Installing the Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit on Windows 7 under Domain Restrictions

It’s fairly typical in Enterprise IT environments that the provided Windows 7 desktops are locked down. This blog post walks through installing the Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit in such an environment, where there are certain restrictions, but fortunately not enough to stop us from installing and using the Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit.

Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit Requirements

System Requirements:
1) .NET 3.5
2) PowerShell 2 or higher

Windows 7 has .NET 3.5 by default.
Using PowerShell 2 must be permitted on the corporate desktop.

Windows 7 Desktop Setup

In order to run the DataONTAP module in PowerShell, the Execution Policy must be set to unrestricted.

Check by running:

PS C:\> Get-ExecutionPolicy

If it says Restricted, you’ll need to turn off UAC (User Account Control), reboot and then run:

PS C:\> Set-ExecutionPolicy unrestricted

This may be where you’ll encounter a problem with your corporate desktop - you may not be able to turn off UAC! If you’re in luck and the Execution Policy is already/now unrestricted, we can continue.

Downloading the Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit

Note: The latest version at the time of writing is 3.3.1 from 18-Apr-2014

Go to:

The Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit comes in two forms - an MSI file and a ZIP file. The MSI is super simple to install, but if your corporate security policy blocks downloading MSIs -

Image: Download MSI Security Alert

- then hopefully it will let you download the DataONTAP.zip file. And we carry on from having downloaded the ZIP file.

Installing the Data ONTAP PowerShell Toolkit from DataONTAP.zip

Important! Before unzipping, click the ‘Unblock’ button from the file properties.

Image: File Properties -> Unblock

Unzipping DataONTAP.zip reveals a folder inside called DataONTAP with a few other folders and files in (mostly DLLs.) Copy this folder.

The Data ONTAP PSTK can be installed in two locations:

1) C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules
2) C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules

{Where USERNAME = your username}

Note: In Windows 7 the document folder that displays as ‘My Documents’ is Documents

Assuming the corporate security policy blocks adding stuff into system32 (also, perhaps you only want this for your login); here we’ll use option 2.

Firstly, create the folder structure \WindowsPowerShell\Modules in Documents if it does not exist.

Then copy the DataONTAP folder into:

C:\Users\USERNAME\Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules

Data ONTAP in PowerShell

In PowerShell, run the command:

PS C:\> Get-Module -ListAvailable

DataONTAP should be listed.

Image: PowerShell Modules

Finally, to import the DataONTAP PowerShell module:

PS C:\> Import-Module DataONTAP

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