Download Links for PowerGUI and QAD cmdlets

With Dell’s acquisition of Quest and all the IT reorganization that followed, it is actually not that easy to find these two popular free PowerShell tools any longer. So here are the links that work today (January 30, 2015):

PowerGUI

The download is freely available from Dell’s PowerGUI community.

The community itself also got moved from http://powergui.org to http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/powergui.

Dell Software is still maintaining the product – as I am writing this the latest version is 3.8 released in April 2014.

UPDATE: Looks like Dell took the community site down but direct download link http://community-downloads.quest.com/powergui/Release/3.8/PowerGUI.3.8.0.129.msi still works.

Quest / QAD cmdlets

This one is a little more tricky to find: https://software.dell.com/register/71110

If this link for some reason changes, all Dell’s freeware and trial links can be found in this catalog: http://software.dell.com/trials/

UPDATE: Looks like this got hidden even further. Not sure where it can be found now. This site seems to have copied and made them available for download though: http://www.powershelladmin.com/wiki/Quest_ActiveRoles_Management_Shell_Download

Happy PowerShelling!

Watch this PowerShell blog – Adam Driscoll

 In case you have not noticed, most of our PowerShell blogging activity moved from this blog to Adam’s. 🙂

If you are not yet following Adam – you should bookmark his blog and subscribe to his RSS feed right away. He is now Quest’s key PowerShell expert!

Here are just a few posts he did last month:

• ‘PowerShell 3.0 Firstlook’ book now available for pre-orders,
• Managing Virtual PC with PowerShell,
• PowerShell conferences and events of H1 2012,
• PowerShell CIM Associations,
• Generating Workflow Activities from Cmdlets,
• Design principles, guidelines, best practices for PowerShell modules / snapins.

There are just tons of great content in Adam’s PowerShell blog, and he is the author of PowerShell add-on for Visual Studio, and PowerShell / PowerGUI task bar QuickConsole – so definitely keep an eye on his updates!

PowerGUI 3.1 Released!

What a better way to get closer to the weekend than getting a new version of PowerGUI? 🙂 And here it is now available for download at PowerGUI.org.

New in PowerGUI free – PowerGUI on a USB key!

Now you don’t have to install PowerGUI on a computer on which you want to use it. Instead, PowerGUI can create a USB drive with a portable version of the product!

To use the feature:

1. Insert the flash drive with ~ 80 MB of free space into a USB port,
2. In PowerGUI Script Editor, run the following command in the PowerShell Console panel:

& "$PGHome\InstallPortable.ps1"

Fixes and Improvements

A lot of them. To name just a few of my favorites:

• You can now close the Welcome tab if you don’t need it,
• Script Editor starts faster,
• Large scripts are much faster to debug,
• File / Search Online dialog box can now find a PowerShell script by the name of the script author!

New in PowerGUI Pro

And we have even more goodies for our Pro users! You guys have already had ability to compile PowerShell scripts to exe files, now with 3.1 you can also compile them into real Windows Services!

Download new PowerGUI at PowerGUI.org and let us know what you think!

PowerGUI and AD cmdlets usergroup at Deep Dive?

If you are planning to attend European TEC 2011 PowerShell Deep Dive in Frankfurt October 17-18 2011, I have a question for you: would you like to stay half a day longer and have a usergroup for PowerGUI and QAD cmdlets in the morning of Oct 19th -or in the afternoon of Sunday, Oct 16th?

We could discuss the features and roadmap, share our experience with the tools, and so on.

Let me know if you are interested – if there’s enough people wanting to do that I can work with the organizers to get us the room, etc.

PowerGUI named #1 among free VMware vSphere Tools and Utilities for 2011

Considering how hot and crowded virtualization space is, it is just amazing that PowerGUI (combined with PowerCLI and Community PowerPack) is number one among the free tools in this space!

See the Top 10 Free VMware vSphere Tools and Utilities for 2011 lists here, and let me quote the PowerGUI entry for you:

1. PowerCLI, PowerGUI, and the vSphere Community PowerPack

This set of free tools ranked number 1 on last years free tool list and it’s not going anywhere anytime soon. When you combine these three products together it becomes Voltron. Yes, I just used a Voltron reference! These three products bring with them a set of tools that can’t be found in anything else. PowerCLI is the framework that makes it all possible. PowerGUI is the interface that enables anyone from a beginner to advanced user to become proficient. The PowerPack is the secret sauce that brings added functionality to every vSphere admin. Quest is currently working on updates for vSphere 5, but most of the functionality was there with the PowerCLI vSphere 5 beta I had been testing. Try it out and you will know why this tool continues to be on the Top 10 list.

 

Reset PowerShell Runspace in PowerGUI Script Editor

Here’s another neat feature we have added in PowerGUI 3.0 – ability to reset PowerShell runspace when you need to.

All you have to do is:

• Go to Debug menu, and click Reset Runspace.

And that will give you a nice new shiny PowerShell session with no variables or other changes left from your preceding work!

You can also make PowerGUI automatically reset runspace each time you start debugging if you:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options,
2. On Debug Options tab, select Reset PowerShell runspace each time debugging is started.

I somehow prefer manual method to automated one because quite often there is value in left-over variables (you get intellisense for example!), loaded modules, and so on. However, I can then manually reset the runspace before my final debug session to make sure the script works fine in a clean environment.

Either way, now you have both options at your command! Happy scripting!

(Screenshot taken from the original PowerGUI 3.0 announcement which lists a lot of other great features we shipped in that release)

Show your support: Vote for AD cmdlets, PowerShell, and PowerGUI

If Get-QADUser (or any other QAD cmdlet) or PowerGUI ever saved your day – now is a good time to show your love and spread the news. 🙂

Windows IT Pro magazine put us in their community award finals. So if you want to show your support:

1. Simply go to the award voting page,

2. For the first nomination, Best Active Directory & Group Policy Product, pick Quest Software ActiveRoles Management Shell for Active Directory (who would have thought that the official name was so long):

3. And obviously leave them a note in the Give us a killer quote about your winner! box.

4. Also, believe it or not 17. Best Microsoft Product has PowerShell as one of the options.

5. 21. Best Scripting Tool has Quest Software PowerGUI:

6. And obviously feel free to either ignore all other categories or cast your vote there as well.

Cast your vote now – before the contest is over.

Compile PowerShell scripts to exe

Script compilation to executable files is one of the features we have added in PowerGUI Pro 3.0.

You would likely want to use compile a script when you want to share it in the enterprise environment and you are not sure whether the other person is comfortable running scripts or you simply don’t want risking someone modifying the code.

To compile a PowerShell script:

1. Open the script in PowerGUI Pro Script Editor,
2. On the Tools menu, click Compile Script,
3. Then specify the name and path for the exe file you want to create:

The additional options you get are:

• Show or hide the PowerShell Console window when executing the script,
• Automatically close or keep the console window (if you do want to show it),
• Protect the script source code by obfuscating it using a password you specify,
• Add other PowerShell scripts  to the exe (if you have script which your main script is using).

[UPDATE] If your script access parameters – so will the exe file it generates. So for an executable generated from a script like:

param ($MyParam1, $MyParam2) "MyParam1: $MyParam1""MyParam2: $MyParam2"

You may use a command line like:
c:\Generated.exe -Arguments -MyParam2 "Value2" -MyParam1 "Value1"

 

To try this feature, you can install a trial version of PowerGUI Pro from here.

(Screenshot taken from the original PowerGUI 3.0 announcement which lists a lot of other great features we shipped in that release)

Quest Software, Kirk, PowerGUI, PowerShell

The news of Kirk Munro leaving Quest has generated so much emotional response, often including bashing of Quest Software, that I thought I have to write this quick post to summarize my opinion on the situation. (And by the way, for the record, I was not the manager Kirk mentioned in his blog post. :))

Kirk has been a tremendous member of the PowerGUI team, and when your position gets cut it is not fun at all – so I understand the tendency of us seeing this as the “big evil ungrateful corporation doing bad things” kind of thing.

At the same time, I don’t think this is what actually happened.

For many years Quest has been the major contributor to the PowerShell community and this contribution continues. Yes, being a public company Quest has to protect the interests of its shareholders and when the economy is not doing well some of the expenses have to get cut, and PowerGUI became one of the products which budget got adjusted. This is the sad reality here and such things happen. From what I know, Quest handled this unfortunate situation quite well giving Kirk a good package and offering options to stay involved.

Back in 2006, in the Monad days, Quest supported me: giving me the investment I requested, and allowing me to spend my work time to start PowerGUI and AD cmdlets development. These tools were created free and remain free. You are not even required to provide your email address and get marketing emails for using the tools. For a lot of IT professionals I know – their PowerShell life started with either (or both) of these tools. I have met many Active Directory administrators who told me that QAD cmdlets literally had changed the way they work.

PowerGUI VSX is our free and open source effort to bring PowerShell into Visual Studio.

PowerGUI.org website – again, created and maintained with Quest investment, is the most active PowerShell community in the internet (more active than Microsoft’s PowerShell newsgroups) – where many people get their PowerShell questions answered every day.

Quest is the major sponsor of the PowerShell Deep Dive – which remains significantly subsidized (just check out the discount you get there compared to regular TEC price). Anyone who was at the event can attest that this was one of the most advanced, intense and amazing PowerShell experience they’ve ever had.

From what I know, in none of these efforts Quest is abusing the relationship. Instead the company keeps doing what it can to give back to the community and make lives of IT professionals easier.

From my personal perspective, my career and visibility in the IT community got catapulted to stratosphere thanks to these investments. Seriously, how many IT pros knew about me or Kirk before PowerGUI and AD cmdlets? Both of us became celebrities thanks to Quest’s contributions to PowerShell.

So, am I sad that this happened and Kirk had to leave? Absolutely. I enjoyed working with Kirk and he is a good friend of mine. And yes without Kirk, the rest of the PowerGUI team including myself will have to work harder to keep the project advancing.

Does this make Quest evil, greedy and bad to the PowerShell community? I don’t think so. I really don’t see any companies besides maybe Microsoft investing so much in keeping PowerShell growing, and I think we should all keep that in mind. If you guys like what we are doing here at Quest for the PowerShell community – help us: buy the commercial versions of the products, be active in our forums, spread the news and love towards these efforts – this will help us keep going and protect us against any further cuts.

Thank you for listening.

Fix PowerGUI shortcuts in Start menu

ISSUE

PowerGUI 3.0 accidentally shipped with Windows Start menu shortcuts being called just “Administrative Console” and “Script Editor”. Which means that if you are used to starting applications by typing keywords in Start menu, you won’t be able to find the tools by typing PowerGUI:

SOLUTION

Open PowerGUI Script Editor (or native PowerShell command line), run the following command in the PowerShell Console window:

dir “$($env:ProgramData)\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\PowerGUI” | where {$_.Name -notmatch “PowerGUI”} | Rename-Item -NewName {“PowerGUI ” + $_.Name}

This will rename the shortcuts for you: