14 DAY TRIAL // The Community Technology Preview of Windows PowerShell 2.0 has been made available for download by Microsoft, as the company is offering a sneak peak into some of the key features that Microsoft plans to include with the product. Version 2.0 represents the evolution from Windows PowerShell 1.0, and in this context, Microsoft touted a number of features that have been improved or introduced freshly with the release.
You have to keep in mind that Windows PowerShell 2.0 is a Community Technology Preview, and as such, it will only deliver a taste of the extended usability, improved management and the enhanced level of control and handling for the Windows environment. Surely enough, Windows PowerShell 2.0. is by no means a tool for the general public. As a matter of fact, Jeffrey Snover, Windows Management Partner Architect has more details on the subject.
"The first thing to get into focus is that a CTP is NOT a Beta release. A CTP is a very early drop of our technology with the following goals: let the community understand where we are taking the technology and provide feedback on that direction in time for us to change before we ship", Snover stated.
"This CTP release helps developers to more easily layer their runtime or GUI on top of PowerShell, leveraging its cmdlets and remoting infrastructure. It includes APIs to create and use a pool of Runspaces (engines) to run cmdlets. This release also presents very early looks at Restricted Runspaces (the ability to declare a script, cmdlet or variable public or private) and the Graphical PowerShell (a script editor and a Unicode-enabled console). These are just a few of the new features I think are interesting in Windows PowerShell 2.0 CTP," explained Kenneth Hansen, Principal Lead Program Manager Windows PowerShell.
Hansen also stresses the fact that the CTP is nothing but early code that will change before the final version of the product will ship. Understanding the caveats inherent with a CTP build, that has yet to move to Beta stage, Windows PowerShell 2.0 can be downloaded from here.