I really like the dbatools project. This is a series of PowerShell cmdlets that are built by the community and incredibly useful for migrations between SQL Servers, but also for various administrative actions. I have a short series on these items.

One of the downsides of an active project is that updates happen often. I know when I’m working with new versions of Redgate tools, they’ll deliver new builds to me every day if I want them (I usually don’t).

With dbatools, I find a similar issue, though at a slightly longer scale. I’ll see a tweet or post about a new cmdlet, only to find out that I don’t have the newest version. As a result, I need to update my modules, which means I need an elevated command window, which is distracting.

I saw a post about someone that built a SQL Agent task to update their server, which I was thinking to do until Anthony Nocentino pointed out Watch-DbaUpdate.

Install-DbaUpdate

There’s actually a cmdlet that does what I want. It’s Install-DbaWatchUpdate, and it’s designed to setup a scheduled task that calls Watch-DbaUpdate and updates the module. That’s what I want, so I decided to check it out.

First, I looked at Scheduled Tasks. In Windows 10, this is the Task Scheduler from the Start menu, and surprisingly, lots of software uses this. Google, Adobe, Microsoft, etc.

I then tried the –WhatIf parameter for Install-DbaWatchUpdate, but it didn’t work. I know this is a fun cmdlet, but this should work.

In any case, let me just run it. I don’t get much detail back.

If I refresh scheduled tasks, I see a dbatools version check.

If you look at the details, this is triggered at midnight and runs once an hour. The PoSh executable is called and it in turn calls the Watch-DbaUpdate cmdlet, which checks for a new version and should let me know if there are updates. Since I’m at the latest version, I’ll have to see if this works.

So far, so good.

I even tested the Uninstall-DbaWatchUpdate and it does remove the task.