Now Available: Windows Server 2008 R2 on Amazon EC2 | Hacker News Reader

Now Available: Windows Server 2008 R2 on Amazon EC2

aws.typepad.com

36 pointsjeffbarr9 comments

This is neat, 2008R2 actually lets you run Powershell on ServerCore (ie, you don't need a GUI on your server). You can set up an app called 'PowerShell server' and SSH in like a normal server.

Though I mostly use linux on servers, this is good news. I've been hoping to hear they will open a region in South America one of these days.

I am still hoping to hear that they will support bringing your own BizSpark licenses for Windows instances.

I am really curious how popular this will be. PowerShell is crap compared to bash or ksh. It is actually kind of embarrassing how bad powershell is. I would love to hear from someone who likes powershell and is proficient with bash.

Why is PowerShell "crap"?

Example / citation, please.

Pre-emptive counter-example: how would you compare PowerShell commandlet argument parsing to that of bash builtins?

I find the Command Line Kung Fu Blog (http://blog.commandlinekungfu.com/) really informative for demonstrating the utility of Powershell.

Basically, every entry is a problem someone has submitted, and they post a solution using the Unix Shell, the Windows Command Prompt, and Powershell (Powershell entries have been given for about the past year or so).

Really? Log onto a Windows box and run:

ps FOO.EXE | kill

(Yeah, ps is an alias to get-process, kill an alias to stop-process)

Notice how you didn't scrape text anywhere? No greps, or seds? No 'pkill' type alias apps?

That's because PoSH actually returns real objects. It's a much neater design.

I'm a *nix dude, and I still don't think Windows is ready for servers (the OS still needs restarts for application installation, eg, Office Web apps a few months ago) but PoSH is damn neat and there's been quite a few projects to clone it on various nixes.

That sounds useful, simple and elegant.

However, is it as flexible as UNIX-based command line wizardry? (I don't know anything about PoSH so this is an honest question.)

My common complain with Windows is that it makes cookie-cutter tasks easy to do, but once you stray a little from the established path you get into big trouble. Suddenly there is no GUI or simple shortcut, and you have to dive into sparsely documented registry settings, download or buy additional tools, and so on.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com