October 2026 PowerShell Roundup

It is amazing to think that next month PowerShell will celebrate its 20th anniversary, or maybe birthday. What were you doing in 2006? I was finishing co-writing the first book on PowerShell. I don't think any of us using PowerShell v1 had any idea of what was to come. Naturally there needs to be a party and I found one. On Saturday, November 14, 2026 (18:00 CET | 12 PM ET | 9 AM PT), there will be an online celebration with Jeffrey Snover, Bruce Payette, and others to chat about the early Monad days, the challenges of building PowerShell, and some of the stories behind its creation. This is a free event that will be live streamed on LinkedIn. You can submit questions for the panel ahead of time at https://lnkd.in/e9wrHsbE. You can learn more and attend the event at https://lnkd.in/eWrTcWed.

I came across another online event you might be interested in. The people behind the Techmentor/Live360 events also run online seminars. They have a two-day event 10-11 December, 2026 on using Claude to drive PowerShell and infrastructure automation. You can expect to learn: - How to use Claude Code to audit, inventory, and document inherited PowerShell script libraries quickly - How to refactor fragile scripts into maintainable modules and lock in behavior with Pester tests - How to harden automation with stronger error handling, logging, and operational reliability - How to design safe, approval-based AI-assisted runbooks with guardrails for permissions, secrets, and change control - How to apply these workflows to real Microsoft Graph, Intune, and Active Directory automation scenarios The sessions run from 9:00AM-5:00PM Central US time. The price is $1400US for two days of training. There are discounts for groups and you can save $150 by registering by 13 November. Learn more and register at https://techmentorevents.com/events/training-seminars/2026/dec10/home.aspx

This month the people behind PSConfEU held their annual virtual mini-conference. It was free to attend and eventually there should be video content from the sessions. I'll share those links once they become available. In the mean time, I encourage you to read the excellent summary at https://powershellisfun.com/2026/10/13/psconfeu-minicon-2026/ to see what you missed.

It is never too early to begin planning your PowerShell education for next year. PSConfEU 2027 will be held 21-24 June, 2027 in Kraków, Poland.

As I'm writing this, there are still a few early bird tickets left. Organizations that purchase six or more tickets can save even more. If this interests you, don't waste anytime heading to https://psconf.eu/,

Or maybe you are up for the challenge and excitement at presenting at PSConfEU. This is a very well-run event with a terrific audience eager to hear what you have to say. The Call for Speakers is open until 13 December, 2026. Normal sessions are 45 minutes with a few 90 minute deep dives. Go to https://sessionize.com/powershell-conference-europe-2027 to start submitting your sessions. I recommend submitting 3-4 topics at a minimum to increase your odds of acceptance.

For my North American readers, I expect the annual PowerShell+DevOps Global Summit is a better bet. Next year's event will be held in Orlando, FL 5-8 April, 2027. Organizers are going through session submissions now and building out the schedule. You can save $300 on early bird ticket pricing now. Regular pricing will be $1599US for the 4-day event. Get your tickets now at https://powershellsummit.org/tickets/ Need to convince your manager, you can [download a handy PDF](https://powershellsummit.org/downloads/PWSH-Summit-2027-Convince-Your-Manager.pdf) on that very topic.

Your scripting challenge for this month is something I think I've shown in the past. At least parts of it. Create a PowerShell __class__ to describe a file object. The class should capture these properties: - the file path - file name - file size - extension - creation time - last modified time - the folder name - if the file is readonly - if the file is hidden - if it is a system file - the drive root -the names of any alternate data streams other than the default $DATA - the computer name If the file is linked, you should capture that including the resolved file name. If linked, base file values like size and creation time on the linked file. Add a property that categorizes the file based on the extension. I think I've done this in past newsletters. Tip: consider using an `[enum]`. You should also create a function to create a new instance of your class. You might want to consider making some properties and methods hidden. Extend the class to show script properties that reflect the creation and modified times. For bonus points, add a class method that will compress the file into a zip file. For a second bonus, create formatting that will use an emoji to reflect the category.

I think I'll keep it short today to give you an opportunity to get started on this month's scripting challenge, or to finish prepping for Halloween, if that's your thing. See you next month.