PowerShell 2.0, included in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2, includes a new Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) which provides you with a GUI based tool to write your scripts and learn PowerShell.  To launch PowerShell 2.0 ISE simply drill down to Start –> All Programs –> Accessories –> Windows PowerShell.

Once that is launched you’ll see the ISE load and you are ready to begin.

The top portion, aka the Script Pane, is your scripting environment which allows you to write PS scripts.  The play and stop buttons are used to start and stop the running of a script.  The middle portion, aka the Output Pane, is where the script is executed and the results displayed.  Finally at the bottom is the Command Pane, where you can run individual Cmdlets and “one-liners”.  So besides a nice GUI editor why do I like the PowerShell ISE? 

• · ISE Features -  Tab completion, line numbering, indenting and the always useful search and replace.
• · Customizable ISE -  You can change the color, location and size of the various panes to suit your style.
• · Colored Syntax – Like other scripting environments different colors are used to highlight variables, strings, objects and Cmdlets.
• · Support for Unicode -  The PowerShell ISE supports Unicode.
• · Debugging.  I always make mistakes and the ability to set breakpoints, walk through the script step by step really helps find those errors.

If you are using Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2 give the ISE a try!  Compared to Notepad it is a dream to work with :)

A few weeks back we posted an entry on how to boot from a Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2 VHD.  Booting from VHD is new to Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 but one of the caveats was you needed a “clean” VHD to boot from.  There is a very simple way to create this VHD using an open source tool available on the MSDN Code Gallery called WIM2VHD.

WIM2VHD is a command line tool that converts the WIM image into a VHD you can use to boot off.  It does have a few requirements…

• The prep machine has to be running Windows 7, Server 2008 R2, either of which could be running in a Hyper-V VM
• A Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2 installation media
• The Windows 7 Automated Install Kit Beta

There are a number of switches you will need to know as well in order to create the VHD file…

• /wim: specifies the path to the WIM file
• /sku: which version (ServerStandard, Ultimate etc…)  You can also use the SkuIndex if you retrieved that with the ImageX tool
• /vhd: specifies the path and the name of the VHD to be created
• /size: specifies the size of the VHD in MB
• /disktype: specifies the type of disk, Dynamic or Fixed

There are some additional switches which you can find on the WIM2VHD documentation that allow you to further customize the VHD to be created.

So let’s say we wanted to create a Windows 7 Ultimate VHD on a 40GB fixed disk; we’d use the following command:

cscript wim2vhd.wsf /wim:X:\sources\install.wim /sku:ULTIMATE /vhd:C:\Win7Ultimate.vhd /size:40960 /disktype:Fixed

Or if we wanted to create a Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard VHD on a 40GB dynamically expanding disk we’d use the following command:

cscript wim2vhd.wsf /wim:X:\sources\install.wim /sku:SERVERSTANDARD /vhd:C:\ServerStandardR2.vhd /size:40960 /disktype:Dynamic

You can download WIM2VHD and the release documents here.

Federated search on Windows 7  lets you search online repositories from within Explorer. Those repositories can be RSS feeds, or sites like you tube. It’s primary purpose is to provide easy access to search enterprise portals. fortunately people are already building providers for all sorts of services.

In the screenshot I was able to search the TLA blog for articles on Windows 7. To read any of these articles I just click on the results and then click open

You can find Federated Search connectors for all sorts of sites. For now of course you should download the TheLazyAdmin Federated search provider! 

To install, First you'll need Windows 7, then download the zip file from the link above, open the zip file and double click the Thelazyadmin.osdx file.

That's it, open Windows Explorer or browse to C:\Users\<username>\Searches and search the your favourite Tech Tips site right from your desktop!

Interesting headline? Ever have a setup failure and wonder why? Ever notice a weird bug once you have just loaded up Windows?

There is a little known folder in your Windows directory which provides a ton info information about your Windows install.

The folder is called the Panther folder and is locate in:

C:\Windows\Panther

This folder contains several files. The most interesting is setupact.log

Most of the information is under the “info” heading, however if you encounter errors during your install this file is very verbose. It can quickly help you pinpoint the area in your system where you’re running into difficulty.

If you dig a little further you can find an additional log file in C:\Windows\Panther\UnattendGC which details setup information about the unattended portion of the Windows setup. For some additional details check out this Kb: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb978390.aspx

Remeber you can find more help with Windows deployment at the Microsoft Springboard portal!

There is a lot of VHD integration in Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2.  We already showed how to boot from VHD but you can also mount a VHD from within a Windows 7 / Server 2008 R2 environment.

Open up Disk Management, you can Right-Click on Computer and choose Manage and then select Disk Management to do this.

Right-Click on Disk Management and choose Attach VHD.

Enter the path to the VHD.  You can choose to mark it Read-Only as well. Click OK.

The drive will mount and display in Disk Management.  You’ll notice the disk icon is also blue to help you distinguish it as a mounted VHD.

To dismount, Right-Click the disk and select Detatch VHD.

You will be given the option to delete the VHD as well, but it is not the default.  Click OK to detatch.

For more information be sure to check out the Windows 7 resource page on Technet.com

OK I found this while poking around and must say this is a helpdesk and developer savior.  How many times have you been on the phone with someone while trying to troubleshoot a problem and you just can’t tell what they are doing wrong?  While there are some remote tools that can help and you can try Remote Assistance I found this new tool in Windows 7 called the Problem Step Recorder.  In a nutshell it records the steps and takes screenshots as the user interacts with the OS (don't worry it won't record passwords).

Start –> Run –> PSR.exe

Click Start Record and begin reproducing the steps that cause the issue.  When done you can click Stop Record and the output will be saved into an annotated MHT file and zipped up ready to email.  The user can click Pause Record to pause (obviously) or click Add Comment to insert comments into the recording that will get noted in the MHT.

You can see a sample MHT here!

I can see so many uses for this little tool from troubleshooting to taking screenshots for future TLA articles :)

For more information be sure to check out the Windows 7 resource page on Technet.com