PowerShell Comparing snapins and modules

If we use Windows PowerShell we are probably aware of both snapins and modules but I am sure many of us do not know the difference. In this tutorial we look at comparing the two and seeing what Citrix offer with their management tools in both snapins and modules.

PowerShell snapins are a legacy from version 1 and are .dll files that need to be installed and registered with the .NET framework before they can be used in PowerShell. They are loaded with:

Add-PSSnapin

To show snapins that are installed but not used we can use the command

Get-PSSnapin -Registered

PowerShell Modules are new to version 2 and 3 and can be .dll files or PS1 scripts. They can even be created on the fly withing PowerShell with

New-Module

They do not need to be installed as such just exits on the system. Either in a directory listed in the PSModules environment variable or referenced with the full path. Either way they are loaded with:

Import-Module

To show modules that are not loaded we can use the command

Get-Module -ListAvailable

The video steps you though Citrix XenApp modules,