14 DAY TRIAL // The October 22nd General Availability deadline for Windows 7 also marks the GA of a special default component of the operating system for IT professionals that have leveraged scripting to automate the usage of the platform. With the advent of the latest versions of the Windows client and server platforms, Microsoft has also introduced the latest iteration of its scripting language. In this regard, both Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 contain version 2 of PowerShell. Come October 22nd, the company will hold a Virtual Launch Party designed to celebrate not only the Windows 7 GA, but also the official release of PowerShell 2.0.
“I’ll be joining Hal Rottenberg and Jonathan Walz (hosts of the PowerScripting Podcast) in a PowerShell V2 Virtual Launch Party this Thursday, Oct 22nd, 9:30 PM EDT (GMT-4),” revealed Jeffrey Snover [MSFT], Distinguished Engineer. Microsoft promised that prizes would be offered to participants at the PowerShell v2 Virtual Launch Party, but failed to indicate what attendants would actually be eligible to receive.
PowerShell 2.0 was released to manufacturing at the same time with Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, on July 22nd, and in this sense, there’s not much of a surprise that the GA is the same. Following RTM, the software giant debuted work designed to ensure that PowerShell 2.0 was backported to older Windows releases. Because of those efforts, version 2 of PowerShell is currently available for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, as well as Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
“Windows isn’t just about the GUI. Starting with Windows 7, you have built-in access to PowerShell version 2, an object-oriented scripting language and command shell. Please join PowerScripting Podcast hosts Jonathan Walz and PowerShell MVP Hal Rottenberg as they interview Distinguished Engineer Jeffrey Snover on launch day! Jeffrey is the chief architect responsible for PowerShell at Microsoft, and he’ll be covering what’s new with the tool and why every system administrator on the planet needs to be using it. If you’ve never attended PowerScripting Live, you are missing out on a great time. The show will be streamed live via Ustream, and viewers can chat with each other, as well as submit questions for the guest,” reads the announcement of the PowerShell 2.0 Virtual Launch Party.