Viewing PowerShell Files in Preview within WIndows Explorer

Windows Explorer has a nice feature that shows the contents of a selected file. Click on a file and in the right pane you can see the contents. This is a great feature, except it does not work for ALL filetypes out of the box. So would you wish to view a .PS1 file this way - you are out of luck. By default

By default, the preview pane is disabled. So you must first enable it. With the latest versions of Windows 11, it looks like this:

But even after enabling this, you still can not view .PS1 files (or .PSM1 or .PSD1 files either) in the preview pane within Explorer.  

But like just about every default - with PowerShell there is usually a way to override it. And it turns out to make these files visible in the preview pane, you just need to run the following script:

# Define paths
$Path1 = 'Registry::HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.ps1'
$Path2 = 'Registry::HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.psm1'
$Path3 = 'Registry::HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.psd1'

# Set registry values to enable preview
New-ItemProperty -Path $Path1 -Name PerceivedType -PropertyType String  -Value 'text'
New-ItemProperty -Path $Path2 -Name PerceivedType -PropertyType String  -Value 'text'
New-ItemProperty -Path $Path3 -Name PerceivedType -PropertyType String  -Value 'text'

That's it. Once you run the script, you see things like this:

Another mystery solved

Saving PowerPoint Deck as a PDF - with PowerShell 7

 This week, I got into a twitter discussion about a presenter posting their slides for delegates. My personal preference is to always share the slides. Often, especially when I was working for an employer, I'd share a PDF of the file rather than the slides. Some decks had had a LOT of effort put in (some by inhouse graphics guys) and giving those animations away was sub-optimal for IP reasons. 

My approach was to post whatever material was appropriate to a DropBox share - and let people have that. I created a unique Bit.Ly short URL, and put that on the first few and final slides. Since the shortend URL never changed, I could put whatever content was relevant - letting attendees know this would all disappear in a few week's time.

What I used to do was to run a short little PowerShell script, during the final development of the deck. If, like SO many presenters, I made a change in the speaker's lounge just before going on - I could run the script just before unplugging and heading to the talk. I could just share https://bit.ly/TFLPresentations and manage the content.

Converting your PowerPoint deck to a PDF is straightforward - I blogged about how to convert a Powerpoint deck into a PDF using PowerShell a long time ago.  The script uses the PowerPoint objects that are part of Office and which Office setup conveniently stores in the .NET Framework's Global Assembly Cache (the GAC). 

After the Twitter conversation, I dusted off this script and to my surprise, it did not work. And the reason is that PowerShell 7 uses .NET and not The .NET Framework. The former does not make use of the GAC, so when I tried to load the appropriate assembly I got this error:

PS C:\Foo> Add-Type -AssemblyName microsoft.office.interop.powerpoint

Add-Type: Cannot find path 'C:\Foo\microsoft.office.interop.powerpoint.dll' because it does not exist.

After a few minutes contemplation I realised what the issue was. And by using Void Tools most excellent SearchEvereything product, I found the assembly at the snappy location of: C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.Office.Interop.PowerPoint\15.0.0.0__71e9bce111e9429c\Microsoft.Office.Interop.PowerPoint.dll.

So now I know the location, I could do this to save a single file:

# Define the files

$PPTFile = 'C:\foo\test.pptx'

$PDFFile = 'D:\Dropbox\AAA-TFL Presententations LIVE\test.pdf'

# Add the DLL

$DLLFile = 'C:\Windows\assembly\GAC_MSIL\Microsoft.Office.Interop.PowerPoint\' +

           '15.0.0.0__71e9bce111e9429c\Microsoft.Office.Interop.PowerPoint.dll'

# Add the type

Add-Type -Path $DLLFile

# Create save as PDF option

$SaveOption = [Microsoft.Office.Interop.PowerPoint.PpSaveAsFileType]::ppSaveAsPDF

# Open the PowerPoint Presentation

$PPT = New-Object -ComObject "PowerPoint.Application"

$Presentation = $PPT.Presentations.Open($PPTFile)

# Save it as a PDF and close the presentation

$Presentation.SaveAs($PdfFile,$SaveOption)

$Presentation.Close()

# Close PPT and kill the process to be sure

$PPT.Quit()

Get-Process 'POWERPNT' | Stop-Process

This fragment adds in the necessary DLL, opens the presentation from wherever I have it stored today, and then saves the file as PDF into the DropBox folder. 

I kind of thought that the Quit() method would kill PowerPoint but in my testing, the process hung around hence killing the process at the end of the fragment. Depending on how adventurous you wish to be, you can always wrap this code to get all the PPT files in one folder and save them away. 

Patching and PowerShell 7

 Many of you reading that blog know I'm a big supporter of PowerShell 7. I hope that many of you share my enthusiasm. After writing several books on PowerShell, and two on PowerShell 7, I find it a pretty good product.

One of the challenges which PowerShell brings to the enterprise is updates. Like most software products, there are bugs and vulnerabilities in PowerShell. I was reminded again of this fact reading an article from my Powershell Paper.Li paper. Today the top article comes from Bleeping Computer: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-asks-admins-to-patch-powershell-to-fix-wdac-bypass/.

The team do a great job in updating the code as soon as the vulnerabilities are found. In some (many) cases, the issue is not in PowerShell itself, but in one of the components, such as .NET. Once the team releases an update, you need to ensure that the update is rolled out everywhere you use PowerShell 7.

The method you use to keep PowerShell 7 up to date depends on how you installed PowerShell 7 in the first place. And here you have (at least) 3 options:

• Use Install-PowerShell.ps1 - this is a script you download from GitHub which enables you to install the latest production version of PowerShell, the latest next version Preview and (for the very brave) today's daily builds. If you use this, then you must manually update the software yourself. I love this as I am in control!
• Use the Microsoft store - you get the released version directly from the store. This should automatically keep your version up to date as the PowerShell team. At present, there is no Store application for Windows Server. You can also get the Preview version from the store (although I do not know how that plays if you also have the released version installed). 
• Use a third-party repository - you could download PowerShell directly from Github and install it (and manually update it as new versions get pushed out). You can also use Chocolatey although technically that is not supported.

So you have options. Personally, I update the daily build once or twice a week and update the preview and production versions once I get a warning about an updated version the next time I start PowerShell.  

So no matter how you install PowerShell 7, make sure you have a patch strategy in place. And if you have read this far, make sure you have installed 7.1.5 (or 7.0.8 if you are still on 7.0).

A Great Book On Windows Terminal

 

Review of Will Fuqua’s book “Windows Terminal Tips, Tricks, and Productivity Hacks”

 

I have had the pleasure of reading through this recently published book (Smile.Amazon.Com). This is a timely book, full of tips and tricks for using the new Windows Terminal.

Ever since Microsoft got into the OS business, we’ve had a console or shell built into the OS. The earliest, command.com, gave way to cmd.exe with NT 3.1. And later came Windows PowerShell, the PowerShell ISE and of course PowerShell 7 with VS Code. And now we have Windows Terminal.

As the book clarifies, there really are two components at work when you use tools like PowerShell. The first is the shell, with the second being the terminal. As the book makes clear, the terminal is, essentially, “what you see” when you use a command-line tool. The terminal renders any text, draws any UI, and accepts kb/mouse input. The terminal sends input to the shell for the actual processing. The shell then processes the input and returns the results back to the terminal to display.

When you use cmd.exe or PowerShell, conhost.exe is the terminal with the command prompt or Windows Powershell/PowerShell 7 as the shell.  The actual shell does not have a UI as such – it gets input from and sends output to the terminal. It is important to separate the two.

Conhost.exe is really pretty primitive – it works and does the job but could do so much more. Which is a thought that has led to the development of a new, open-source, cross-platform terminal supporting just about any shell, including the shells in Linux distributions you can run under the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL2).  The new windows terminal is not just a re-write of conhost.exe, but is so much more!

As a PowerShell user, I traditionally used PowerShell via either the command line (i.e. pwsh.exe, cmd.exe, powershell.exe) or most often via VS Code (and some ISE).  The tool I chose at any given time reflected what I was about to do. I use a GUI to develop and test scripts. And sometimes to run code. On the other hand, when I only need to run code ( for example, my Get-TodayInHistory.ps1 script (https://github.com/doctordns/GDScripts/blob/main/Get-TodayInHistory.ps1) that helps me pick music to play today), I chose the console as my terminal.

The book begins with a look at both what the terminal is and how you install it, followed by a great chapter on the UI. If you are going to be using the new terminal, Chapter 2 has several important key sequences you need to work into your muscle memory.

In the second section, the book looks at how you can configure Windows Terminal and the shells you use. The book contains lots of great tips for using the terminal and PowerShell and WSL2 Ubuntu via Windows Terminal.

For the hardcore developer, the final section in the book looks at how you can use Windows Terminal in development. The book looks at using GIT and GitHub and building web applications (with React) and  REST APIs. The book finishes with a look at connecting to a remote host and managing hosts in the cloud by using Azure Cloud Shell or Google Cloud shell in the Windows Terminal.

If you are a casual terminal user, Windows Terminal does everything you used to use consoles for – and a lot more. Windows Terminal is a great tool if you are a WSL2 user, perhaps creating APIs or web apps. For both audiences (and everyone in between), this book provides great guidance, tips/tricks, and best practices.

 

 

My Next Book is Announced!

I am pleased that my publisher, Packt, have announced my next book on PowerShell. The new book is entitled Windows Server Automation with PowerShell Cookbook and it should be released in July.

You can pre-order it from Amazon - in the UK, use the Smile.Amazon.Co.UK site. In the US, use the Smile.Amazon.Com site. 

I am looking for a few good books reviewers - you get a copy of the book in exchange for a review. If you are interested, send me some email at DoctorDNS@Gmail.Com.

Resolving Hyper-V issues with WIn10 Insiders builds

 I have been a member of the Windows Insiders group since 2014, and have enjoyed testing out the updates and looking at some of the new features coming to a new Win10 release in due course. A very few Insiders builds were bad - and just did not work. But that was rare and for the most part, the new builds work well.

I recently encountered an issue whereby after the upgrade, no Hyper-V VM would start. The error log shows an error message about MCompute faults - which looks like this in the event log.

Faulting application name: vmcompute.exe, version: 10.0.21354.1, time stamp: 0x1aa49b37

Faulting module name: vmcompute.exe, version: 10.0.21354.1, time stamp: 0x1aa49b37

Exception code: 0xc0000005

Fault offset: 0x00000000001c065a

Faulting process ID: 0x23a8

Faulting application start time: 0x01d72d3e4d15903d

Faulting application path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\vmcompute.exe

Faulting module path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\vmcompute.exe

Report ID: f8375064-c2fc-4a89-a8f1-af662c551008

Faulting package full name: 

Faulting package-relative application ID:

I reported this error multiple times, but to no avail. Every week, Windows Update would offer a new build that would fail to restart Hyper-V.. I'd revert to a working build, report the issue - then wait a week and repeat. Despite multiple reports, I never got any response from MSFT. 

I decided to take a near-nuclear option - which worked! In hopes that someone else who encounters this issue and, using their search engine, finds this post - here is my solution:

1. Start, then shut down all VMs.
2. Took an inventory of the VMs.
3. Remove all the un-needed VM snapshots - there were too many and all are now gone! 
4. Export all the VMs to a backup drive (removing the snapshots helped reduce the time).
5. Remove the Windows 10 Hyper-V feature - all of it.
6. Reboot.
7. Accept the latest Insiders update and let it install.
8. Once the upgrade is complete, add the Hyper-V feature back in.
9. Reboot.
10. Open up the Hyper-V console and install the necessary VM switches (two in my case).
11. Import the VMs specifying the location on the VM location on the host's disk of the VM (and not the backup!).
12. For some VMs< i need to specify where the virtual hard disks were stored (I use a non-standard location).
13. Start the VMs and enjoy.

Here is what I see now!

Once you are up and running, make sure to remove the backups.

From start to finish, it took me a couple of days elapsed time (the backup to an external USB2 drive was slow!). 

In step 2, I took inventory (including identifying the snapshots and working out how much data had to be backed up. One useful step wasn running this query and saving the output. 

PS C:\Foo> Get-VM | Format-Table -Property Name, Path

Name           Path

----           ----

***Cookham1    D:\VMs\Cookham1

CH1            D:\V8\CH1

DC1            d:\v8\DC1

DC2            d:\v8\DC2

HV1            D:\V8\HV1

HV2            d:\v8\HV2

Hyper-V Server D:\V7\HyperVServer\Hyper-V Server

Old - Bridge   D:\V7\Bridge

PSRV           D:\V8\PSRV

SMTP-2019      D:\V8\SMTP-2019\SMTP-2019

SRV1           D:\V8\SRV1

SRV2           D:\V8\SRV2

SS1            D:\V8\SS1

After all the updating, in step 11, I pointed the MMC's import wizard at the path noted above and most of the VMs came in fine. For the "V8" VMs, I had to specify the same path to let the wizard know where each of the disks was stored. 

Hope you never encounter this issue but if you do the is a workaround. 

Packt Publishers Sale on Through Jan 13 2021

In my morning email was a message from the publishers of two (and soon three) books. My books are on PowerShell, but as many of you know, they publish books, ebooks, and videos across the IT Spectrum. In my experience, some of their books are better than others. I'd like to think that some books, including mine, are in the 'good' category - but as ever Caveat Emptor.

Their reason for writing to me is that they currently have a sale on at the moment. This sale, which is on through Jan 13th 2021 offers certain WIndows/Linux books and ebooks for sale. 

I apologise for the short notice, but I only heard about this from a mail I got this morning.

Mastering Windows Server 2019 - https://www.packtpub.com/product/mastering-windows-server-2019-second-edition/9781789804539?utm_source=4sysops&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=5dollar2020&utm_term=system-administrators

Mastering Windows Security and Hardening - https://www.packtpub.com/product/mastering-windows-security-and-hardening/9781839216411?utm_source=4sysops&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=5dollar2020&utm_term=system-administrators

Windows Server 2019 Administration fundamentals, Second Edition - https://www.packtpub.com/product/windows-server-2019-administration-fundamentals-second-edition/9781838550912?utm_source=4sysops&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=5dollar2020&utm_term=system-administrators

Mastering Linux Security and Hardening - https://www.packtpub.com/product/mastering-linux-security-and-hardening-second-edition/9781838981778?utm_source=4sysops&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=5dollar2020&utm_term=system-administrators

Windows Subsystem for Linux 2 (WSL 2) Tips, Tricks, and Techniques -https://www.packtpub.com/product/windows-subsystem-for-linux-2-wsl-2-tips-tricks-and-techniques/9781800562448?utm_source=4sysops&utm_medium=&utm_campaign=5dollar2020&utm_term=system-administrators

And what list of great books on offer would be incomplete without my latest book: 

Windows Server 2019 Automation with PowerShell Cookbook - Third Edition -https://www.packtpub.com/product/windows-server-2019-automation-with-powershell-cookbook-third-edition/9781789808537

My Wiley PowerShell Book - Issues with the code samples

I recently posted (https://tfl09.blogspot.com/2020/12/my-latest-powershell-book-copies.html) about my latest PowerShell book, published by Wiley. I am proud of this book for many reasons. Most of the writing was done after the start of the Covid pandemic. Frankly, the writing helped keep me sane (well saner). 

Writing a book involves a lot of people. I write stuff  and then a good team of others help to turn this into a finished product. In particular, I was very happy with the excellent editing done by the Wiley team. The development process was laborious and my editors were a pedantic nightmare - but all in the Best Possible Way! I appreciated the almost anal nitpicking done and the total focus on quality. Everyone involved has my gratitude for their excellent work.

But...

Today I received a mail from a wonderful reader in Italy. He complained that cutting and pasting from the e-book failed. He provided me with some examples. Yes, he is right that what he showed me is NOT what I wrote and submitted.

My apologies for this to him, and everyone reading my book. I can assure you that I did everything I could to avoid this very issue. Jim, my TE, was totally focused on helping me to avoid issues like this - every missing capital letter, every missing parameter name, and every other minor error was flagged and resolved. I did what I could, and am sorry for the resulting issues.

With that said, one of the things I insisted on was that I could publish these scripts on GitHub. You do not have to buy my book (although I hope you will) to use the scripts. You canfindt the scripts at GitHub account - https://github.com/doctordns/Wiley20.

So if you want to try out the book and the scripts contained in it, please do NOT cut/paste from an electronic version - use the scripts on Github. If you find errors there, PLEASE file an issue at https://github.com/doctordns/Wiley20/issues. I will do my best to fix anything that might be broken and republish the updated script.  You are welcome to fork this repo and I'll accept PRs that fix errors in the scripts.

Thanks for everyone who either both my book or uses my scripts.