Deleting Settings
Synopsis
Under some limited circumstances, it is possible to fully delete configuration settings. This guide covers how and why.
Description
Introduction
Originally, the configuration system was designed as some kind of options menu for modules. From that point of view, settings weren’t deleted at runtime. Ever. Instead, changes to the available settings would happen as a new version of the consuming module was released.
However, with the spread in other scenarios - especially within CI/CD processes - situations happen where full removal might be beneficial. This system is designed to support just this, however ensures constraints are present to prevent harming the other envisioned scenarios.
The command used to delete configuration settings is called:
Remove-PSFConfig
Limitations
Only settings that have been flagged as deletable can actually be deleted.
This flag can be set by using the -AllowDelete parameter on either Set-PSFConfig or Import-PSFConfig.
Changing the setting on existing configuration items
Configuration items can be updated to be deletable using Set-PSFConfig. This however is only available until the setting has been initialized.
The initialization call is the last time this setting can be applied.
Furthermore, if the initialization call does not explicitly flag it as deletable, it will not honor the deletable flag, if it was present before.
Initialization is assumed to include the full declaration of intent of the developer regarding the settings defined.
Policy Enforced Settings
Configuration settings that have been deployed by policy as an enforced value* can under no circumstances whatsoever be deleted.
Ever.
* Details can be found in the ‘Registry: Per User, enforced’ and ‘Registry: Local Computer, enforced’ scopes
Deleting Configuration Items
The actual act of deleting a configuration item is a simple matter of:
Remove-PSFConfig -FullName 'Phase1.Step1.Server'
Note: PowerShell will prompt for confirmation before accepting to delete settings. Also specify ‘-Confirm:$false’ to circumvent this prompt.
Notes
| Version | 1.0 |
| Written on: | 2019-02-27 |
| Updated on: | 2019-02-27 |