Setup your lab

We need minimum one computer system with Windows operating system in it, that would be sufficient to follow the majority of the topics in the PowerShell, but to follow along with PowerShell remoting concepts, then we require minimum two computer systems and in which one must be the domain controller.

Predominantly we need one computer to follow along with our sessions, and now let’s setup our lab…

Computer 1:

• Client/Workstation : Windows 10

  We will spend most of the time in this computer, so let’s install the necessary tools to follow along with our sessions…

  We need the following software to follow along with our sessions (considering you don’t have them installed already, if any of the software is already installed then you can skip it)…

  • Chocolatey package provider (optional) - Required to install the software below, if you want to download manually and install it using GUI, please go ahead and do it, how ever I will show you how to install the software below using the Chocolatey package provider in Windows PowerShell.
  • PowerShell (I will show you the PowerShell installation in a separate session, but for now we can use Windows PowerShell, which comes along with the Windows Operating System)
  • Browser - Google Chrome/Microsoft EDGE
  • Microsoft Visual Studio Code
  • PowerShell Extension for Visual Studio Code
  • Microsoft Windows Terminal (Optional) - Windows Terminal is tabbed and rich console with plethora of great other features from Microsoft, however you can use the native windows console.

  If you want to install the above mentioned software manually, I mean you can download yourself and install them graphically, you feel free to do so, however I show you how to do the same with Chocolatey using Windows PowerShell

  So, first we will install the Chocolatey Package Provider, and then install the rest using it.

  First, open the Windows PowerShell with an elevated rights (run as administrator) in your Windows 10 computer and run the script below, you can copy and paste the same…

  Set-ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope Process -Force; [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol -bor 3072; iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString(''))

  Verify the Chocolatey Package Provider installation

  choco version

  Now, let’s install the browser, you might have already installed it, in that case you can skip it…

  I use Microsoft EDGE, and if you want to use the same you can run the command below…

  choco install microsoft-edge -y

  … or, if you want to install Google Chrome, you can run the command below…

  choco install googlechrome -y

  Now, it’s time for Visual Studio Code, which is a popular scripting editor for PowerShell…

  choco install vscode -y

  This time we will add PowerShell language support to Visual Studio Code…

  choco install vscode-powershell -y

  And, finally we will install Windows Terminal…

  choco install microsoft-windows-terminal -y

That’s all. We are done with the client setup in our lab. Now, let’s move onto the second computer…

Computer 2:

• Domain Controller : Windows Server 2016/2019

  This computer will be our domain controller, which will be helpful to follow along with the ps remoting concepts.

Computer 3: (Optional)

• Windows Server 2016/2019

  This computer will be our extra Windows Server, again it will be helpful to follow along with the ps remoting concepts.

Computer 1 and Computer 2 should be in the same domain and Computer 3 is a non domain computer.

Reference

Useful Links

• Chocolatey 
• Visual Studio Code 
• PowerShell Extension for VSCode 
• Windows Terminal 

Thank you, and will see you in the next session