Have you always wanted to write a book with 100 or even 1000 or more pages? With Windows PowerShell and PowerShell Book Generator, it takes only a few seconds. The PowerShell Book Generator was created by the way on the last PSConf.eu and afterwards (I try to fill the time optimally and I hope to see you there again @psconf.eu in June 2020). Basically it is about implementing the internal PowerShell help for a topic completely in book form as PDF with table of contents.The idea came to me when I saw that there are more and more books where more and more content is simply copied from the internal help into the document. Of course the generator can also be used to document your own PowerShell modules. How does the internal PowerShell help work?

Some time ago I created a PowerShell documentation script for an App-V server infrastructure. I reworked it with much effort in December 2019. Many functions that were previously mapped via the script have migrated into the module. In its current state the module is especially good for extracting information from the ".AppV" file but also for extracting information from the external configuration files UserConfig.xml and DeploymentConfig.xml.

Still the legal stuff: We do not give any warranty for the function or damages. The module is licensed under the MIT license. Program errors are not excluded.This year we plan to add more features to the module. First of all you can do some nice things with the module. You can download the module at the bottom of this blog. Alternatively you can download the current version from the PowerShell Gallery. If you install the module in UserScope (and PoSh 5.x) the package will be under Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules with the following command:

install-Module AppVForcelets -Scope CurrentUser

PowerShell_sign_code_and_upload_in_the_PowerShell galleryPowerShell_sign_code_and_upload_in_the_PowerShell galleryLast friday at the PowerShell Usergroup Hannover I briefly talked about CodeSigning for PowerShell modules for upload to the PowerShell Gallery. Well, the interest of my colleagues was bigger than expected and also some questions remained unanswered. Here also some things have changed. Fact is, most modules in the Gallery are unsigned. In the end, the question always arises, why sign at all, when the PowerShell execution policy can be so easily overridden?For example it is possible to execute arbitrary code with

Powershell.exe -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File <PathToPowershellSkript.ps1>.

I have been using code signing certificates for my community PowerShell scripts for several years. This is especially well received by our customers. Our work is digitally signed with it. Furthermore the inhibitions are a little bit bigger to change scripts later because the signature block always has to be changed.

A few weeks ago, one of our customers experienced the problem that some App-V applications were not started until the second start. This seemed to be caused by the registry staging of the App-V application. With App-V Registry Staging, data from the application is copied to the following area of the registry when the application (Publish AppVClientPackage) is released.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\AppV\Client\Packages\<PACKAGEID>\Versions\VERSIONID\REGISTRY

When the action is complete, an empty key RegistryStagingFinished is generated.

The ConceptOne PowerShell and WPF (Windows Presentation Editor) editor is a new editor by Tobias Welter and a holistic solution for providing PowerShell scripts with a GUI (Graphical User Interface). After the extension ISESteroids for the PowerShell ISE (Install-Module -Name isesteroids -Scope CurrentUser) Tobias is now programming a completely new editor. This will have the ability to edit WPF interfaces directly in this editor. This makes it possible to quickly add a GUI to your own PowerShell scripts to pass them on to colleagues without PowerShell prior knowledge.In addition, the new editor already shows a significant improvement in performance for the IntelliSense feature. In the PowerShell Unser Group Hannover we were allowed to test the editor already in early 2018. With the PSConf.EU 2019 Tobias has now officially released a version and given permission to write something about it. Much in the editor is reminiscent of Visual Studio code.If you are interested in Concept One you have to wait for an official release.