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PowerShell 2026.1.1 Release Notes

🚀What’s New

Exam Desktop Web Allow List Script

Introduces a script to configure a browser allow list tailored for exam scenarios. Administrators can lock down web access to a defined set of URLs to meet academic integrity requirements without impacting general desktop usability.

  • Simple parameterization for adding or removing allowed domains
  • Works with commonly used browsers on managed images
  • Includes validation and rollback steps to safely test changes

✨Enhancements

Faster Class Startup

Optimizations reduce the time from class launch to first-student-ready state by streamlining pre-checks and parallelizing initialization tasks.

  • Shorter warm-up time for pools
  • Clearer progress logging for administrators

Accelerated Redeploy and Cloning

Improvements to image preparation and copy workflows significantly shorten redeploy and clone operations, especially for larger images.

  • Reduced overhead during snapshot and copy phases
  • More predictable completion times across clouds

Improved Handling of VM Freeze/Unresponsive States

More resilient detection and recovery logic minimizes disruptions when a VM becomes unresponsive during lifecycle actions.

  • Automatic retries with exponential backoff
  • Clearer status updates and reason codes

🐞Bug Fixes

  • Busy state cleared on failure: Resolved an issue where instances could remain stuck in a “busy” state if an operation failed, ensuring accurate status reflects the true lifecycle state.
  • Azure Scale Set name validation: Corrected naming rules to prevent invalid characters and length overruns during deployment.
  • AWS Auto Scaling Group refresh conflicts: Fixed a condition where concurrent instance refreshes could conflict, improving stability during rolling updates.
  • Consistent ASG member naming: Standardized instance naming within Auto Scaling Groups to avoid collisions and simplify auditing.
  • Dual IPv4 image creation: Addressed failures when creating images on subnets with dual IPv4 addressing, ensuring image builds succeed reliably.

Changelog Summary

  • New: Exam Desktop Web Allow List script
  • Enhancement: Faster class startup
  • Enhancement: Faster redeploy and cloning
  • Enhancement: Better VM freeze detection and recovery
  • Fix: Busy state not clearing after failed operation
  • Fix: Azure Scale Set naming validation
  • Fix: AWS ASG instance refresh conflicts
  • Fix: ASG member naming standardization
  • Fix: Dual IPv4 image creation failures
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