Practical Windows PowerShell Scripting, 2nd Edition

Fully updated! Decipher PowerShell code and automate administrative tasks with minimal effort.

PowerShell can help you automate a variety of tasks from Windows Server management to rich reporting, to building full blown, graphical applications. But learning PowerShell can be intimidating; its not intuitive and alias use can make code difficult to read.

In this video, Microsoft MVP Brien Posey helps you learn PowerShell with minimal effort. He writes code that is easy to follow and easy to read. He takes time to explain and demo each step and talks you through PowerShells quirks.

This fully updated edition of the bestselling Practical Windows PowerShell Scripting LiveLessons video includes the latest tools such as PowerShell 7 pipeline parallelization, Windows 11 Terminal, and Windows Server 2022. Start by building practical PowerShell scripts that help you manage day-to-day tasks, and then see how take advantage of more advanced features.

About the Instructor Brien Posey is a 15 time Microsoft MVP and has worked in IT for more than 20 years. He spent the last 15 years working as a freelance technology author and speaker. Previously, Posey worked as a CIO for a national chain of hospitals and healthcare facilities. Past experience includes working as a network engineer for the United States Department of Defense at Fort Knox and as a network administrator for some of the largest insurance companies in America. Brien has also spent the last two years training as a Scientist-Astronaut candidate and continues to pursue this area of interest. Other LiveLessons videos from Brien Posey include, Practical Windows PowerShell Scripting; Microsoft Exchange Server 2016; Building, Managing, and Migrating Virtual Machines with Hyper-V and Azure, and most recently; PowerShell for Business Intelligence and Big Data Analytics. Skill Level

All levels
Learn How To
Decipher PowerShell Syntax
Work with PowerShell Cmdlets
Enhance your PowerShell scripts
Interact with Active Directory
Automate scripts
Create and format reports
Import data into charts
Establish remote sessions
Build your own GUI
Use advanced features such as pipeline chain operators and parallelization
Who Should Take This Course
This video course is ideal for admins or developers who wants to learn PowerShell and advance their understanding of basic or advanced PowerShell techniques.
Course Requirements
A basic understanding of Windows
Lesson Descriptions

Lesson 1 introduces PowerShell. Its intended primarily for those who are just getting started with PowerShell.

Lesson 2 focuses on PowerShell basics, including fundamental concepts such as variables, objects, attributes, and error messages.

Lesson 3 begins to talk about basic scripting, including how to build a PowerShell script, configuring the script execution policy, creating a function, silencing errors, operators, and authentication.

Lesson 4 shows you how to enhance scripts. Learn how to pass a variable to a function, create loops, and integrate with Microsoft .NET. You also learn about if-then-else statements and switch statements.

Lesson 5 covers interacting with Active Directory. Learn how to query the Active Directory, create and modify user accounts, and work with AD groups.

Lesson 6 delves into PowerShell as a management tool. Learn how to make a script run automatically, generate alerts and e-mail messages from a script, and management best practices.

Lesson 7 explains how to use PowerShell for reporting, including creating CSV, text, and HTML files.

Lesson 8 dives into graphical reporting with PowerShell. It also explains how to create simple charts, change the chart type, and import data into the chart.

Lesson 9 shows you how to establish a remote session, run cmdlet on a remote session, and collect data.

Lesson 10 demonstrates how to build your own GUI, including adding text boxes, creating buttons, and working with drop-down lists.

Lesson 11 concludes the video course by presenting advanced features of PowerShell, including ternary operators, pipeline chain operators, null condition operators, and pipeline parallelization.