One of the greatest features that was added to Windows 7 was the Troubleshooting Packs. Components that can be built and customized to aid in local and remote troubleshooting of issues within the O/S and applications (Including 3rd party solutions!)
Even cooler than that was when I heard Powershell was involved in it!
So quickly I dived online to find out from Technet on how to build one. After all, in my head, “It’s just a Powershell script”
…. and then my mouth opened up and hit the ground with a thud when I glanced at this article on MSDN on how to create one. It seemed unbelievably difficult to impossible to create!
But with all problems you take it one step at a time. To solve this problem I was going to need some goodies
- Windows 7 SDK
- Visual Studio 2010 Express (C#)
- Powershell
- Time
Well time I had and Powershell is built into Windows 7. So therefore I was halfway there.
Visual Studio 2010 Express is a free download from Microsoft so THAT part wasn’t so bad. I quickly began that while I looked into the beast. The Windows 7 SDK comes in two forms. A customizable Web Download allowing you to download only what you need or if you want to be a big badass developer guy, you CAN download it as a Single ISO file to burn and share with your other Developer friends. :)
Personally I just want ENOUGH to make the Troubleshooting pack. Development is cool but it’s not my Forte, so I just want the piece of the SDK that’s needed for Troubleshooting packs. Sure my hard drive could hold the whole thing, but I like to keep things simple whenever possible.
When I return, we’ll see just what bits ARE required from the Windows 7 SDK and we’ll start down the path of actually building a Troubleshooting Pack. For you ITPros out there, remember I’m not a Dev either. So we’ll see just how difficulty this really isn’t.
The Power of Shell is in YOU
Sean
”The Energized Tech”
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