v0.12.0

[v0.12.0]

Changed

• Documentation:
  • Added meaningful abstracts and "When to use" guidance sections to all 157
    composite resource documentation files, replacing placeholder (###TBD###)
    and incorrect descriptions.
  • Audited all parameter tables against the actual .schema.psm1 files and
    fixed ~103 issues across ~73 resources: wrong Mandatory/Key attributes,
    wrong DataTypes, missing parameters, empty parameter tables, copy-paste
    description errors, typos (Enure, Booelan, Stringp[]), and obsolete
    parameters (e.g. DnsServerSettings — 39 added, 19 removed).
  • Added "See also" cross-reference sections to 132 documentation files,
    linking related resources within the same family (AD, DNS, SQL, Exchange,
    SharePoint, DHCP, RemoteDesktop, etc.).
  • Populated missing sub-parameter detail tables for Hashtable[] parameters
    in RemoteDesktopDeployment, RemoteDesktopCollections, SharePointSetup,
    and OfficeOnlineServerSetup.
  • Added documentation links to ExchangeProvisioning,
    ExchangeConfiguration, and ExchangeDagProvisioning.
  • Expanded the YAML example in OfficeOnlineServerFarmConfig from 2 to 12
    properties.
  • Removed leftover developer note from AddsDomainController
    (InstallationMediaPath).
  • Added YAML references and examples for DfsReplicationGroupConnections,
    DfsReplicationGroupMembers, DfsReplicationGroupMemberships,
    DnsSuffixes, RemoteDesktopServers, and RenameNetworkAdapters.
  • Updated test YAML assets for DscDiagnostic and DscPullServer.
• Updated MmaDsc from 1.3.0 to 1.4.1.

Fixed

• DSC compilation errors were silently swallowed. Get-DscResource simply excluded
  broken resources without reporting why, so the Pester tests never ran for
  them — the only symptom was an unhelpful "Expected 1, but got 2" count mismatch.
  • DscResources.Tests.ps1 — Changed test case discovery to enumerate DSCResources
    folders instead of relying on Get-DscResource output. This ensures every resource
    gets a test case even if it fails to load, and the actual compilation step in
    PS 5.1 surfaces the real error.
  • CompileDscConfiguration.ps1 — Wrapped the Invoke-Expression (configuration
    definition)in its own try/catch and collected all errors from $Error in chronological
    order. If the configuration function isn't created, the full error chain is thrown —
    root cause first. This generically reports any error (invalid properties, missing
    modules, syntax errors, etc.) without needing error-type-specific detection.
• Performance improvement
  • The speedup comes from compiling all DSC resources in a single powershell.exe
    process - instead of spawning a separate process per resource. The expensive
    one-time initialization (module imports, New-DatumStructure,
    Initialize-DscResourceMetaInfo) now runs only once. With more resources, the savings
    scale linearly — each additional resource adds only its compilation time rather than
    ~45s of setup overhead.
• PowerShellGet 2.2.5 exists in both RequiredModules and
  C:\Program Files\WindowsPowerShell\Modules. When DSC scans all paths on PSModulePath,
  it finds duplicate MOF schema definitions (MSFT_PSModule, MSFT_PSRepository) and emits
  Write-Error for each — ugly but non-fatal.
  • Wrapped Get-DscResource and Initialize-DscResourceMetaInfo calls in try/catch
    with -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue 2>$null to suppress both terminating exceptions
    (e.g. empty PSModulePath entries) and non-terminating Write-Error output from the
    duplicate CIM class detections. This was done in both DscResources.Tests.ps1 and
    CompileDscConfigurations.ps1.