I installed PowerShell Universal on a Windows 2019 server. The first thing I wanted to do was configure it to synchronize with Git / BitBucket. It wouldn’t synchronize with BitBucket, and I had to go digging through the Windows Event Viewer to find out that it wouldn’t sync because the directory wasn’t empty. I took the “.universal” file out of the repository, and it finally synchronized. But PSU crashes when that .universal file isn’t present, so I had to put it back. Even though that file is there, it will eventually crash if you’re using Git (at least in TwoWay mode), so I decided to just push the repository content to BitBucket myself.
Then I spent a bunch of time trying to figure out the best way to store functions for reusability. The amount of conflicting documentation that exists is staggering. At this point, I think I’m supposed to keep the functions in a ps1 file in the repository and then dot-source or import-module, but it doesn’t sound like I’m actually keeping that ps1 file with the PSU scripts in the GUI, just in the repository folder. Loading functions in a dashboard USED to require a UDEndpointInitialization command, but now it doesn’t. The documentation only says “You don’t need it anymore.” That’s it? What the hell do I do instead? The documentation does this a LOT - short, vague answers everywhere.
Then I attempted to install the Visual Studio Code extension on my Windows 10 system to use the instance I installed on 2019, and it complained about not being able to find the executable, so I installed PSU locally on my Windows 10 system. I figured out how to enter the path to the executable, and THEN the VSCode extension kept giving me a message about the terminal failing. It was failing because PSU was already running, so I had to go figure out how to tell it not to connect. So no matter what you do - install PSU locally, don’t install PSU locally - it’s going to fail when you first load the extension. Then the documentation said I could edit the scripts.ps1 file to instantiate a new script, so I did so and then PSU crashed on my Windows 10 instance.
I am angry because I was REALLY excited when I found this product. I manage vSphere, Pure storage arrays, and Cisco UCS - all of this stuff lives in PowerShell and I thought I’d finally have an environment that helped me tie it all together and produce some great visual output. But everything about this product and its ecosystem is buggy and disjointed.
My intent was to evaluate this product, produce some working examples, and convince my management to purchase the product, but I can’t even get this thing running long enough to code in it. Since I’m not a paying customer, I’m not entitled to any support outside of the forums, and I really don’t have time to post and wait for answers. I don’t think there’s any way forward with this product unless I missed something that’s just obvious to everyone else.
So where did I go wrong?
Product: PowerShell Universal
Version: 2.2.1