Group Policy in Windows 7

PowerShell! The name alone should get you excited. Wait until you see all the cool stuff you can do with PowerShell in the Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 release of the Group Policy management tools. For those of you who have yet to learn PowerShell, hopefully this will help motivate you. You will be able to…

 

a) Add PowerShell scripts to logon/logoff and startup/shutdown

b) Use cmdlets to do a lot of what you’ve been using the GPMC UI or GPMC Sample Scripts for (creating new GPO’s, linking, making backups…)

 

<drumroll please…>

 

c) Configure GPO registry settings from the PowerShell commandline

 

Holy cow! If you aren’t excited, it’s only because you don’t know what the word cmdlet is yet, but you can find out!

 

Here’s how:

Don Jones is a great writer for people of every level:

               

Here are some of his great reasons to use PowerShell with some cool tricks you can use right away for troubleshooting and management:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc160873.aspx

Check this out from the article:

 

Top 10 Cmdlets to Start Using Immediately

  • Get-Command retrieves a list of all available cmdlets.
  • Get-Help displays help information about cmdlets and concepts.
  • Get-WMIObject retrieves management information by using WMI.
  • Get-EventLog retrieves Windows event logs.
  • Get-Process retrieves a single or list of active processes.
  • Get-Service retrieves a Windows service.
  • Get-Content reads in text files, treating each line as a child object.
  • Add-Content appends content to a text file.
  • Copy-Item copies files, folders, and other objects.
  • Get-Acl retrieves access control lists (ACLs).

For a complete list of cmdlets that ship with Windows PowerShell, go to windowssdk.msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms714408.aspx

 

 

Here, he’s showing you how to build a software inventory tool using WMI cmdlets in a 6 minute video with accompanying article:

https://blogs.technet.com/tnmag/archive/2008/10/21/windows-powershell-building-your-own-software-inventory-tool.aspx

 

 

The Scripting Guys are hilarious and helpful. This is some of the stuff I liked that they wrote:

 

Get-Service; a quick way to get your hands dirty with something you can use right away

https://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/topics/msh/cmdlets/get-service.mspx

 

Format-List; how to make your results useful to you

https://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/topics/msh/cmdlets/format-list.mspx

 

This is their archive of Windows PowerShell Tips:

https://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/resources/pstips/archive.mspx

 

Let me know what resources you like in the comments, I can always learn more. Keep looking to this blog for more details on GP’s new cmdlets…

 

Hope this helps,

Lilia Gutnik

Group Policy, PM