NiXC's I.T. Take-Away

Microsoft are calling it the "Windows Management Framework" but in reality this is PowerShell 2.0 and it's now available for download: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968929

If you install over the top of PowerShell 1.0 on XP the startmenu link will go but you'll be left with the documentation links. So it might be better to uninstall 1 then install 2. Not sure yet.
Part of this is the new ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment) too and it's wonderfully good. Just go start, run, then type: powershell_ise

Note: it supports only XP SP3, Server 2003 SP2, Vista SP1+, and Server 2008 SP2.
Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2 have PowerShell 2 built-in of course.

If you want to get hold of updates for Windows 7 or Vista when you're running Vista or Win 7 already, you can get the updates via the updates catalog (catalogue): http://catalog.update.microsoft.com/ (the pages require IE of course).

I actually had to run up my virtual xp machine to get hold of that link! I simply couldn't remember the word "catalog". Heh.

What inspired this blog entry was that I thought I'd have a go at making a fully up to date disc of Win7 before I put it on my wife's PC, i.e. mount the wim with imagex, and use dism with the latest updates. Thought that would be fun, but then I couldn't get hold of the updates of course. Sorted.