Functions to make WinRM on azure run smoother

connect-azurePSSession.ps1

function connect-azurePSSession
{
<#
borrowed from : http://jrich523.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/update-creating-a-profile-for-a-remote-session/
#>

    [cmdletBinding()]

    Param(
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]
        [string]$hostName,

        [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]
        [int]$portNumber,
        
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$True)]
        [PSCredential]$credentials,
        
        [Parameter(Mandatory=$False)]
        [string]$sessionName
    )
    
    $newSessionOptions = @{
        computerName = "$hostName"
        port = "$portNumber"
        authentication = "Negotiate"
        credential = $credentials
        useSSL = $true
        sessionOption = (New-PSSessionOption -SkipCACheck -SkipCNCheck)
    }
    
    if($sessionName)
    { $newSessionOptions += @{ name = $sessionName} }

    $session = new-psSession @newSessionOptions
    
    invoke-command -session $session -scriptBlock {
    ## Begin Remote Profile ##
        function Prompt
        {
            #Put the ID of the command in, so we can get/invoke-history easier
            #eg: "r 4" will re-run the command that has [4]: in the prompt
            $nextCommandId = (Get-History -count 1).Id + 1

            #Output prompt string
            #Notice: no angle brackets, makes it easy to paste my buffer to the web
            
            Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow -NoNewLine "`n$env:computername."
            Write-Host -ForegroundColor Gray -NoNewLine "$env:userdnsdomain"
            Write-Host -ForegroundColor 03 "`n[$(Get-Location)]"
            #Break up second prompt line to change color of history counter
            Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow -NoNewLine "PS: ["
            Write-Host -ForegroundColor Gray -NoNewLine "${nextCommandId}"
            Write-Host -ForegroundColor Yellow -NoNewLine "] `n"
            return " "

        }
    }
    
    enter-psSession $session

} # end connect-azurePSSession