Today, Microsoft has release the SCCM Cmdlet Library. The SCCM product group is taking a new update direction: from now on, the future Cumulative Updates (CU) releases won’t contain any PowerShell changes. The SCCM Cmdlet Library will be the vehicle for any future cmdlet updates. This separation means no more breaking cmdlets when updating to a new CU and more frequent cmdlets fixes/releases from Microsoft. Better of both world !

What’s even better is that it checks and notifies you automatically for library updates on a daily basis.

Requirements

• SCCM 20012 R2 is supported (any CU)
• SCCM 2012 SP1 is not supported

Read the release notes carefully as it describes known issues, breaking changes, and other important details about this initial release.

How to install SCCM Cmdlet Library

The SCCM Cmdlet Library must be installed on each workstation computers that runs the SCCM Console and needs PowerShell access.

• Download ConfigMgr2012PowerShellCmdlets.msi from Microsoft Download Center
• On the Welcome screen, click Next

• Click Next

• Accept the terms and click Next

• Wait for the setup to complete and click Finish

Configuration

The library includes cmdlets to enable the update notification functionality :

• Get-CMCmdletUpdateCheck – Gets the update feature configuration and will indicate if user policy is being overridden by system policy
  • By default the check is made once a day

• Send-CMCmdletUpdateCheck – Perform an unscheduled update check
  • I’m running CU4 so my version is up-to-date. (5.00.8231.1004)

• Set-CMCmdletUpdateCheck – Configures the update check settings on a per-user or per-system basis
  • You must be running as an administrator to set system settings
• Here’s the parameters that are configurable (From Technet)

You can also configure the update feature using Group Policy :

• For System : HKLM\Software\Wow6432node\Microsoft\Configmgr10\Powershell
• For Users : HKCU\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\ConfigMgr10\PowerShell

Your site is now ready for the new update model.

The full documentation from Microsoft can be found here.

This post will be updated with screenshots when my site will detect a new version of the library. Stay Tuned !

SCCM Cmdlet Library