📘 Local PowerShell Module Repository, No Server Required

https://blog.devolutions.net/2021/03/local-powershell-module-repository-no-server-required

📦 SecretManagement and SecretStore are Generally Available

Two modules are now generally available on the PowerShell Gallery:
- Microsoft.PowerShell.SecretManagement
- Microsoft.PowerShell.SecretStore

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/secretmanagement-and-secretstore-are-generally-available/

Use PowerShell properly!

📦 A lightweight wrapper module for handling mutexes in PowerShell

The Mutex module is designed as a minimal wrapper around the .NET mutex functionality. It is designed to synchronize resource access across process boundaries within the same host.
Are plainly put, it is used to prevent access conflicts. For examples from writing to the same file.

https://github.com/friedrichweinmann/mutex

This is a valid PowerShell code that runs.
Do you know what "a" will be?

📦 v7.2.0-preview.5 Release of PowerShell.

Breaking Changes
- Make PowerShell Linux deb and RPM packages universal
- Enforce AppLocker Deny configuration before Execution Policy Bypass configuration
- Disallow mixed dash and slash in command line parameter prefix
Experimental Features
- PSNativeCommandArgumentPassing: Use ArgumentList for native executable invocation (breaking change)
Engine Updates and Fixes
General Cmdlet Updates and Fixes

📌 A PowerShell users' guide to regular expressions: part 1 and part 2 (of 3).

Even experts can be a little intimidated by reading through a noscript and meeting something like
^\{?[0-9a-f]{8}-([0-9a-f]{4}-){3}[0-9a-f]{12}\}?$

So here is piece of good news - It won’t take much longer to understand that monster. Let’s start at the beginning.

https://jhoneill.github.io/powershell/2021/04/10/regex1.html

https://jhoneill.github.io/powershell/2021/04/11/regex2.html

🎬 PowerShell Testing with Pester 5

0:00​ Intro
2:28​ About Jakub Jares
3:15​ Install Pester
4:46​ Overview of Pester
13:32​ Practical Example
34:38​ Pester VSCode Extension
37:22​ Debugging in VSCode with Pester
43:24​ Practical Example
1:07:00​ Test Drive
1:16:00​ Other Features
1:34:00​ VS Code Code Coverage
1:49:00​ Q&A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeiy8fRMHf8

Inline values for PowerShell variables

This extension enables inline values for variables when debugging a PowerShell noscript.

📚 5 new modules on Microsoft Learn for PowerShell

▪️ Introduction to PowerShell
▪️ Connect commands into a pipeline
▪️ Introduction to noscripting in PowerShell
▪️ Write your first PowerShell code
▪️ Automate Azure tasks using noscripts with PowerShell

🎬 PowerShell Secrets Management Module - Easily use any secret provider

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b0KGVI4VLY

Second preview of PowerShell Crescendo
A framework to rapidly develop PowerShell cmdlets for native commands, regardless of platform.

- Added support for native command elevation on Windows and Linux platforms.
- Export-CrescendoModule now exports a module manifest (psd1) along with the module file (psm1).
- Added support for generating aliases for Crescendo cmdlets
- Added support for SupportsShouldProcess.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/announcing-powershell-crescendo-preview-2/

I know, I missed "Announcing PSDesiredStateConfiguration on PowerShell Gallery" ☹️

But, how about Puppet's support for the PowerShell DSC configuration framework for Windows ?

See more details here:

PowerShell 7.2-preview.6 is out!

Experimental Features
- [Breaking Change] Update prediction interface to provide additional feedback to a predictor plugin

Performance
- Avoid collecting logs in buffer if a pipeline execution event is not going to be logged
- Avoid allocation in LanguagePrimitives.UpdateTypeConvertFromTypeTable
- Replace Directory.GetDirectories with Directory.EnumerateDirectories to avoid array allocations
- Use List.ConvertAll instead of LINQ

General Cmdlet Updates and Fixes
- Use AllocConsole before initializing CLR to ensure codepage is correct for WinRM remoting
- Add completions for #requires statements
- Add completions for comment-based help keywords
- Move cross platform DSC code to a PowerShell engine subsystem
- Fix Minimal progress view to handle activity that is longer than console width
- Handle exception if ConsoleHost tries to set cursor out of bounds because screen buffer changed
- Fix NullReferenceException in DSC ClearCache()
- Update ControlSequenceLength to handle colon as a virtual terminal parameter separator
- Update the summary comment for StopTrannoscriptCmdlet.cs
- Remove the unusable alias d for the -Directory parameter from Get-ChildItem
- Fix tab completion for un-localized about topics
- Remove the unneeded SSH stdio handle workaround
- Add LoadAssemblyFromNativeMemory API to load assemblies from memory in a native PowerShell host
- Re-implement Remove-Item OneDrive support
- Kill native processes in pipeline when pipeline is disposed on Unix
- Default to MTA on Windows platforms where STA is not supported

Did you know explainshell.com now has a PowerShell counterpart?

💡Preview updating PowerShell 7.2 with Microsoft Update

With Microsoft Update, you’ll get the latest PowerShell 7 updates directly in your traditional Windows Update management flow

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/powershell/preview-updating-powershell-7-2-with-microsoft-update/

❗ v7.2.0-preview.7 Release of PowerShell

Breaking Changes
 - Remove PSDesiredStateConfiguration v2.0.5 module and published it to the PowerShell Gallery
Engine Updates and Fixes
 - Fix splatting being treated as positional parameter in completions
 - Prevent PowerShell from crashing when a telemetry mutex can't be created
 - Ignore all exceptions when disposing an instance of a subsystem implementation
 - Wait for SSH exit when closing remote connection
Performance
 - Retrieve ProductVersion using informational version attribute in AmsiUtils.Init()
General Cmdlet Updates and Fixes
 - Fix retrieving dynamic parameters from provider even if globbed path returns no results
 - Revert "Enhance Remove-Item to work with OneDrive" due to long path issue

https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/tag/v7.2.0-preview.7

💡 Azure Durable Functions for PowerShell: Human interaction

Azure Durable Functions provide some functionality that Azure functions don’t offer with the other bindings. The most important one is that it provides you with a state.

https://4bes.nl/2021/06/13/azure-durable-functions-for-powershell-human-interaction/