Microsoft Graph PowerShell Starts the Clock on Windows PowerShell 5.1
Barry Gervin and Gavin Barron on the Microsoft 365 Developer Blog have announced a 12-month retirement window for Windows PowerShell 5.x in the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK. Read the fine print before you panic: retirement here means maintenance, not compatibility. The v2.x modules will still declare 5.1 support and still get security fixes, but new features, bug fixes, and validation all move to PowerShell 7, and any issue that only reproduces on 5.1 will no longer be investigated. The hard cutoff lands in Q4 CY2026 with v3.0.0, which drops 5.x entirely and freezes the v2 line except for security patches. Microsoft PowerShell MVP Sam Erde calls this a good thing, and his reasoning is worth reading: 5.1 compatibility has held Graph and other modules back from PowerShell 7’s performance gains, and going 7-only finally lets Microsoft adopt Assembly Load Context in the module, which is the real fix for the MSAL and dependency DLL conflicts that have plagued the SDK on .NET Framework for years. He also makes the case that a single target platform simplifies unit tests, CI pipelines, troubleshooting, and docs. The practical takeaway: audit every scheduled task, runbook, and Azure Automation account still invoking Graph from 5.1, pin v2.x where you can’t migrate yet, and move the rest to 7.x now while both still work side by side. Sam’s closing question is the right one to ask your team this week: have you stopped writing for 5.1 yet?
👉 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/microsoft365dev/investing-in-a-more-reliable-microsoft-graph-powershell-experience/
👉 https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7506450102660718593/
Repo Roundup
Steve Lee shipped DSC v3.3.0 This is the GA after weeks of rc builds, and it caps a story that’s been running across this roster all summer. He spent Tuesday and Wednesday closing out DSC PR #1723 and filing final issues before the tag.
👉 https://github.com/PowerShell/DSC/releases/tag/v3.3.0Chrissy LeMaire released dbatools v2.9.0 on Wednesday. That’s what all those mysterious multi-push dbatools days have been building toward for the last month.
👉 https://github.com/dataplat/dbatools/releases/tag/v2.9.0Doug Finke released psaisuite v0.8.10 today, plus a push to dougfinke.dev on Tuesday. Eight point releases in five weeks.
👉 https://github.com/dfinke/psaisuite/releases/tag/v0.8.10Adam Driscoll released SQLite Browser v0.1 on Tuesday, a cross-platform desktop app for creating, inspecting, querying, and editing SQLite databases. It’s a clean C# and Avalonia port of DB Browser for SQLite, and the database provider is Devolutions Ahtola, an experimental engine. He also made a repo called playmagic public today.
👉 https://github.com/adamdriscoll/sqlitebrowser/releases/tag/v0.1Fred Weinmann made EntraAuth.Azure public on Wednesday, after a week of DomainManagement issue work. A new Entra auth module from the PSFramework and ADMF author is worth watching.
👉 https://github.com/FriedrichWeinmann/EntraAuth.AzureSam Erde had a heavy Wednesday on TheCleaners, which is already on the PowerShell Gallery. Six pushes in a sitting.
👉 https://github.com/SamErde/TheCleanersMichael Grafnetter is deep in passkey attack research. He pushed DSInternals on Friday, spent the weekend on pass-the-passkey, and today opened a PR on OktaHound. The FIDO and WebAuthn thread he started in August is turning into something substantial.
👉 https://github.com/MichaelGrafnetter/pass-the-passkeyChris Bergmeister resurfaced with a big PSScriptAnalyzer day on Monday, six pushes. He’s been quiet in these sweeps for weeks, and Sean Wheeler was in PSScriptAnalyzer too on Wednesday and yesterday, including three comments on PR #2196. Two people converging on the linter usually means a release is coming.
👉 https://github.com/PowerShell/PSScriptAnalyzerPSKoans got a burst of attention. Andrew Pla spent Wednesday triaging issues, and Gilbert Sanchez opened a PR plus issues today. The PowerShell learning project getting maintainer love is good news for anyone onboarding people.
👉 https://github.com/vexx32/PSKoansFrank Lesniak built copilot-repo-template, a repository scaffold template, with three pushes yesterday. Consistent with his style-guide work: unglamorous infrastructure nobody else builds.
👉 https://github.com/franklesniak/copilot-repo-templateJos Lieben pushed LiebenToolkit and M365AutoLink on Monday and triaged assortedFunctionsV2 on Wednesday.
👉 https://github.com/jflieben/LiebenToolkitNathan McNulty added azd-global-secure-access and azd-auth-notifications to the azd family this week, plus more azd-reference work. 👉 https://github.com/nathanmcnulty/azd-global-secure-access
Simplifying Microsoft 365 DSC Deployments
Constantin Hager joined Andrew Pla on the PowerShell Podcast to discuss Microsoft 365 DSC and his journey to becoming a Microsoft MVP. He breaks down how the community driven workshop project bypasses massive whitepaper setups by using automated lab scripts and YAML files to manage multi tenant tenant drift and configuration pipelines.
Supercharging Your PowerShell Prompt
Jeff Hicks at Behind the PowerShell Pipeline digs into customizing the default prompt function to surface practical session context without slowing down your console. He demonstrates how swapping verbose session state calls for built in automatic variables lets you cleanly display timestamps, shortened paths, and status characters every time you press enter.
👉 https://buttondown.com/behind-the-powershell-pipeline/archive/powershell-prompt-potential/
Cutting Help Desk Queue Times with Practical One-Liners
TrevTech breaks down seven essential PowerShell commands designed to clear daily support queues before your morning coffee gets cold. Rather than just handing out one-liners, the real value lies in how he interprets the return data to uncover recurring lockout devices, identify missing token refreshes on file shares, and audit orphaned local administrator accounts.
Managing the KB5129195 Emergency Update
Imran Awan at EndpointWeekly breaks down the surprise out of band update for Windows 11 24H2 and 25H2 aimed at resolving regressions introduced by the September Patch Tuesday release. The critical takeaway centers on deployment mechanics, warning admins that newer Windows Autopatch policies default out of band releases to manual approval, leaving affected Remote Desktop Services hosts unpatched until explicitly approved.
👉 https://endpointweekly.com/blog/kb5129195-emergency-update-intune-autopatch-rds-fix.html
High Performance PowerShell and Modern Module Architecture
Justin Grote joined Constantin Hager at the German PowerShell User Group to explore strategies for building performant PowerShell modules and eliminating execution bottlenecks. He dives into practical concurrency patterns and asynchronous operations across .NET, detailing how tools like ModuleFast and ExcelFast leverage memory streams and optimized pipelines to speed up heavy workloads.
Patch Tuesday Volume Spikes and Endpoint Health Checks
Brock and Josh joined Andrew Pla on PDQ Live to unpack September’s massive Patch Tuesday drop along with an all in one endpoint diagnostic script. The team analyzed why soaring vulnerability counts often amount to manageable operational noise, followed by a live demonstration of a customizable 77 point PowerShell health check designed to audit local admins, pending reboots, and configuration drift.
Events
MMS Midway | October 25 to 28, 2026 | San Diego, California
The classic endpoint management and PowerShell conference moves to San Diego this fall.
👉 https://mmsmoa.com/
SpiceWorld 2026 | November 12 to 13, 2026 | Austin, Texas
Jeff Hicks is returning to Austin this fall to talk PowerShell at the annual Spiceworks community event.
👉 https://www.spiceworks.com/spiceworld/
Zero Trust World 2027 | February 17 to 19, 2027 | Orlando, Florida
👉 https://ztw.com/
PowerShell + DevOps Global Summit 2027 | April 5 to 8, 2027 | Orlando, Florida
The flagship US PowerShell event moves to the Sheraton Lake Buena Vista in Orlando.
👉 https://powershellsummit.org/
PSConfEU 2027 | Dates and location to be announced SynEdgy is organizing the eleventh edition of PowerShell Conference
👉 https://psconf.eu/
Live dbatools AMA Webinar with the Core Team | Wednesday, October 7 at 12:00 pm GMT
An open Ask Me Anything with the people behind dbatools, the open source PowerShell toolkit for SQL Server administration, migration, and automation. Whether you already lean on dbatools every day or are still on the fence about getting started, this is the format where you get to put your specific questions in front of the people who wrote the answers. Speakers include Rob Sewell, Jess Pomfret, Chrissy LeMaire, Andreas Jordan, and Cláudio Silva.
When: Wednesday, October 7 at 12:00 pm GMT
Where: Online, see the link for details
👉 https://shorturl.at/N53tz