Renamed from "Provide additional resource control methods in DSC" for clarity
Votes from Connect: 13

Original Date Submitted: 5/28/2015 12:15:20 AM

Description:
********Contact Information********
Handle: Ben Gelens
Site Name: PowerShell
Feedback ID: 1373894
***************************************

Problem Description:
Scenario:
A MOF file is compiled for a node serving a website. The service resource is used to declare the W3SVC service to be started and the file resource is used to copy in the web content.
Next an update is deployed to the website by compiling a new MOF file and for the new content to become active, the W3SVC service needs to be restarted.

Right now we need to do this in stages as we need to compile an intermediate MOF file to stop the W3SVC service.
When dealing with continues deployment / integration utilizing DSC Push or Pull, it would be greatly beneficial if DSC could leverage additional functionality so a resource could actually trigger a restart of a service by calling the service resource governing the status of that service and allowing this action to take place.

Of course this should not be implemented only for the service resource but would apply to others as well.

Chef has implemented this concept in all its resources where they can specify a Notify on one resource and an Action on another. For example: when a file mutation has taken place, it could notify the service resource to handle the restart action.

Suggestion:
Enrich DSC with additional native functionality to allow us to signal resources to take actions as the desired state of another resource is re-implemented / restored.

Code Example using registry:
configuration MyWebSite {

WindowsFeature SNMP-Service {
Name = 'SNMP-Service'
Ensure = 'Present'
}

service SNMP {
Name = 'SNMP'
StartupType = 'Automatic'
State = 'Running'
Action = 'Restart','Start','Stop'
DependsOn = '[WindowsFeature]SNMP-Service'
}

Registry Community {
Key = 'HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\SNMP\Parameters\ValidCommunities'
ValueName = 'MyCommunity'
ValueData = '10'
ValueType = 'Dword'
Ensure = 'Present'
Force = $true
Notify = '[Service]SNMP:Action:Restart'
}
}
In this example we make sure SNMP service is installed, the service has the desired state of started and a registry key is set to configure the SNMP service with a valid community setting.
The registry setting will only be activated once the SNMP service is restarted so we setup a notify on the registry resource and allow it to trigger the Action of restart on the resource governing the SNMP service.

Product Studio item created by Connect Synchronizer due to creation of feedback ID 1373894 (http://connect.microsoft.com/PowerShell/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=1373894).

Repro Steps:

Internal BugId: 14519

In order to register external module dependencies (dependencies living in another repository), the name has to be registered in a string array property within the PSData Hashtable property in the PrivateData section in the psd1 manifest like so for registering module 'psFtp':

PrivateData = @{
PSData = @{
# ExternalModuleDependencies
ExternalModuleDependencies = @('psFtp')
}
} # End of PrivateData hashtable

However, the new-modulemanifest doesn't have an -ExternalModuleDepencies parameter, nor is it possible to register externalmoduledependencies like so:

-PrivateData @{ PSData = @{ ExternalModuleDependencies = @('psFtp') } }

Which from a client perspective of the the existing new-modulemanifest api, would be an intuitive way of setting ExternalModuleDependencies.

Suggestion is:
Either make -ExternalModuleDependencies available as parameter or let the processing of the -PrivateData arguments handle nested hashtables (such as PSData in this case).

At some point in the 5.0 time period, Update-Help installed About topic files in the en-US directory for the PSWorkflow module with .txt (not .help.txt) file name extensions.

e.g. about_Foreach-Parallel.txt

Later, this was fixed and Update-Help installed the same help files in the same directory with the (correct) ".help.txt" file name extension.

e.g. about_Foreach-Parallel.help.txt

Now, the PSWorkflow\en-US directory has 9 pairs of files that are identical except for the file name extension.

about_ActivityCommonParameters.help.txt
about_ActivityCommonParameters.txt
about_Checkpoint-Workflow.help.txt
about_Checkpoint-Workflow.txt
about_Foreach-Parallel.help.txt
about_Foreach-Parallel.txt
about_InlineScript.help.txt
about_InlineScript.txt
about_Parallel.help.txt
about_Parallel.txt
about_Sequence.help.txt
about_Sequence.txt
about_Suspend-Workflow.help.txt
about_Suspend-Workflow.txt
about_WorkflowCommonParameters.help.txt
about_WorkflowCommonParameters.txt
about_Workflows.help.txt
about_Workflows.txt

Get-Help should ignore the .txt files (must have changed in 4.0), but it does not. Instead, it finds both .txt and .help.txt. So, when you run Get-Help, instead of displaying help for the topic, it lists the duplicate base names.

PS C:\ps-test> Get-Help about_Foreach-Parallel

Name Category Module Synopsis
---- -------- ------ --------
about_ForEach-Parallel HelpFile Describes the ForEach
about_Foreach-Parallel HelpFile Describes the ForEach

I'm not sure why Get-Help is recognizing About.txt files.

But, we had a similar problem in a module when we shipped a file with corrected capitalization in the base name.

about_FileName.help.txt
about_filename.help.txt

We might want to tweak Get-Help so that when it detects an exact duplicate base name, it displays the content in the newest file.

Also, in modules, Get-Help should display the help only for the version of the module that it's processing. That would allow module authors to update help topic names without causing unintended duplicates.

For some reason DSC errors out with a credential object contains a null password. Unfortunately that is the mechanism use to set group managed service accounts.
Here is a link to a relevant bug in xWebAdministration: https://github.com/PowerShell/xWebAdministration/issues/80#issuecomment-171364644

And here is an example of the output your recieve when you attempt to use a managed service account:

"VERBOSE: [COMPUTERNAME]: LCM: [ End Test ] [[xWebAppPool]testpool] in 0.0070 seconds.
The password supplied to the Desired State Configuration resource MSFT_xWebAppPool is not valid. The password cannot be null or empty.
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidResult: (:) [], CimException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : InvalidPassword
+ PSComputerName : localhost

I have created an internal NuGet Gallery to act as a module repository for internal modules and am trying to automate the registration of it as a trusted internal repository for all users in my organisation that use Windows Powershell and/or perhaps are starting to use DSC.

As all of the users in my organisation who use Powershell are in an AD group, I went looking for a Group Policy setting to register the internal repsitory. There isn't one, so I created a GPO and set it to run the following script, in the user context at login.

#Requires -version 5.0
Register-PSRepository -Name DomianRepo -InstallationPolicy Trusted `
-PackageManagementProvider NuGet `
-PublishLocation 'https://ps.my.addomain.com/gallery/api/v2/package/'; `
-SourceLocation 'https://ps.my.addomain.com/gallery/api/v2/'; `
-ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

In most cases the NuGet library (NuGet-anycpu.exe) is missing from either of the required locations and when the script is run interactively the following message is displayed:

NuGet-anycpu.exe is required to continue.
PowerShellGet requires NuGet-anycpu.exe to interact with NuGet based galleries. NuGet-anycpu.exe must be available in
'C:\Program Files\PackageManagement\ProviderAssemblies' or
'C:\Users\ThisUser\AppData\Local\PackageManagement\ProviderAssemblies'. For more information about NuGet provider,
see http://OneGet.org/NuGet.html. Do you want PowerShellGet to download NuGet-anycpu.exe now?
[Y] Yes [N] No [S] Suspend [?] Help (default is "Y"):

This of course means that the script which is run by Group Policy upon logon and thus is not in an 'interactive' session fails to complete. This is a similar issue to that linked below:
https://windowsserver.uservoice.com/forums/301869-powershell/suggestions/12491361--bug-install-module-force-prompts-for-user-input

My suggestions as a means around this issue are:

1). Remove the dependency on NuGet-anycpu.exe on the repository registration process completely meaning that the user can choose to install those binaries as appropriate only when they actually come to trying to use a registered repository (probably interactively)

2). Provide a -Force parameter for 'Register-PSRepository' allowing it to successfully register a repository in either the User or System context as appropriate to the rights of the installing user account without generating an interactive prompt

3). Provide a Group Policy Administrative template to register repositories as appropriate for users.

In 5.0, objects returned from a script will appear in the console only after the script has completely finished if no formatting data is defined for that object type.

Example:

Write-Warning "Before"
Get-Service E* | select Status, Name, DisplayName
Write-Warning "After"

Output:

WARNING: Before

WARNING: After
Status Name DisplayName
------ ---- -----------
Stopped EapHost Extensible Authentication Protocol
Running EFS Encrypting File System (EFS)
Running eventlog Windows Event Log
Running EventSystem COM+ Event System

Details
- This did not happen before PowerShell 5.0
- This happens both in the PowerShell console and ISE
- The issue affects all objects that have no formatting data, for example:
<anything> | Select-Object -Property …
[pscustomobject]@{one=1;two=2}
Get-Acl C:\
Get-Location
- Output that is sent to other streams is not affected (errors, Write-Host, Write-Warning, Write-Verbose etc.)
- The issue only occurs in table view (i.e. does not happen if the object has more than 4 properties)
- The issue also occurs if the script output is piped to a file, but not if it is piped to another command (e.g. Out-GridView).

This issue can create unexpected results for scripts that worked fine in previous PowerShell versions. Running this (contrived) script will highlight the issue:

$RandomProcess = Get-Process | Get-Random
Write-Host "Random process:"
$RandomProcess | select Name, ID
Read-Host "Press Enter to stop the listed process"
$RandomProcess | Stop-Process -WhatIf

What makes this potentially dangerous is that making subtle changes to the code (e.g. in the previous examples, removing the select command) could change the output significantly. At the very least it violates the "principle of least surprise".

This may be caused by the new default formatter waiting for all pipeline objects so it can display them in the new auto-sized column layout (essentially an implicit Format-Table -AutoSize). It would be better if the behavior reverted to the previous formatting style for “unknown” objects so it displays all output in the proper order.

Workarounds:

- If the objects do not really need to be sent to the pipeline, append “| Out-Host" or "| Out-String" to the command generating the objects.

Votes from Connect: 391

Original Date Submitted: 5/21/2015 12:20:32 AM

Description:
********Contact Information********
Handle: June Blender
Site Name: PowerShell
Feedback ID: 1351032
***************************************

Problem Description:
PowerShell users often read .NET reference pages in MSDN. It's all but required, because Get-Help doesn't describe object members. However, in the Examples section of .NET reference pages, there are no PowerShell examples; not even a PowerShell tab.

MSDN says they cannot demonstrate a demand for PowerShell examples. I'd like to use this feature request to demonstrate the demand.

Product Studio item created by Connect Synchronizer due to creation of feedback ID 1351032 (http://connect.microsoft.com/PowerShell/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=1351032).

Repro Steps:

Internal BugId: 14500

Votes from Connect: 23

Original Date Submitted: 10/31/2011 9:54:18 PM

Description:
********Contact Information********
Handle: FuriouS76
Site Name: PowerShell
Feedback ID: 698161
***************************************

Frequency: Always Happens
Regression: Yes, this happens in all previous versions

Problem Description:
I have tried many of the IDE/ISE options out there and prefer Windows ISE. The one feature I would like to see is the ability to undock or break out each pane across multiple monitors. This would allow users in multi-monitor setups to configure the ISE in an ideal setup that would allow faster coding / debugging.

Thanks,
Kirk Hammond.

Product Studio item created by Connect Synchronizer due to creation of feedback ID 698161 (http://connect.microsoft.com/PowerShell/feedback/ViewFeedback.aspx?FeedbackID=698161).

Repro Steps:
n/a

Expected Results:
n/a

Internal BugId: 3128