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Influence the future of Windows sdk : Powershell based build environment

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We are working on next version of the Windows SDK. One of the features in discussion is a PowerShell based build environment for Windows SDK. We would like to know what do you think about this feature. Do you see yourself using this?

Any information related to how you use our build environment will be of great help for us in making this decision.

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2008
    If so SPEAK UP NOW .  The Windows SDK team is looking for feedback on whether this would be useful. 

  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2008
    If so SPEAK UP NOW .  The Windows SDK team is looking for feedback on whether this would be useful

  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2008
    YES, YES, YES Well, actually, I already do this; I sort of ported the SDK batch files into my powershell script profile (it even looks for 3.5/2008  first and if not found falls back to 2.0/2005). Seriously, for me, not having the SDK/VS build environment available in powershell was a big deterrent to using it as my day to day shell. It was only until I spent time setting it up that I could make powershell my default shell (and I ain't going back to cmd.exe)

  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2008
    Absolutely. A build environment with the power of PowerShell would be awesome.

  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2008
    PowerSHell should be the only build script out there. It should definitely replace MSBuild / XML files.

  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2008
    Not sure whether my comment is relevant. But the thing that I would like to see would be more "interoperability" between MsBuild and PowerShell.

  • To be able (natively) to run MsBuild tasks from the PowerShell.
  • To be able (natively) to run PowerShell within MsBuild. For now, it ain't easy to do so; but if the integration (both ways) was nicely setup, I would most certainly put more PSH scripts into my builds. Best regards, Joannès

  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2008
    Yes please. I am moving more and more tasks to PowerShell.  Having a PowerShell build environment would be very useful. I'd be happy to be involved in testing

  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2008
    What is a "PowerShell based build environment"?  Is it: 1) an alternative to msbuild? 2) using powershell from inside msbuild? 3) an msbuild-like cmdlet? Anyway, it would be quite welcome.

  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2008
    Some of the more interesting applications of Powershell, so far, have been in scaling administration.  Making things possible that you would not contemplate using existing technologies.  i.e. rebuilding and reconfiguring automatically 1000 x 2008 servers overnight for training purposes.   I can see interesting possibilities if the build environment had easy-to-use powershell support. Kindest Regards Mike Walker, Member of the PSUK group

  • Anonymous
    March 11, 2008

  • To be able (natively) to run MsBuild tasks from the PowerShell.
  • To be able (natively) to run PowerShell within MsBuild. i agree on a 100% I think that more powershell on everything is a good thing :D Cheers

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    I don't think that MSBuild interoperability is what's being discussed here. I think (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that we're talking about an actual PS build environment? Like Rake, only with PS. If so, yes, count me in.

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    This sounds like a great idea. I already use powershell for everything else, why not add it to helping me with my builds.

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    An extensible DSL is much better than XML config files.

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    Yes! More PowerShell! On top of this, I'd also like to see build tasks that are scriptable by PowerShell (i.e. sort of like Rake with Ruby, or Bake with Boo). This may be what you're referring to and if so, I apologize for the duplication.

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    Yes!!! Powershell based build environment, please!

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    I agree with Joannes, that would be the most useful.  I still think most people are going to want to do builds using MSBuild.  But there are times when more power is needed, and a simple batch script is just plain out dated.

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    I think this would be a fantastic addition!!

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    I personally would really like powershell integration in the build environment.  I've been using CC.Net and NAnt for a couple of years and have recently been migrating it to msbuild and in doing so have found myself already converting a lot of the custom tasks to powershell rather than having dedicated task dlls that are harder to maintain.  So it would be very useful for me to have that already built in and supported by the build framework itself.  Glad to see you guys are already thinking ahead about it! -Jason

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    Indeed I'd like to see this. This is absolutely a task that needs to be automated in many circumstances, and PowerShell is ideal for task-specific automation. Plus, PowerShell acts as a very task-focused API that developers can build on top of. I have customers who frequently spend a great deal of time creating build scripts; a PowerShell-based environment would be more efficient to script as it'd be more task-centric, and it'd also enable them to leverage their growing skill set. Essentially, anything Microsoft produces that is scriptable or which needs automation should be done in PowerShell. Wow... a standard... think of it...

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    I agree with the comment about using PowerShell more directly from MSBuild.  That might be enough to push us to use TeamBuild.  I currently prefer PowerShell's flexibility to MSBuild/TeamBuild so all our build scripts are written in PowerShell and we invoke msbuild from there.  I would also love to see native PowerShell cmdlet support for TFS (especially version control).  Still whatever extra PowerShell goodies I can get out of VS and/or the Windows SDK, I'll take them.

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    I also agree that good interoperability with MSBuild would be great.  We are heavily invested in MSBuild scripts and build tasks.

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    I'm unsure what you're envisioning.  But I would like to put my two cents worth in.  I would like to be able to natively run MSBuild from Powershell.  This would be tremedously useful for error tracking in the build process and for numerous other custom requirements that some builds have. I'm actually amazed that it's as hard as it is right now. I've seen tutorials for using powershell in MSBuild, but it should be native as well. Anyway, yes.  Integration good.

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    I'm not really a developer, but I write a bit of code in Visual Studio and I would love to see more integration with PowerShell.  My job as an admin in a Windows environment has me working with PowerShell on a daily basis and I would love the ability to transition what I know with  PowerShell into working with Visual Studio. Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    Yes please. Please create a PowerShell based build enviornment!

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    Yes a PowerShell based build enviroment would be great.

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    Yes please!!! From the moment I first worked with Powershell I was hoping that in the end it's going to completely replace command.com / the old dos shell interface / vbscripting / etc. I support every action that's going to get us a step closer towards that goal. P.S. Although we can get msbuild and Powershell integration with some simple code (see the powershell team blog) I also like some official support for that, but perhaps this is the wrong site / blog to ask for that...

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    YES, PowerShell build env would be good. But even better would be MSBuild & PowerShell integration:

  • using PowerShell scripts (inline and/or in-process) from MSBuild
  • running MSBuild (in-process) from PowerShell

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    I'd be one of the first to sign up to use this feature if it were made available.

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    Anything PowerShell would appear to be 'a good thing' ! Regards A.

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    As long as you're at it, might as well offer some MSDeploy functionality as well in Power Shell.

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    Building .Net Applications?  Maybe I'm missing the point, but MSBuild is great for "building" and it's part of the framework. What is the "gap" to be served by doing it in PowerShell?  Having MSBuild CmdLet(s) would be really nice.

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    I second Joannès. Integration between MSBuild and powershell is the key. MSBuild will be a part of many builds. So will hopefully powershell. /Staffan

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    Yes please! We don't really use MSBuild at the moment and tend towards Powershell (so we can use cmdlets update build numbers in our custom release tracking database) and getting VS to do the build (so it automatically does our MSI builds too).

  • Anonymous
    March 12, 2008
    Yes I think it is a very good idea !!!

  • Anonymous
    March 13, 2008
      Comments and trackbacks are back on after a futile battle with spam. I'll see how long it

  • Anonymous
    March 13, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 13, 2008
    Yes, definitely. Something along the lines of rake would be fantastic. PowerShake, anyone?

  • Anonymous
    March 13, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    March 13, 2008
    Please!  The only cmd.exe windows I normally have on my screen now are for the build environment; everywhere else I can is now PowerShell.

  • Anonymous
    March 14, 2008
    Somewhat related and apparently quite some people are looking for it - running PowerShell scripts from MSBuild. Bart De Smet has a post on the topic at http://community.bartdesmet.net/blogs/bart/archive/2008/02/16/invoking-powershell-scripts-from-msbuild.aspx.

  • Anonymous
    March 14, 2008
    Integration between MSBuild and PowerShell would be fantastic! Hoping this will definitely get in.

  • Anonymous
    March 15, 2008
    I have a build task that hosts a PowerShell runspace and I use it everywhere - trouble is that every task that I use ends up hosting a new runspace and that just takes a little time. What would be really useful is not just native integration between MS Build and PowerShell (as already suggested), but everything using PowerShell - from Visual Studio to all the little .exe that we end up running every day just to get something built and tested.

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2008
    A number of cmdlets to provide parts of an application layer for integration could be usefull. Currently using (N)Ant for TDD deployment and similar system management scenarious could be more easily tested i.e. also considering instrumentation of apps towards proper Windows system integration. This could include the cloud like Windows Live Service etc. and provide for competive services as well by providing a reference solution for such a cmdlet bridging developments tools like Ant, MSBuild etc. with infrastructure. In one scenario one should be able to test production quality by simply integrating a set of cmdlets. The cmdlets to take prarameters. I.e. running a basic integrated system management test some app. configuration of subsystems and services on the WIndows Server System like:

  • Application platform (i.e. BizTalk, IIS, Sharepoint),
  • Data (fs, db etc.),
  • Deployment (msi, registration),
  • Desktop (wdm i.e desktop band,, fonts),
  • Hardware virtualization,
  • Informaton (i.e. Windows Search),
  • Management (GP, Log, System Center, WMI, RDP), TS, App. Comp, Process, Performance, Hardware, AD),
  • Media (Live, MCE, WMDC, Office, WM, XNA), Network) This kind of use would be the natural choice for a Power Shell - and such tests could be automated and provided by MS. I.e. a basic example: a professional development project for Windows Server should log to the event log ... so during development, if app throws execeptions or similar without some special logging (beyond Windows native) to the event log the it could fail the test. Powershell can be used to and does already have a number of reference solutions for Windows host enviroment. So I think Powershell should be taken more in its own direction and development perspective giving good support for the managing the host enviroment. There are better tools like MSBuild and (N)Ant to support developers with the build task itself. This more extends to Test Driven Development where I see Powershell to help verify proper behaviour or even suggest to implement a feature based on lack of behaviour in a test-deployment scenario on a local or non-local Windows platform. Regards, David

  • Anonymous
    March 17, 2008
    Yes Powershell based build environment is a welcome idea. I would like to see Powershell everywhere!!! :-)

  • Anonymous
    March 19, 2008
    Yes, please! We currently use a combination of PowerShell which drives NAnt which drives MSBuild. The Nant support is historical, but we never found a reason to rewrite everything in MSBuild as NAnt is more flexible. So far we used Subversion as Repository and NUnit as Unittestframework. Newer projects are going to use TFS only. Subversion and NUnit are supported by Nant so we can drive our nightly build with this. TFS ist missing the nessecary support in NAnt, MSBuild and as of today, Powershell. Some of the features are currently made available via c# wrapper around TFS Webservices but the result is currently .... suboptimal. To use Powershell as build environment we strongly need to fully control TFS, including CheckOut/CheckIn, automated Unittests, building Workitem via Powershell, complete workitems etc. Also must powershell reflect the settings in solutions and projects. Last week I spend two hours searching an error which was caused by not synchronizing a conditional Symbol into the build script.

  • Anonymous
    March 22, 2008
    Powershell based build environment, would this be something like winpe + powershell? If so I could really use something like that. Were I work we still use Win XP and I currently use winpe + vbscript + wmi but then change to Powershell once the OS has been deployed. It would be nice to leverage my knowledge into one shell (Love Powershell and the use of .net objects) but I have to be creative with batch files and script when I perform tasks with winpe. Thanks again.

  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2008
    Yes. YES! Absolutely. I've already been using PS to build up my build automation management. Anything that would help minimize my efforts would be VERY welcome!

  • Anonymous
    March 25, 2008
    I would love to see a PowerShell based build environment. At the moment, I use cmake to get myself a Visual Studio project, which works OK, but I would much prefer to be able to interact with MS compilers via PowerShell.

  • Anonymous
    March 26, 2008
     PowerShell build environment is the MUST. With all the features of GNU build system and no less.

  • Anonymous
    March 28, 2008
    Jeffrey Snover (PowerShell Architect) pointed to Nanda's post asking for feedback for the Windows

  • Anonymous
    March 29, 2008
    A Powershell based build environment would be extremely useful.

  • Anonymous
    March 30, 2008
    I have used many flavors of make, nant, ms-build. I have many different build systems for many project over 15 years for several large organizations. Powershell would make a very powerful build platform. It has all the logical and pattern matching functionality you could desire.  The big thing it brings to the table for me is the fast and easy integration of .Net interfaces and assemblies into the script environment. As other MS products get Powershell enabled, its utility as glue code becomes obvious.   It really opens up the world to the scripter to be able load and run assemblies on the fly. The opportunities to unit test generated code on the fly are really exciting. Please bring Powershell into the next release of Visual Studio. It would be powerful :-)

  • Anonymous
    April 08, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    April 10, 2008
    This would be far beyond useful.

  • Anonymous
    April 11, 2008
    I think this feature will be very useful. Especially native TFS support and launching of tests

  • Anonymous
    April 21, 2008
    I'd appreciate a PowerShell-based build environment. Here's an article on CodeProject about the PowerShell build environment that we created for our deployments at my work. Maybe you could reduce our script down to a dozen lines by providing things we had to create from scratch. http://www.codeproject.com/KB/install/ExtractAndBuild.aspx

  • Anonymous
    May 19, 2008
    Yes, Powershell Build environment would be cool. Also, having builtin Powershell scripting for Pre-build and post-build in VS 2008.

  • Anonymous
    July 04, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 18, 2009
    Yes.  PowerShell has much more powerful syntax and is more customizable than MSBuild.  

  • Anonymous
    April 01, 2009
    The comment has been removed