Running PowerShell V2 on Windows Server 2012

Microsoft has always gone way out of their way to maintain backward compatibility for as long as possible. In 2011, while delivering a class in New York, one of my students worked at a regional airport in the area. He said that the landing system was still running Windows NT. Even though the current version on the market was Windows Server 2008 R2, the software on the Windows NT system was working just fine. Why fix what is not broken?

For those who have made a significant investment in PowerShell V2, your scripts should run just fine in PowerShell V3. In the slim chance of a problem, you can run your script using the V2 engine. For systems that were upgraded to PowerShell V3, such as your Windows 7 workstation, the V2 engine is already present. For fresh installs, it is not.

On Windows Server 2012, Open Server Manager.

On the Dashboard, click Add roles and features.

Click Next 4 times.

Expand Windows PowerShell and then check Windows PowerShell 2.0 Engine.

Click Add Features and then click Next.

Click Install and then Close.

Once the installation finishes, open PowerShell.

Type $PSVersionTable and press Enter.

Notice the PSVersion is 3.0

Now, type PowerShell.exe –version 2.0 and press Enter.

Type $PSVersionTable and press Enter.

Notice you are in V2 mode. To exit V2 mode, type Exit and press Enter.

You can also start V2 mode from the Start menu by typing PowerShell.exe –Version 2.0 and pressing Enter.

Comments

Sticky Key problem between Windows Server 2012 and LogMeIn

This week I instructed my first class using Windows Server 2012 accessed via LogMeIn and discovered a Sticky Key problem every time you press the Shift key. Here is my solution to resolve this. First off, in the Preferences of LogMeIn for the connection to the Windows Server, click General . Change the Keyboard and mouse priority to Host side user and click Apply at the bottom. On the Windows 2012 server, open the Control Panel – Ease of Access – Change how your keyboard works . Uncheck Turn on Sticky Keys . Click Set up Sticky Keys . Uncheck Turn on Sticky Keys when SHIFT is pressed five times . Click OK twice. If you are using Windows Server 2012 as a Hyper-V host, you will need to redo the Easy of Use settings on each guest operating system in order to avoid the Sticky Key Problem. Updated Information: March 20, 2013 If you continue to have problems, Uncheck Turn on Filter Keys .

Where did a User’s Account Get Locked Out?

Updated: May 15, 2015 When this article was originally published, two extra carriage returns were add causing the code to malfunction. The code below is correct. My client for this week’s PowerShell class had a really interesting question. They needed to know where an account is being locked out at. OK, interesting. Apparently users hop around clients and forget to log off, leading to eventual lock out of their accounts. The accounts can be unlocked, but are then relocked after Active Directory replication. This problem is solved in two parts. The first one is to modify the event auditing on the network. The second part is resolved with PowerShell. The first part involves creating a group policy that will encompass your Domain Controllers. In this GPO, make these changes. Expand Computer Configuration \ Policies \ Windows Settings \ Security Settings \ Advanced Audit Policy Configuration \ Audit Policies \ Account Management Double click User Account Management C...

How to run GPResult on a remote client with PowerShell

In the past, to run the GPResult command, you would need to either physically visit this client, have the user do it, or use and RDP connection. In all cases, this will disrupt the user. First, you need PowerShell remoting enabled on the target machine. You can do this via Group Policy . Open PowerShell and type this command. Invoke-Command –ScriptBlock {GPResult /r} –ComputerName <ComputerName> Replace <ComputerName> with the name of the target. Remember, the target needs to be online and accessible to you.

Jason Yoder, MCT

Search This Blog