Tag: update

Jul102019July 10, 2019July 10, 20193 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

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

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

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.

Mar122019March 12, 2019June 14, 20196 Commentsby 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 #PScore6 on Windows using a single command line from Windows PowerShell: iex “& { $(irm https://t.co/oXHZpO8yPJ) } -UseMSI -Preview”
You can look at the script to see what switches are available, this will use the MSI to install latest Preview.
— Steve Lee (@Steve_MSFT) February 1, 2019

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.

Feb152019February 15, 2019February 19, 20192 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

Updated PowerShellGet and PackageManagment

Update PowerShellGet and PackageManagement

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

Since I am just setting up a new work machine, I wanted to share some information how you can update PowerShellGet and PackageManagement to the latest version. This will give you the usual bug fixes and performance enhancements. Since you don’t get the latest version in Windows PowerShell nor PowerShell Core, you will need to update it manually.

PowerShellGet is a PowerShell module with commands for discovering, installing, updating and publishing the PowerShell artifacts like Modules, DSC Resources, Role Capabilities and Scripts. For example you use PowerShellGet to install the Azure PowerShell module, or other modules.

PowerShellGet module is also integrated with the PackageManagement module as a provider, users can also use the PowerShell PackageManagement cmdlets for discovering, installing and updating the PowerShell artifacts like Modules and Scripts.

(source: GitHub)

How to update PowerShellGet and PackageManagement

Updating to the latest version of PowerShellGet and the PackageManagement module is simple. Since both modules are part of the PowerShell Gallery, you can update them using a couple of simple commands.

You can find both modules in the PowerShell Gallery:

First lets check which versions of the modules you have available. If you use Update-Module, it will automatically load PowerShellGet and PackageManagement and list them as loaded PowerShell modules. Of course you can also use Get-Module -ListAvailable.

 
Get-Module -ListAvailable PackageManagement, PowerShellGet

As you can see, In my default installation, I got PowerShellGet version 1.6.7 and PackageManagement 1.1.7.2. If you have a look at PSGallery, you will see that these are pretty old versions and that there are newer available.

To get the latest version from PowerShell Gallery, you should first install the latest Nuget provider. You will need to run PowerShell as an Administrator for all the following commands.

 
Install-PackageProvider Nuget –Force
Exit

If you run PowerShell 5.0 or newer, you can install the latest PowerShellGet using the following command. PowerShell 5.0 is included in Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, any system with WMF 5.0 and 5.1 or a system running PowerShell 6.

 
Install-Module –Name PowerShellGet –Force
Exit

Two quick tips, first of, you will need to set the execution policy to RemoteSigned to allow the new module to run. Secondly in some cases you will need to use the -AllowClobber parameter to install the updated version of the module.

 
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
 
Install-Module –Name PowerShellGet –Force -AllowClobber

You can then use Update-Module to get newer versions:

 
Update-Module -Name PowerShellGet
Exit

After that you will see the latest versions of PowerShellGet and PackageMangement available

If you run older versions of PowerShell you can check out the full documention on the PowerShell Docs. I hope this blog post helps you to update PowerShellGet and benefit from the latest versions. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments.

Aug302018August 30, 2018July 8, 20197 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

Windows Server 2019 In-place Upgrade

Posted in Hyper-V, Microsoft, Virtualization, Windows Server, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Windows Server 2019, Work

As another part of my series for Windows Server 2019, this blog post covers the in-place upgrade feature. The in-place upgrade allows you to upgrade your existing LTSC versions of Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows Server 2016 servers to Windows Server 2019. Windows Server 2019 In-place Upgrade will enable businesses to update to the latest version quickly. Especially if you have servers which you might need to install some dependencies for the applications. I saw a lot of customers who not have documented their server installations and neither used infrastructure as code to deploy them. For these customers, it can be hard to upgrade to newer versions of Windows Server. With the Windows Server 2019 In-Place Upgrade feature, this should get a lot easier. Especially since Windows Server 2019 brings a lot of improvements.

Upgrade Matrix

You can in-place upgrade to Windows Server 2019 from

Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2016

If you run older versions of Windows Server, you might have to upgrade to Windows Server 2012 R2 or Windows Server 2016 first.

Windows Server Upgrade Path (Image: Microsoft Docs)

To find out more about the in-place upgrade on the Microsoft Docs page.

How to in-place upgrade to Windows Server 2019

To in-place upgrade to Windows Server 2019, insert the Windows Server 2019 media into the existing server, by attaching an ISO file, copying the sources, adding a USB drive or even a DVD drive and start the setup.exe.

The setup will discover the existing installation and will let you perform an in-place upgrade. The installation will run for a couple of minutes; it will take quite some time depending on the speed of your server hardware and the installed roles and features.

Microsoft MVP Didier Van Hoye did write a great blog post about Upgrade testing. In that blog post, he has a quick look at upgrading to Windows Server 2019.

You can also find an overview of what is coming new in Windows Server 2019, in my blog: Windows Server 2019 – What’s coming next.

Aug142018August 14, 2018June 17, 20191 Commentby Thomas Maurer

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

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

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.

	Release	Cumulative	Where to find
Microsoft Software Updates	Monthly (4th Tuesday of very month)	No	Release Notes
OEM Hardware Vendor Updates	Depending on OEM	Depends	OEM Website
Microsoft Hotfixes	When needed	Yes	Knowledge Base article

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

Aug052015August 5, 2015August 5, 20154 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

Summary: Update Rollup 7 for System Center 2012 R2 and Azure Pack now available

Posted in Cloud, Hyper-V, Microsoft, PowerShell, Private Cloud, Service Management Automation, Service Manager, System Center, Virtual Machine Manager, Virtualization, VMware, Web, Windows, Windows 10, Windows Azure Pack, Windows Server, Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2016, Work

Last week Microsoft released Update Rollup 7 (UR7) for System Center 2012 R2 and Windows Azure Pack. And as always, Update Rollup 7 does not only include a bunch of fixes, it also includes some new features. This time especially Windows Azure Pack and System Center Virtual Machine Manager got some nice updates. Components that are fixed and updated in this update rollup

Data Protection Manager (3065246)
- Support for Windows 10 Client operating system
- Ability to use an alternative DPM server to recover from Azure Backup Vault
- Improvements for backup on Hyper-V Replica VMs
- Other improvements and fixes…
Orchestrator & SMA (3069115)
- Orchestrator: some small fixes
- SMA
  - SMA runbook execution fails if a PowerShell execution policy is set to Unrestricted through a Group Policy Object.
  - Fixed an error when you try to save or import a runbook in SMA
Operations Manager (will be released later)
- The rollup is delayed by few weeks, as engineering team is working on recently reported issues.
Service Manager (3063263)
Service Provider Foundation (3069355)
- This update includes general API changes to improve product quality.
Virtual Machine Manager (3066340)
- Support for Windows 10 Client Operating System
- Support for new Linux Operating Systems (Debian 8)
- Support for VMWare vCenter 5.5 management scenarios (more infos VMWare vCenter 5.5 management scenarios)
- Support for Multiple External IP Addresses per Virtual Network
- Option to Reassociate Orphaned virtual machines to their Service or VM role
- Support for VMM DHCP Extension PXE/TFP Forwarding
- Some scale improvements if you have more than 50 Hyper-V Hosts
- Some Hyper-V Network Virtualization (HNV) fixes and improvements
- Other fixes…
Windows Azure Pack (3069121)
- Tenants cannot delete the checkpoints of their virtual machines
- Support for VM names of up to 15 characters
- Displaying VHD items during virtual machine creation when there are no hardware profiles in the plan
- Incompatible VHDs are offered to the tenant when attaching a VHD to a virtual machine
- Support for tenant plan viewing and self-subscription permission based on security groups
- Support for Shielded Virtual Machine Management when it’s run on Windows Server 2016 Preview
- Virtual Machine performance data displayed in the tenant portal
- Other fixes and improvements…
Windows Azure Pack Web Sites (3069358)
- Adds support for IPv6 to IP SSL functionality
- Changes Web Deploy publishing from publish.domain.com to site.scm.domain.com.
- Other fixes and improvements…

One of the new features I want to highlight is the possibility to add multiple public (external) IP addresses to Virtual Network (Using Hyper-V Network Virtualization HVN). This means a tenant can assign multiple public IP addresses on his NAT gateway and do port forwarding, for example if he runs multiple webservers in that VM Network. This is a feature a lot of customers especially service provider have missed for a long time.

Another improvement we can see is the support for the next release of Windows Server and also support for Windows 10.

Jul202015July 20, 2015June 17, 20198 Commentsby Thomas Maurer

The best Windows 10 Features – Why you will love Windows 10

Posted in Active Directory, Cloud, Groove Music, Home, Hyper-V, Internet Explorer, Microsoft, Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Edge, Office, Office365, PowerShell, Virtualization, Web, Web, Windows, Windows 10, Windows Phone, Work, Xbox

Since the first release of the Windows 10 Preview in the Insider program, I was using the Technical previews on my Surface Pro 3, and it is excellent how Microsoft is improving Windows 10 over the last several months based on research and feedback from the Windows Insider program.

In some days, on July 29, Microsoft will release Windows 10 to the public, and here are some reasons why you will love Windows 10:

Microsoft Edge

With Windows 10 Microsoft released a new browser called Microsoft Edge (before Project Spartan) which is amazingly fast and brings a lot of new features to the table such as Cortana Integration, Web notes which allow you basically draw your notes on websites and share them and Microsoft also promised to enable browser extensions. Secret: you can also switch from a Light Theme to a Dark Theme.

You can also check out the new edge insider preview here: Microsoft Edge Insider

Task View & Virtual Desktop

Most of the IT Pros reading this blog already knew about Task view in the previous version of Windows using WIN + TAB, but only a few other users did know about these features. Microsoft not only improved the Task view, but Microsoft also promoted it much better with an icon in the Taskbar.

In Windows 10 WIN + TAB does not only offer you Task View it also allows you to create and switch between Virtual Desktops. With Virtual Desktops, you can now finally create multiple workspaces on your PC, which should bring you the productivity boost you need. Secret: You can switch between different Desktops using the Shortcut: CTRL + WIN + ARROW (LEFT and RIGHT).

Hyper-V

Microsoft builds Hyper-V directly into the Windows Client since Windows 8. This is great if you want to run Virtual Machines on your Windows Client. Windows 10 Client Hyper-V brings you the excellent performance and features Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V will bring you. Of course, some features are only available in the server build of Hyper-V, but you get some great features such as Enhanced Session mode to copy & paste between your PC and your Virtual Machine. Secret: Windows 10 will allow you to run Hyper-V and use Connected Standby at the same time.

Tag: update

How to Install and Update PowerShell 7

Install PowerShell 7 (Preview)

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

One-liner to install or update PowerShell 7 on Linux

After Installing

How to Install and Update PowerShell 6

Install PowerShell Core 6

Update PowerShellGet and PackageManagement

How to update PowerShellGet and PackageManagement

Windows Server 2019 In-place Upgrade

Upgrade Matrix

How to in-place upgrade to Windows Server 2019

How to install and manage Azure Stack Updates

Why should you update your Azure Stack

Updates for the Azure Stack Integrated System

The best Windows 10 Features – Why you will love Windows 10

Microsoft Edge

Task View & Virtual Desktop

Hyper-V

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