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Hi Everybody!

This might seem as a stupid question.
I am working for almost a year in IT now, and most of my knowledge is about Microsoft Azure.
Working every day on Azure, I am training myself in Powershell. Powershelling for Azure is getting better and better, but I want to learn more about the “normal” management commands and such, but I don’t know were to begin.

What do you recommend as a good way to start expanding my Powershell knowledge?

Thank you!! :slight_smile:

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Do you have any batch scripts for you use for every use on you PC? Try converting them to PS. Got a function you want to automate for? Make a PS script to do that.

It really depends on your learning type. Are you a do’er, a reader/memorizer, a tinkerer (tearing apart and analyzing working code)?

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Every time you have an “I wonder how I with Powershell?” moment, take the question and find the answer on the Microsoft Technet “Hey Scripting Guys!” Blog. Ed Wilson is quite the genius when it comes to Powershell innovation. Or if you have a question about a particular cmdlet, type the cmdlet exactly into Google. Usually the first result is the Technet article explaining the cmdlet in detail like parameters, inputs, outputs, and usage examples.

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Those are nice tips :slight_smile:

Are there also good books about Powershell that are a definitive read?

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If you’re a “take a course” kinda chap, I know the Advanced Powershell course on Microsoft Virtual Academy was good. I’d assume the basic one is too.

My favorite way of learning aside from tinkering and the odd task at work is actually helping in these forums. “How can I do X?”, “Hmm, good question!”

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Honestly, I have yet to read a single Powershell book. Most of my learning has been through the virtue of Google and Technet/“Hey Scripting Guys!”. Also if you have a question about a particular cmdlet on your machine you can use Get-Help for info on the cmdlet, and if the Help file is out of date you can use Update-Help to get the newest help on all those cmdlets.

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I have learned the most about Powershell by helping other people out on this forum. Dissecting their code and finding the typo that was hanging them up or generating a script to help solve their problem has helped me learn more than just general research could have IMHO.

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The main book that is suggested is “Powershell in a month of lunches”, I started reading it not long after I’d started messing around with Powershell and found it useful for some little tricks but I prefer to just dive into the console and figure it out as I go with some google’ing thrown in.

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To echo what others are saying:

The Hey scripting guy blog: Archived MSDN and TechNet Blogs | Microsoft Learn

Conveniently they are doing a week of working with Azure :slight_smile:

MVA: http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/

Courses: beginning and advanced powershell v3, beginnign and advanced Desired State Configuration, and PS + AD

Also, powershell.org is a good place to get good info. It’s where the scripting games from the Hey Scripting Guy blog ended up in a community effort.

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Alright!

Thank you very much guys! This will get me going for some time! :slight_smile:
I’ll see if that Powershell over a month of lunches book is some good and perhaps order it!

Thank again, and happy IT’ing!

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Check out my post here. The link there is great.

http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/934838-goodbye-cmd-hello-ps

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There is a definite learning curve with Powershell, especially if you don’t have previous scripting experience (like me!). That said it’s built to be easier for us admin types to use and I think that definitely holds true.

The best way to learn Powershell is to start with a focus on a particular technology and learn how to manage that. It sounds like you have already done that with a focus on Azure so you’re off to a good start. The key with learning this is separating the management layer (Powershell) from the underlying technology (Azure, Exchange, the filesystem, etc.) Once you have learned how to manage a technology that you know very well then you can apply those same management behaviors to other technologies. It’s this consistency of behavior and style that put the ‘Power’ in Powershell.

As far as learning materials go, that will be up to you to decide. If you’re a visual learner then you may want to focus on video instruction such as the MVA videos mentioned above. I can’t recommend Don Jones series on CBT Nuggets enough! There are over 30 hours of ground-up instruction that is very well explained and approachable:

If you are a verbal learner like me, there are tons of great books out there such as Don Jones ‘Learn Powershell in a Month of Lunches’ or ‘Powershell in Depth’ (with Jeff Hicks.) I started with Bruce Payette’s ‘Powershell in Action’ second edition which is a fantastic book but very heavy reading. It’s definitely not a getting started guide but gives quite a bit of insight into the reasoning behind how Powershell works and why certain decisions were made. BTW, Bruce Payette is the principal language designer on the Powershell Team so he definitely has an authoritative perspective on the subject.

There also ways to learn Powershell in person. There are many trainers out there that offer on-site paid training, or there is the opportunity for events that offer labs/talks/walkthroughs. Maybe check with a regional Microsoft office to see if anything is coming up. Powershell user groups are another great way to connect with people and learn.

Don’t forget there are hundreds of folks out there contributing knowledge via blogs and wikis and those are valuable learning tools as well, if a bit unstructured. Some of the best are Boe Prox , Dave Wyatt , Adam Bertram , Bartek Bielawski , and Francois-Xavier Cat . This is not a complete list, just many that I have found over the last couple years.

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I’m currently learning it from Microsoft Virtual Academy (Free of charge), probably one of th best places to start on your powershell journey =P

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I’m more on the visual side–whenever I can see someone going through a project, that always helps me–so I tend to go to YouTube first whenever I try and learn a new language or program. I just did a quick search and got a ton of videos, and it looks like Don Jones himself actually goes through “Learn Powershell in a Month of Lunches” here:

Could be a good playlist to sift through. Good luck!

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I want to add on to my recommendation for learning Powershell. I enrolled in this Microsoft Course (Free)

Learning the intuitive help system and how to find things allows you to not have to memorize thousands of commands. You have to know how to find the right commands – not the right commands themselves. The idea between consistency makes a whole lot of sense. Also, you can use *nix commands in PS and they work. (How many times have I typed in ls in cmd instead of dir and it didn’t work. Powershell works with either or – with the built in aliasing system.

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This is the link I was going to post. I knew a little bit of Powershell already but actually found those videos very useful and it helped optimise the way I use it at the same time.

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Powershell in a Month of Lunches is where I started. After it got interesting, I turned to the Don Jones nuggets for Powershell.

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I only skimmed, so I don’t know if I’m repeating anyone, here. But, I found that following Hey, Scripting Guy! and the other technet resources to be very informative and not-at-all dry. The featured videos were awesome, in my opinion. If I recall correctly, you can follow along with them. And regardless of what the naysayers say, the Microsoft library is top-notch. Although many people swear by them, for Powershell, I wouldn’t expect very much from the Month of Lunches book by comparison.

You will, by extension, find yourself studying .Net, VBA, cmd, and SQL query language. Don’t be afraid. learn by doing.

Once I really started exploring technet, I discovered that there really aren’t too many companies (if any at all, really) who do so much to put every bit of knowledge and training at your fingertips for next to nothing. Yes, they have paid training and classes available. But if you’re serious about learning something and know how to use the search tool, you can learn about everything Microsoft has to offer. You may end up bookmarking a number of technet pages.

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YOUTUBE!

You can really learn anything on youtube nowadays.

something more professional would be

@CBT Nuggets

@Pluralsight

Safari Books Online

any of those are awesome.

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TechNet is a great place to reference and to learn, but Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches gives a solid foundation to work from. It’s written to teach someone how to use PowerShell who may not have any experience with it at all.

TechNet won’t teach you about topics in a structured way; if you know what to look for, it’s great, but how would you know what you need to know, when you don’t know it yet?

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