:

pwsh-preview

After Installing

After you have installed PowerShell 7, also make sure to update PowerShellGet and the PackageManagement module.

Remember PowerShell 7 is still currently in preview, if you have any questions, please let me know in the comments.


Jun222019June 22, 2019June 26, 20192Commentsby Thomas Maurer
Download the new Windows Terminal Preview

Install the new Windows Terminal (Preview)

Posted in Microsoft, PowerShell, Software, Windows, Windows 10, Work

At Microsoft Build 2019, the team announced a new Windows Terminal which will be open-source. There are a couple of improvements which are coming to the new Windows Terminal like; multiple tabs support, GPU accelerated DirectWrite/DirectX-based text rendering engine, advanced configuration settings, and much more. It allows you to run different shells like Windows PowerShell, PowerShell Core, Command Prompt, WSL, and also WSL 2. Today you can download the Windows Terminal Preview from the Microsoft Store. It is still a very early preview and the team, as well as the community, are still working on it. The team’s goal is to work with the community and launch version 1.0 end of 2019. Here is how you can install the new Windows Terminal.

Windows Terminal is a new, modern, fast, efficient, powerful, and productive terminal application for users of command-line tools and shells like Command Prompt, PowerShell, and WSL.

You can find more information about it here on the Microsoft announcement blog.

Download and Install the Windows Terminal

You were able to download the sources for the terminal from GitHub and build it yourself. However, the preview release in the Windows Store makes it much easier to try it out and stay more up to date.

Download Windows Terminal

Windows Terminal

Windows Terminal will be delivered via the Microsoft Store in Windows 10 and will be updated regularly, ensuring you are always up to date and able to enjoy the newest features and latest improvements with minimum effort.

Provide Feedback and get involved

Windows Terminal is a new, modern, feature-rich, productive terminal application for command-line users. It includes many of the features most frequently requested by the Windows command-line community including support for tabs, rich text, globalization, configurability, theming & styling, and more.

The Terminal will also need to meet our goals and measures to ensure it remains fast, and efficient, and doesn’t consume vast amounts of memory or power.

You can file bugs and share feedback with the community and us, as well as fix issues and make improvements on GitHub. If you come across any bugs or want to share feedback, you can do that on GitHub issues for detailed issues/discussions or with the Microsoft Store release in the Feedback Hub. You join the development on GitHub.

Try out the Windows Terminal today, and if you have any questions, please let me know in the comments.


Jun132019June 13, 2019June 29, 20191Commentby Thomas Maurer

Install WSL 2 on Windows 10

Posted in Hyper-V, Microsoft, PowerShell, Virtualization, Windows, Windows 10

With the Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 18917, the team also ships the first version of the Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL 2), which was announced at the Microsoft Build 2019 conference. In this post, I am going to show you how you can install WSL 2 on your Windows 10 machine.

The Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL 1) was in Windows 10 for a while now and allowed you to use different Linux distros directly from your Windows 10 machine. With WSL 2, the architecture will change drastically and will bring increased file system performance and full system call compatibility. WSL 2 is now using virtualization technology (based on Hyper-V) and uses a lightweight utility VM on a real Linux kernel. You can find out more about WSL 2 in the release blog or on the Microsoft Docs Page for WSL 2.

WSL 2 Architecture

Requirements

To install WSL 2, you will need the following requirements:

Install WSL 2

To install the Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL 2), you need to follow these tasks.

  • Enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux Optional feature (WSL 1 and WSL 2)
  • Install a distro for the Windows Subsystem for Linux
  • Enable the ‘Virtual Machine Platform’ optional feature (WSL 2)
  • Configure the distro to use WSL 2

Enable the Windows Subsystem for Linux

To run the WSL on Windows 10 you will need to install the optional feature:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Windows-Subsystem-Linux

Install a Linux distro for the Windows Subsystem for Linux

If you don’t already have installed a WSL distro, you can download and install it from the Windows 10 store. You can find more here: Crazy times – You can now run Linux on Windows 10 from the Windows Store

Enable the Virtual Machine Platform feature

WSL 2 Enable Virtual Machine Platform

WSL 2 Enable Virtual Machine Platform

To make use of the virtualization feature for WSL 2, you will need to enable the optional Windows feature. You can run the following PowerShell command to do this. You will need to start PowerShell as an Administrator. After you run this command, you might need a restart of your computer.

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName VirtualMachinePlatform

Set WSL distro to use version 2

After you completed the first two steps, you will need to configure the distro to use WSL 2. Run the following command to list the available distros in PowerShell:

wsl -l -v

To set a distro to WSL 2 you can run the following command:

wsl --set-version DistroName 2

You can also set WSL 2 as the default:

wsl --set-default-version 2

To find out more about installing WSL 2, check out the Microsoft Docs page.

If you are now running your distro using WSL 2, you can now see that there is a Virtual Machine worker process running and if you search a little bit more, you can also find the VHDX file of the distro.

WSL 2 VHDX file

I hope this helps you and gives you a quick overview, if you have any questions, let me know in the comments and check out the WSL 2 FAQ. The Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 Kernel is also open-source, you can follow the project on GitHub.


Mar122019March 12, 2019June 14, 20196Commentsby Thomas Maurer
Install or Update PowerShell 6 on Windows 10

How to Install and Update PowerShell 6

Posted in Cloud, Cloud Advocate, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, PowerShell, Windows, Windows 10, Windows Server, Windows Server 2019

Today Windows 10 and Windows Server 2019 ship with Windows PowerShell 5.1 as the default version. PowerShell Core 6 is a new edition of PowerShell that is cross-platform (Windows, macOS, and Linux), open-source, and built for heterogeneous environments and the hybrid cloud. PowerShell 6 today is a side by side version next to Windows PowerShell 5.1. That means on Windows you cannot just upgrade to PowerShell 6, you will need to install it, same as on Linux and macOS. This blog post shows you how simple you can install PowerShell 6 or update PowerShell 6, if you have already installed it, on Windows 10, Windows Server 2019 or Linux.

One great example of how cross-platform PowerShell can work, check out my blog post: How to set up PowerShell SSH Remoting

Of course, you can find excellent documentation out there on Microsoft Docs. However, Steve Lee (Microsoft Principal Software Engineer Manager in the PowerShell Team) shared some one-liner, which helps you quickly install and update PowerShell 6.

Install PowerShell Core 6

Before showing you the one-liner option to install PowerShell 6, I want to share with you the documentation to install PowerShell Core 6 on different operating systems like Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Read More

Aug142018August 14, 2018June 17, 20191Commentby Thomas Maurer
Download Azure Stack Update

How to install and manage Azure Stack Updates

Posted in Cloud, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Azure Stack, PowerShell, Private Cloud, Virtualization, Work

At itnetX, we help customers to implement as well as to operate  Azure Stack. One part of operating Azure Stack is keeping it up-to-date. This means installing Microsoft Azure Stack Updates, hotfixes as well as OEM update packages like drivers and firmware. In this blog post, I will cover all the information you need to keep your Azure Stack up-to-date.

Why should you update your Azure Stack

Azure Stack Update

This may sound like a simple question, but a lot of people ask for it. First of all, Microsoft and the hardware vendors are delivering quality fixes and security updates to keep Azure Stack stable and secure. But Microsoft also adds new functionality with their updates packages to keep up with the rapid cloud development on Azure. This is important if you want that your Azure Stack stays consistent with Azure in terms of functionality.

Another essential reason to stay current is to remain supported. You are allowed to be behind two major versions of Azure Stack, which means 2-3 months. You basically should update monthly, to make sure that you are secure and stable. However, there are reasons why you might have to defer an update. For example, this can happen for some companies, when they are in a freeze period where they are not allowed to do changes in their systems. If you are more than three major versions behind, your Azure Stack is considered out of support and will not be supported from Microsoft, until you have the at least required version installed.

You can read more about the Azure Stack servicing policy on the Azure Stack documentation site.

Updates for the Azure Stack Integrated System

Azure Stack Operations

As mentioned before, there are three types of updates to Azure Stack. The monthly Azure Stack Update Packages from Microsoft, Hotfixes, and OEM updates.

  • Microsoft software updates – Microsoft is responsible for the end-to-end servicing lifecycle for the Microsoft software update packages. These packages can include the latest Windows Server security updates, non-security updates, and Azure Stack feature updates. These update packages are non-cumulative updates and need to be installed one after the other. These updates are fully automated and will update the complete Azure Stack infrastructure.
  • OEM hardware vendor-provided updates – Azure Stack hardware partners are responsible for the end-to-end servicing lifecycle (including guidance) for the hardware-related firmware and driver update packages. In addition, Azure Stack hardware partners own and maintain guidance for all software and hardware on the hardware lifecycle host.
  • Microsoft hotfixes – Microsoft provides hotfixes for Azure Stack that address a specific issue that is often preventative or time-sensitive. Each hotfix is released with a corresponding Microsoft Knowledge Base article that details the issue, cause, and resolution. Hotfixes are downloaded and installed just like the regular full update packages for Azure Stack. Other then the major updates, Azure Stack hotfixes are cumulative per iteration.
 ReleaseCumulativeWhere to find
Microsoft Software UpdatesMonthly (4th Tuesday of very month)NoRelease Notes
OEM Hardware Vendor UpdatesDepending on OEMDependsOEM Website
Microsoft HotfixesWhen neededYesKnowledge Base article

By the way, you can only update Azure Stack multi-node systems, and the Azure Stack Development Kit needs to be redeployed.

Read More

Aug012017August 1, 2017January 12, 20192Commentsby Thomas Maurer
Install Hyper-V on Windows Server using PowerShell

Install Hyper-V on Windows Server using PowerShell

Posted in Containers, Hyper-V, Microsoft, PowerShell, Virtualization, Web, Windows, Windows 10, Windows Server, Work

If you want to install Hyper-V on Windows Server you can use the following PowerShell command to install the Hyper-V role. If you want to run Hyper-V, make sure your server does include the following requirements.

  • 64-bit Processor with Second Level Address Translation (SLAT)
  • CPU support for VM Monitor Mode Extension (VT-c on Intel CPU’s)
  • Processors with Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) or AMD Virtualization (AMD-V) technology
  • Hardware-enforced Data Execution Prevention (DEP) must be available and enabled. Intel: XD bit (execute disable bit) AMD: NX bit (no execute bit)
  • Minimum of 4 GB memory
 
Install-WindowsFeature -Name Hyper-V -ComputerName HOSTNAME -IncludeManagementTools -Restart

To check if Hyper-V is enabled, use the following command:

 
Get-WindowsFeature -Name Hyper-V -ComputerName HOSTNAME

If you are looking for installing Hyper-V on Windows 10, check the following blog post: Install Hyper-V on Windows 10 using PowerShell

 


Aug012017August 1, 2017June 19, 20190Commentby Thomas Maurer
Install Hyper-V on Windows 10 using PowerShell

Install Hyper-V on Windows 10 using PowerShell

Posted in Hyper-V, Microsoft, PowerShell, Virtualization, Web, Windows, Windows 10, Windows Server, Work

On since Windows 8 you can run Hyper-V on your desktop, laptop or Windows tablet. To install or enable Hyper-V on your Windows 10 machine, you just need to have the following requirements:

  • Windows 10 Enterprise, Professional, or Education (Home does not have the Hyper-V feature included)
  • 64-bit Processor with Second Level Address Translation (SLAT)
  • CPU support for VM Monitor Mode Extension (VT-c on Intel CPU’s)
  • Minimum of 4 GB memory

The easiest way to enable Hyper-V on Windows 10 is to run the following PowerShell command as an administrator:

Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName:Microsoft-Hyper-V -All

or you can use the following CMD DISM command:

DISM /Online /Enable-Feature /All /FeatureName:Microsoft-Hyper-V

If you are looking for installing Hyper-V on Windows Server, check the following blog post: Install Hyper-V on Windows Server using PowerShell



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    Thomas Maurer

    My name is Thomas Maurer. I am a Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft. I am part of the Azure engineering team and engage with the community and customers around the world. I am located in Switzerland. I am focusing on Microsoft technologies, especially cloud and datacenter solutions based on Microsoft Azure, Azure Stack and Windows Server.
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