Microsoft Windows PowerShell command line shell and scripting language helps IT professionals achieve greater control and productivity. Using a new admin-focused scripting language, more than 130 standard command line tools, and consistent syntax and utilities, Windows PowerShell allows IT professionals to control system administration and accelerate automation more easily

With PowerShell, Citrix Administrators can script MFCom Objects to manage and administer  the XenApp Farm. The secret of using COM objects starts with the command: New-Object -COM.

The following PowerShell example creates a new MetaFrame object (do not get confused with the COM Object naming), initializes the Farm and prints out the farmname:

$farm = new-Object -com "MetaframeCOM.MetaframeFarm"
$farm.Initialize(1)
$farm.FarmName

It's not going to be a spectacular script. But look at the following little code enhancement:

$farm = new-Object -com "MetaframeCOM.MetaframeFarm"
$farm.Initialize(1)
$farm.FarmName
$farm.sessions | Format-Table UserName,ClientAddress

Just adding one more lines of code and you will get all sessions within the farm displaying the Username and IP Address.

Setting up your PowerShell / MFCom environment

Beginning  with PowerShell / MFCom Scripting you should install Microsoft Powershell on a Citrix Presentation / XenApp Server in your lab. I recommend downloading the PowerShell Graphical Helpfile which also provides great information's about VBScript to PowerShell conversion.

For creating and editing your PowerShell scripts I suggest downloading the free PowerGui graphical user interface and script editor. Its easy to use and works well with COM Objects.

PowerShell
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/powershell/download.mspx

PowerShell Graphical Help File
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3B3F7CE4-43EA-4A21-90CC-966A7FC6C6E8&displaylang=en

PowerGui - Graphical user interface and script editor
http://www.powergui.org

Displaying apps in your farm

To give you some basic ideas where PowerShell leverages your daily administrative tasks, I've created the following script:
$farm = new-Object -com "MetaframeCOM.MetaframeFarm"
$farm.Initialize(1)
$farm.FarmName
$farm.applications| where {$_.BrowserName -like "Winword*" {color:black}} | select DistinguishedName

The script above enumerates each application published in the farm and selects all applications where Winword* is contained in the BrowserName.

PowerShell Examples provided by CDN

PowerShell and other scripting examples can be found on the Citrix Developer Network:

http://community.citrix.com/label/cdn/powershell