Part 3. The future: PowerShell v3 and WMI
WMI has always been a first-class citizen in the PowerShell universe. Its importance has increased immensely with the introduction of PowerShell v3. But before we dive into the new functionality, we’ll look at using WMI over the WSMAN protocol in chapter 17. WSMAN increases in importance in PowerShell v3, so a sound grounding in the protocol is a must.
Warning
The last two chapters of the book are based on a beta release of PowerShell v3. Changes could occur before the final versions of PowerShell v3 and Windows 8 are released.
PowerShell v3 introduces a number of improvements to WMI usage:
- New WMI namespaces and classes
- A new API for accessing WMI locally and remotely
- A new set of cmdlets (CIM) for working with WMI
- Creation of cmdlets from WMI classes
Many of the new cmdlets introduced with PowerShell v3 are created from WMI classes. In chapter 18, we’ll look at how you can create your own cmdlets from WMI classes (including legacy classes). The creation of format and type files to control the display will also be demonstrated. This is a technique with general application in PowerShell.
Chapter 19 starts by showing how you can create cmdlets from WMI methods. We’ll then look at the new CIM cmdlets, compare them with the WMI and WSMAN cmdlets we’ve already seen, and close with a look at the capabilities for remote administration introduced with the CIM API and cmdlets.