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A look into PowerShell 2.0 CTP3 Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE)

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I’ve been using PowerShell 1.0 for many things SharePoint lately… including a community project with a collection of useful functions and scripts.  (Community Project:  PowerShell Pack for SharePoint can be found here). 

PowerShell provides a lot of great value.  However, scripting in Notepad hasn’t always been the most efficient. 

Introducing: Windows PowerShell v2 Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE)!

For anyone that has been doing PowerShell scripting, this tool will knock your socks off.  Here’s a look into a some of the features that it brings:

1.  Tabbed navigation:  open up multiple scripts and navigate them via the tabs at the top
2.  Menu bar: New, Open, Save…and Clear Output Window
3.  Start PowerShell in a separate process

Notice the three panes that are open:

Script Window:   here is where you can edit your  *.ps1 script files.  Click the “Play” button and your script will execute
Output Window:   after executing a script in either the Script Window or Command Window, the output will be displayed here.
Command Window: execute one-off commands AND even commands against your script from the Script Window

0_emptywindow_text 

Here’s a quick example.   I’ve loaded up a new (blank) script and added some basic code to register the Microsoft.SharePoint.dll and load a function.
 

2_writescript
After running the script, the output can bee seen in the Output Window

5_commandpaneexec
This alone would be a HUGE win for PowerShell script development…but it gets better!!  Now, that I’ve got my script in order, let’s USE the function by writing a command against it in the Command Window.

4_commandpane
As you can see, the output from my Command Window is shown right after my script output in the Output Window.

 5_commandpaneexec 

Click here to download Windows PowerShell 2.0 CTP3. 

Note:   You will need to uninstall PowerShell 1.0 before installing 2.0.  Windows PowerShell 1.0 can be found under Add/Remove Programs:

Windows XP / 2003 Server
KB926139, KB926140, and KB926141

Windows Vista
KB928439

A summary list of Windows PowerShell v2.0 features can be found on the team blog here.