Microsoft OneDrive: One Place For Everything in Your Life ... Including PowerShell Scripts!
Last week, we announced worldwide availability of OneDrive. My friend and colleague, Brian Lewis, wrote a nice article that summarized many of the new capabilities around the free OneDrive cloud service, with improved support for shared document editing via Office Online, a new 3GB camera backup feature, automatic video rendering across multiple resolutions, and the ability to support a variety of devices, such as Windows, Windows Phone, iOS, Mac, Android ... and Xbox!
Compare OneDrive to Google Drive, Dropbox and iCloud |
All this and PowerShell scripts too?
One new capability came as a particularly pleasant surprise to many of us in the PowerShell community: OneDrive also now supports web-based rendering of PowerShell scripts. Very cool!
PowerShell Scripts – Web-based rendering via OneDrive
By leveraging OneDrive you can easily create a shared, cloud-based PowerShell repository where script files can be directly downloaded/uploaded or script snippets can be copied/pasted directly from your web browser into a PowerShell window.
- Tip! Pair this up with the OneDrive sync functionality in Windows 8.1, and you have a pretty nifty approach for backing up your local scripts to the cloud!
Web-based Script Editing, Too!
You can also edit PowerShell scripts using your web browser with OneDrive! This makes quick updates to a script super easy without needing to download and upload script files every time there is an update. Just click on a script line, make your change and click the Save button when completed. All from within your web browser window ... from any device with a supported browser!
- Tip! Looking for a better alternative to Notepad for editing PowerShell scripts on your Surface RT? Or how about editing scripts from the comfort of your couch using your Xbox One? Give OneDrive a Try!
Wait! What about Privacy and Security?
Great question! By default, the files that you store in OneDrive are private. But, if you wish to share some of your coolest PowerShell scripts with others, you can easily do so:
- Step-by-Step: Privacy in OneDrive
In addition, many IT Pros have expressed interest in increasing the strength of authentication options for cloud services, such as OneDrive. To support strong authentication, you can easily enable multi-factor authentication for OneDrive and other cloud services that leverage Microsoft account authentication. Once enabled, your phone can be leveraged as a second factor of authentication when attempting to sign in from an untrusted device.
- Step-by-Step: Enable two-step authentication for Microsoft accounts
What’s your favorite OneDrive feature?
Have you found a unique scenario for leveraging OneDrive? Feel free to share your experiences in the Comments section below …
See you in the Clouds!
- Keith