MCM Readiness Video Downloads

There have been some major changes to the Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) SQL 2008 certification (you can see more details on this at http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/master-sql-path.aspx)

What I consider a HUGE plus alongside the changes is the posting of MCM readiness videos (recorded by acknowledged experts in the field). These videos are free for download and have been posted out on Technet.

There has been a lot of talk on Twitter about simple ways to download all of the videos. Today Aaron Nelson (blog|twitter) gave a presentation called “Powershell Grab Bag” as a part of the Powershell Virtual Chapter. In this presentation he provided a script to download all the PASS Summit videos (this will only work for the Summit attendees as you have to have a login, just think of it as encouragement to attend next year). Aaron’s script did the job awesomely and I was able to download 165 Summit videos easily just by kicking off the Powershell script.

I reworked Aaron’s script for my own nefarious purposes and with his kind permission I give you a process to download all the MCM videos.

Firstly download MCMList.csv and put it in C:\Temp. Once that’s done you just need to download “Download MCM Vids.PS1” and run it.

It will create a new directory C:\Temp\MCMVids and download all the current videos. One thing you might want to change in the script is:

$url = $File.Zipped

Depending upon what you want to download you can change Zipped to Zune, WMV or MP3 to download in that format.

The only downside is that the MCMList needs to be manually maintained. This isn’t a lovely elegant solution, but it does work (I used it to download videos today).

As more MCM readiness videos get uploaded I will update the csv file so that it’s always current.

If you decide to use this please let me know how it works for you, also if you want me to add the other video/audio formats let me know and I’ll update the scripts accordingly.

Update on Thursday, January 13, 2011 at 8:47AM by Nic

An updated version of the CSV has been uploaded containing links to the remaining videos.

Comments

[Cameron Mergel]

Awesome job Aaron and Nic! Love it!

[Marcos Freccia]

Hello,

For me it worked well. Congrats for this post.

Best Regards,
Marcos Freccia

[Nic]

I'll be updating the csv file in the next couple of days for the new videos...stay tuned.

[Matt]

You have a extra comma on header row on that csv which causes a error. Other wise, awsome and thank you.

[JanStud]

I had to remove the end of line comas from the csv file, and it worked great. Thanks very much.

[Shawn Melton]

The updated CSV file only has one error that has to fixed before executing the script. On 20E (row 20, column E (MP3)), the URL is actually showing in column F. So just cut and paste that value into E20 and then save. Script should run with no errors.
You receive these two errors from this issue:
"Import-Csv : Cannot process argument because the value of argument "name" is invalid. Change the value of the "name" argument and run the operation again."
"You cannot call a method on a null-valued expression."

[Greg]

Hi,
Great script.

I had to add 3 extra lines after

$webclient = New-Object system.net.webclient

to get it working with a proxy server.

$proxy = new-object System.Net.WebProxy "proxy.server.com:8080" #replace proxy.server.com:8080 with your proxy server address and prot
$proxy.UseDefaultCredentials = $true
$webclient.proxy=$proxy

Thanks,
Greg