# Windows Cookbook 3.0 released

**URL:** <https://discourse.chef.io/t/windows-cookbook-3-0-released/10589>\
**Category:** Chef Release Announcements\
**Created:** [March 15, 2017, 8:02pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/windows-cookbook-3-0-released/10589 "2017-03-15T20:02:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![tas50](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discourse.chef.io/tas50/32/941_2.png) [@tas50](https://discourse.chef.io/u/tas50)\
**Post date:** [March 15, 2017, 8:02pm UTC](https://discourse.chef.io/t/windows-cookbook-3-0-released/10589/1 "2017-03-15T20:02:56Z")

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Today we shipped version 3.0 of the Windows cookbook with some huge new changes that you should be aware of if you run Windows. Here’s what’s new / changed:

### Breaking changes

- This cookbook now requires Chef 12.6 or later and we highly recommend even more recent Chef 12 releases as they resolve critical Windows bugs and include new Windows specific functionality.

- The windows\_package resource has been removed as it is built into chef-client 12.6+ and the built in version is faster / more robust.

- The powershell out helper has been removed as it is now included in chef-client 12.6+

- The default recipe no longer installs the various Windows rubygems required for non-omnibus chef-client installs. This was a leftover from Chef 10 and is no longer necessary, or desired, as we ship these gems in every Windows chef release.

- windows\_feature has been heavily refactored and in doing so the method used to control the underlying providers has changed. You can no longer specify which windows\_feature provider to use by setting `node['windows']['feature_provider']` or by setting the `provider` property on the resource itself. Instead you must set `install_method` to specify the correct underlying installation method. You can also now reference the resources directly by using `windows_feature_servermanagercmd`, `windows_feature_powershell` or `windows_feature_dism` instead of `windows_feature`

- Windows\_font’s `file` property has been renamed to `name` to avoid collisions with the Chef file resource.

### Other Changes

- All LWRPs in this cookbook have been refactored to be custom resources
- windows\_path, windows\_shortcut, and windows\_zipfile have been updated to be idempotent with support for why-run mode and proper notification when the resources actually update
- windows\_pagefile now validates the name of the pagefile to avoid cryptic error messages
- A new `share` resource has been added for setting up Windows shares
- TrustedPeople certificate store has been added to the list of allowed store\_names in the certificate resources
- version helper constant definitions has been improved
- A new `all` property has been added to the Windows feature resource to install all dependent features. See the windows feature test recipe for usage examples.
- Windows feature now accepts an array of features, which greatly speeds up feature installs and simplifies recipe code
- The path resource now accepts paths with either forward slashes or backslashes and correctly adds the path using Windows style backslash.
- The powershell provider for windows\_feature resource has been fixed to properly import ServerManager in the :remove action
- Testing has been switched from a Rakefile to the new Delivery local mode
- Several issues with testing the resources on non-Windows hosts in ChefSpec have been resolved
- A new `source` property has been added to the windows\_feature\_powershell resource
- Additional test suites have been added to Test Kitchen to cover all resources and those test suites are now being executed in AppVeyer on every PR
- Travis CI testing has been removed and all testing is being performed in AppVeyer

-Tim