Well, we’ve released a new version of our GPMC PowerShell cmdlets–version 1.2. This new version represents a significant updgrade to the existing cmdlets. The biggest change is that we incorporated new functionality that became available in the version of GPMC that shipped with Vista, SP1 and Windows Server 2008. As a result of those significant GPMC changes, we had to break the cmdlets into two separate download packages–one package for Vista, SP1 and Server 2008 users and the other for earlier platforms. In general, the main differences between the two downloads is that the package for Vista, SP1 and 2008 supports some features like managing "Starter GPOs" and some other new capabilities that the older version of GPMC does not support. But both packages have added some cool new features, such as better pipelining support between cmdlets and support for creating GP Settings and RSOP reports. The pipelining support is especially interesting for those of you out there looking to fully automate your GP Management tasks. In earlier versions of the cmdlets, whenever you got a reference to a GPO or created a new GPO, you could not easily pipe the output of that to another cmdlet. The reason for this is that the objects that the cmdlets emitted were COM Interop types that did not appear as useful objects to the PowerShell pipeline. As a result, we have modified the default output of many of these Get- cmdlets to emit custom objects that are more easily piped to other cmdlets. For example, now you can create a GPO and link it in one fell swoop, like this:
new-sdmGPO "Marketing Stuff" | add-sdmgplink -Scope "OU=Marketing,DC=Cpandl,DC=com" -Location -1
If you do still need access to the COM interop types, then there is now a -Native parameter on cmdlets that emit these custom objects so that you can revert to the old 1.1 behavior if needed.
The following are the rest of the release notes on the new 1.2 version. Check them out and let us know what you think!
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Release Notes for SDM Software’s GPMC PowerShell Cmdlets, v1.2
July 2, 2008
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#Added -Native parameter to a number of the get- cmdlets, including get-SDMGPO. In version 1.1, these cmdlets emitted native GPMC COM Interop types, which could not be sent to the pipeline successfully. As a result, all of the cmdlets in this release that support the -Native parameter now, by default, emit custom object types to work better with the pipeline. If you need the native GPMC object types, then use the -Native parameter.
#Add 9 new Cmdlets, including:
Add-WMIFilterLink: Links an existing WMI filter to a GPO
Copy-SDMStarterGPO: Copies an existing Starter GPO to a new Starter GPO (Server 2008 and Vista, Sp1 only)
Get-SDMStarterGPO: Retrieves a reference to and information on a named Starter GPO (Server 2008 and Vista, Sp1 only)
Get-SDMWMIFilter: Retrieves a reference to and information on one or all WMI Filters in a domain
New-SDMStarterGPO: Creates a new Starter GPO (Server 2008 and Vista, Sp1 only)
Out-SDMGPSettingsReport: Creates an xML or HTML GPO Settings report
Out-SDMRSOPLoggingReport: Creates and XML or HTML Group Policy Results report
Remove-SDMStarterGPO: Deletes a Starter GPO (Server 2008 and Vista, Sp1 only)
Remove-SDMWMIFilterLink: Removes any WMI Filter linked to a particular GPO
#Added a Name parameter to Get-SDMGPLink. This new parameter lets you search for links by GPO name in addition to SOM. So, you can provide a GPO name and get a list of all the places its linked.
#Added a GPOID parameter to Get-SDMGPO. This new parameter lets you search for a GPO by GUID instead of by name. With this new parameter, you can use this cmdlet to effectively translate from GUID to Name and Name to GUID.
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