Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches

by Don Jones

Summary

Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches, Third Edition is an innovative tutorial designed for busy IT professionals. This updated edition covers PowerShell features that run on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and later, PowerShell v3 and later, and includes v5 features like PowerShellGet.

Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications.

About the Technology

PowerShell is both a scripting language and an administrative shell that lets you control and automate nearly every aspect of Windows. It accepts and executes commands interactively and you can write scripts to manage most Windows servers like Exchange, IIS, and SharePoint, as well as online services like Azure and Office 365.

About the Book

Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches, Third Edition is an innovative tutorial designed for busy IT professionals. Just set aside one hour a day - lunchtime would be perfect - for a month, and you'll be automating Windows tasks faster than you ever thought possible. This updated edition covers PowerShell features that run on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and later, PowerShell v3 and later, and includes v5 features like PowerShellGet.

What's Inside


Learn PowerShell from the beginning, no experience required!
Covers PowerShell v3 and up, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2 and later
Each lesson takes you an hour or less

About the Reader

Experience with Windows administration is helpful. No programming or scripting experience needed.

About the Author

Veteran PowerShell MVPs Don Jones and Jeffery Hicks bring years as successful trainers to this concise, easy-to-follow book.

Table of Contents


Before you begin
Meet PowerShell
Using the help system
Running commands
Working with providers
The pipeline: connecting commands
Adding commands
Objects: data by another name
The pipeline, deeper
Formatting - and why it's done on the right
Filtering and comparisons
A practical interlude
Remote control: one-to-one, and one-to-many
Using Windows Management Instrumentation and CIM
Multitasking with background jobs
Working with many objects, one at a time
Security alert!
Variables: a place to store your stuff
Input and output
Sessions: remote control with less work
You call this scripting?
Improving your parameterized script
Advanced remoting configuration
Using regular expressions to parse text files
Additional random tips, tricks, and techniques
Using someone else's script
Never the end
PowerShell cheat sheet

Genres: Programming, Technology, Technical, Reference, Computers, Nonfiction, Computer Science

384 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 7, 2011

About the author

Don Jones has written dozens and dozens of books and ebooks on information technology topics, and is perhaps most well-known in that space for his "Month of Lunches" series, published by Manning. Don's recently branched out into topics like business management, instructional design, and self-improvement/motivational, along with launching books in science fiction and fantasy. Don lives in Downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, is a huge fan of Disney Parks, and loves Figment best of all.

Reviews

[Jenny GB · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like I learned a lot from this book! The authors really want you to learn about PowerShell and even better they try to teach you how to learn for yourself. I highly recommend this book if you want to learn PowerShell.

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whether you're a beginner or have some experience with PowerShell, this book offers a practical approach to learning and applying this powerful scripting language.

The book is structured as a series of short, focused lessons that can be completed during your lunch breaks, making it an accessible and manageable way to learn PowerShell. Each lesson introduces new concepts and guides you through hands-on exercises, allowing you to practice and reinforce your knowledge.

Don Jones takes you on a step-by-step journey, starting with the fundamentals of PowerShell and gradually building your skills. You'll learn to manage and automate various Windows tasks, work with files and folders, interact with the Windows Registry, and perform administrative tasks. The book also covers more advanced topics, such as scripting and error handling.

What sets this book apart is its practical, task-based approach. It teaches you how to use PowerShell for real-world tasks, making it a valuable resource for both beginners and those looking to deepen their PowerShell expertise. By the end of the "month of lunches," you'll have a solid foundation in PowerShell and the skills to automate and streamline your daily administrative tasks.

[Vincent · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is definitely a nice introduction to PowerShell. It teaches concepts like pipeline parameter binding and how to use the help files, which might be left out when only learning from Stack Overflow posts.

Even though the authors tried their best to add cross-platform examples, there were still many chapters I couldn’t follow as a macOS user. I also didn’t like the example requiring signing up for an Azure account. Additionally, there were a few typos and incorrect cmdlet names (e.g., "automation variable" instead of "automatic variable," or "Invoke-ScriptBlock" instead of "Invoke-Command"), which bugged me.

Now to the good parts: I really liked their lab exercises, which provide a quick opportunity to solidify the content of each chapter. I also enjoyed the author’s writing style—it’s easy to understand while still covering important details.

Overall verdict: If you want to learn PowerShell, get this book!

[Michael Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This felt like more of a refresher of the sort I just needed to fully understand. So tended to fly through it. I do think it's way more likely that I'll throw together a script for tasks where dotnet is overkill. Also powershell tends to be increasingly more for any software engineer eg deployment script. So would highly recommend.

Ps The wmi related side of things is deprecated from powershell 7 so I wouldn't overthink it.

[KingBuf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy to digest chapters, with very nice labs at the end to try out the newly gained knowledge. It set me on track to use powershell. It's not a deep-dive book, but it gives you enough knowledge to really get you started. I really recommend this book.

[Matti Andreas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exactly what I was looking for, pretty easy introduction to PowerShell. Relatively fast to get through, well written and the content is relevant for every day use. Especially chapter 8 explaining the foundation of PowerShell: Objects.

[hari · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the perfect start for some one who has little or no knowledge about poweshell. I never enjoyed any tech book since the last time i read headfirst series.

[Ietrio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring text on a set subject. It will give the reader the convenience of a single starting point instead of exploring the Internet for examples.

[Jon Pennycook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction to PowerShell

[Brian Garber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent! Clear, digestible modules on scripting in PowerShell.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good way to start on powershell.

[C.M. Rutherford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy to follow with great example exercises. This book gives a solid foundation for scripting in powershell.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like the way it progresses and is presented in manageable chunks.

[Tory Davenport · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book to get started. Might be a little dated now though.

[Adrian Muscat · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good introduction to PowerShell. It emphasises how to use the help system within powershell and many fundamental concepts and best practices.

[Marco Janse]

Still the best book around to start learning PowerShell. I've read it twice now and I learned some new things the second time, because the book teaches you how to explore everything inside PowerShell. It's very good written and very practical: you get to do a lot yourself, so you won't get bored. Don't get put off by the fact that this was written for Powershell version 3. It is still accurate for version 4 and 5 as well.

PowerShell is here to stay and if you are an IT Administrator, you will need to master it. This is the only book you need to read to start using it in your daily work.

[Eddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you need to learn powershell, I cannot say enough good things about this book. It is easy to read and well organized. The author has divided the information into 28 lessons. Reading each is probably about a 20 minute excercise and then give you time to do each of the labs in the book to reinforce the information you just learned.

Well written, easy to read and give you a VERY solid foundation for advanced powershell functionality. I highly recommend this book.

[Ben Rand · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book doesn't teach you PowerShell in-depth, I think it does a really good job of teaching you how to learn PowerShell as you go...and that's a really good skill to learn. I think if you're just starting into PowerShell, this would be a good place to start. If you already know some and are looking for an in-depth resource to go to when you get stuck, you may want to look elsewhere.

[Arthur Zhuk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an good book for people just getting into PowerShell scripting. This will teach you the must-knows but it's up to you to progress beyond the basics the books teach. I'd highly recommend the ebook on www.powershell.com which is free but this book is decent and should get your feet wet.

[Ed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great introductory book. You will learn to be productive with PowerShell quickly.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good primer on PowerShell basics and how to get started.

[Joel Tone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent tutorial for people new to PowerShell and its capabilities.

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for those looking for an introduction to Powershell.

[Jeevan Kiran]

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