Installing the SharePoint Online Management Shell on Windows 8.1

I’m running Windows 8.1 and attempted to install the SharePoint Online Management Shell. The instructions say you need to install Windows Management Framework 3.0 but this fails when you try to install it.

Turns out you don’t need it if you’re running 8.1. The new WMF 4.0 also won’t install, so don’t try it. Instead what you should do is download the SharePoint Online Management Shell directly and then run it. I encountered an error when running the Management Shell the first time.

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Running the Management Shell as Administrator fixes the problem. To verify, run the get-module cmdlet and you’ll see the new modules loaded.

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I then executed the cmdlet Connect-SPOService and connected fine.

[UPDATE 2014-03-27]

I received a question as to using the PowerShell ISE with this module. Yes, but you have to load the module manually. Use the following command in your ISE session

 Import-Module Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell -DisableNameChecking

This will load the same module that the SharePoint Online Console loads. The “DisableNameChecking” attribute suppresses a message that warns the user that the module that MS uses is using unsupported verbs. Naughty!

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The module loads fine and running the same get-module command also works as in the console.