Prerequisites

DSC needs a supporting PowerShell version, which is version 4.0, and operating system from Windows 2008 R2 onwards. DSC is built on CIM and needs the WinRM listeners, service, and script execution policy.

Let's set up a machine to jump-start DSC. Here, we will use a machine working on the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system with SP1, and the PowerShell version is 2.0. Perform the following steps:

• Download .NET Framework 4.5 using the URL: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40855
• Download WMF 4.0 from the following link: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40855

Let's take a look at the .NET framework version installed on the Windows 2008 R2 SP1 box from the registry using PowerShell. Run the following command for this:

Get-ItemProperty 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\NET Framework Setup\NDP\v4\Client'

The output is illustrated in the following image:

You can also install the .NET Framework 4.5 first and then check the version...