With Christmas just around the corner, Microsoft is offering an early gift to PowerShell users. On December 22, 2008, the Community Technology Preview 3 bits for Windows PowerShell 2 went live on the Microsoft Download Center and are now available for download. According to the software giant, Windows PowerShell 2 CTP is designed to kick the level of the usage and usability up a notch compared to previous releases, namely Windows PowerShell 1.0, but also v2 CTP 2. Essentially, the evolution from Windows PowerShell v2 CTP2 to CTP3 is synonymous with enhancing the control and manageability offered by the solution over the Windows environment.

“This release brings, among other things, performance improvements. [...] Things will be faster/more efficient than before. PowerShell remoting now allows implicit remoting where command execution appears to be local even though they are remote,” Hemant Mahawar, program manager Windows PowerShell, revealed.

“We have added over 60 new cmdlets in this release: [...] cmdlets for adding/removing/renaming computers, cmdlets for event logs, cmdlets for WS-Man functionality, and even a WS-Man provider. The 'graphical' host, Windows PowerShell ISE, now supports a graphical debugger, context sensitive F1 help, and a programmable interface for you to party on.”

According to Microsoft, Windows PowerShell 2 CTP3 has been designed to play nice with both the 32-bit and 64-bit flavors of Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista RTM/SP1, Windows Server 2003 SP2, and Windows Server 2003. Despite the fact that version 1.0 will have to be uninstalled before Windows PowerShell v2 CTP3 is deployed, version 2 comes to the table with backward compatibility with the cmdlets and scripts available to previous versions.

In addition, “This CTP3 includes some simple updates, [...] like new parameters to several existing cmdlets,” Mahawar added. “Reminder to the brave souls who want to use these bits in a production environment: [...] Don’t, these bits are still CTP. This CTP is not a beta. This software is a pre-release version. It may not work the way a final version of the software does. These CTP3 bits have not gone through rigorous testing. Even with these caveats, we hope you would try them out and let us know your feedback.”

Windows PowerShell V2 Community Technology Preview 3 (CTP3) is available for download here.