How Do I Learn PowerShell?

DoctorDNS · 2016-03-05T10:47:21.000Z

sea-snail-345678_1280.jpg714×450 54.1 KB

A commonly asked question is: “How Do I Learn PowerShell?”. This sticky post presents common responses to that question with pointers to more details. Please read this post and look at the resources before you ask questions in the forum, as they might help to get you started with PowerShell! If there are missing great references, please comment below - I add all good ones.

How do you learn best?

This a key question to learning most things. Since there are several ways of learning PowerShell, the ‘right’ way. is by using the modality that suits you best. Here are some key learning modalities to help you learn Powershell:

1. Instructor-led Training

Microsoft has an an official Instructor led course on PowerShell that you can get at any Microsoft Official Learning partner. This course is: AZ-040T00: Automating Administration with PowerShell. Read more about it on Microsoft’s website here: Course AZ-040T00-A: Automating Administration with PowerShell - Training | Microsoft Learn

Numerous third-party instructor led training courses exist. Reach out to your local Microsoft learning partner.

2. Book Learning

Many people learn from reading books. There are a wide range of books on PowerShell - some are focused on PowertShell itself while others are more applied covering how to use PowerShell to achieve some aim (eg add a user in Active Directory).

One of the best books on PowerShell it self is Don Jones Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches. For more information on this book, see Learn Windows PowerShell 3 in a Month of Lunches: Amazon.co.uk: Jones, Don, Hicks, Jeffrey T.: 9781617291081: Books Keen-eyed readers may note the similarity between this book and the MS training courses. That is intentional as Don Jones and his team wrote both courses.

Don Jones also has an e-book: Conversational PowerShell - you can download it from:

Conversational Geek

Conversational PowerShell

Look, PowerShell has been around since 2006, so you’re going to have to get around to learning it eventually. It’s at the heart of Microsoft’s direction for systems management, too, so learning it will just help make you a better IT person...

The site requires signup that includes a corporate email address (Gmail is not accepted). Once you register, you get a link to download the ebook - a 1.8 MB PDF file.

3. Video Training

Some folks learn well by watching videos. There are several recommendations here:

Pluralsight - Pluralsight has a large range of PowerShell-related videos covering both the basics and the more advanced topics (e.g. Using CIM cmdlets, Implementing PowerShell Web Access, etc., generally ). These are commercial offerings but not overly expensive.

Microsoft Virtual Academy - This platform held a set of great free videos from Miicrosoft that feature outstanding presenters. Sadly, most have gone, but some that remain are at; Getting Started with Microsoft PowerShell - presented by Jeffrey Snover - Getting Started with Microsoft PowerShell | Microsoft Learn

There are others on MVA - see Google

Don Jones’ Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches
This is a set of videos to accompany the book. You can use them on their own. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6D474E721138865A

Plataan TV
Windows PowerShell 101 - a free video course introducing PowerShell.
Windows PowerShell 101 | Plataan.TV. This video series was recorded many years ago, but the content is still relevant.

4. From the community

Netwrix has a nice blog post entitled Windows PowerShell Scripting Tutorial for Beginners at: Windows PowerShell Scripting Tutorial for Beginners. This is a nice introduction for beginners and useful as a review for those with a bit more skill.

Many people learn by reading posts here and by asking and answering questions in this amazing Spiceworks community. The Group Admins and others are a wealth of information and can provide many tips and tricks. Ask questions here - and have a go at answering them, too.

A community member, Adam Gordon, walks through one cmdlet each week. Each post shows you when and how to use each one. Find this at: https://blog.itpro.tv/category/microsoft-powershell/ .

And, of course, there are other communities on the web! But why would you want to go anywhere else?

5. Podcasts

Hal Rottenberg and Jonathan Walz have been running The PowerScripting Podcast for years. It is always entertaining and educational. Tune in at https://powershell.org/podcast/

Going Further

PowerShell is a vast subject, here are some resources for additional learning:

Finding more
If you have found a great resource contact @DoctorDNS to get this list updated!

psophos · 2016-03-05T15:23:01.000Z

Microsoft’s Powershell Gateway:

learn.microsoft.com

Home

Rob’s link for Free Powershell Ebooks:

Free PowerShell eBooks - living post? Programming & Development

Should we make a sticky of this post of various free PowerShell eBooks that we locate? I caught this gem on Reddit today - these are from Microsoft directly! Windows Powershell 4.0 Examples Quick Guide WINDOWS POWERSHELL INTEGRATED SCRIPTING ENVIRONMENT 4.0 WINDOWS POWERSHELL 4.0 LANGUAGE QUICK REFERENCE Windows PowerShell Desired State Configuration Overview Windows PowerShell Web Access Windows PowerShell: Elements of Windows Management Infrastructure (WMI) WMI in Windows PowerShell 4.0 Win…

More from Rob, Using Powershell to manipulate Active Directory:

Active Directory and PowerShell Helpful Info Windows

A lot of times, here in the Active Directory & GPO group, we are asked how to perform a particular task with Active Directory. Responses will range from including/using one tool or another, but we will often refer to Powershell as a solution. What is Powershell? From Wikipedia: “Windows PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management framework from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and associated scripting language built on the .NET Framework. PowerShell provides full …

And I like this post from Matt on using Pester for PS testing:

Powershell Team Posts Their Pester Tests Programming & Development

If you haven't been convinced to start using Pester to test your Powershell code yet, this should convince you: https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell-Tests The Powershell team is leveraging Pester as a test suite for Powershell itself (talk about meta!) and they have released their test code on Github. If nothing else, this should provide some good examples of tests for reverse engineering as you learn Pester yourself.

Pitfalls/Quirks. While PS is very powerful it does have quirks, here’s a good list:

Simple Talk – 1 Apr 15

A Plethora of PowerShell Pitfalls - Simple Talk

PowerShell has some very valuable features, but it is a mistake to believe that all those skills that you've derived from more conventional programming languages will transfer over to PowerShell. There are some pitfalls for the unwary. Michael Sorens...

Powershell Modules Central: GitHub - ClaudioESSilva/PowerShellModulesCentral: Central repository with existing PowerShell modules and links to blog posts/videos that talk about or use them

“This repository was founded as a central hub to a list of PowerShell modules that people know/use. Each module has a file describing its name, basic information the module, as well as one or more blog posts/videos from people that have written about or used them.”

Use a good editor: Visual Studio Code is one on the best: https://code.visualstudio.com/ (it’s free too).

More fun with VSCode: https://vscodecandothat.com/ (some very useful suggestions.)

edit: added modules bit 2018-02-22

edit2: VSCode stuff bit 2018-05-16

DoctorDNS · 2018-02-23T12:38:23.000Z

Google is a powerful tool for the IT Pro. But before you can Google effectively, you need to know what to google for.

On the downside, Google is not perfect. Searching today for stuff, I came across article after article that is old, out of date, related to an earlier version, or just plain wrong. And in a lot of cases, some of the results that are returned, while they may work, are hardly best practice. You have to know enough PowerShell to be able to validate the solution obtained and be able to adapt it to fit your need.

What I hope this sticky does is to help teach Spiceheads enough to make their Google searches a bit more fruitful (and less needed).

Little-Green-Man · 2018-02-23T13:00:23.000Z

tfl:

Google is a powerful tool for the IT Pro. But before you can Google effectively, you need to know what to google for.

On the downside, Google is not perfect. Searching today for stuff, I came across article after article that is old, out of date, related to an earlier version, or just plain wrong. And in a lot of cases, some of the results that are returned, while they may work, are hardly best practice. You have to know enough PowerShell to be able to validate the solution obtained and be able to adapt it to fit your need.

What I hope this sticky does is to help teach Spiceheads enough to make their Google searches a bit more fruitful (and less needed).

Googling scripts also introduces other people’s crap code and horrid formatting into your scripts too. Sure, the script might get the job done but if you pass it as your own, you look foolish.

andrewward8 · 2018-02-23T12:34:04.000Z

I think that knowing how to google effectively will help you teach yourself just about any skill online.

DoctorDNS · 2016-09-30T13:15:28.000Z

mattmcnabb:

FYI: Don Jones just released a free ebook entitled “Conversational PowerShell” which details how to go about learning PowerShell. This might be a good read for those getting started.

Conversational Geek - Conversational PowerShell

I have added this to the sticky post - thanks!

Rob-Dunn · 2016-03-05T14:40:11.000Z

Great resources, tfl. Bookmarking this for later when others ask the question.

Everyone else: don’t let tfl’s humbleness fool you, he is a PowerShell instructor and Pluralsight trainer (among many of his other credits). He is an invaluable resource here in the Spiceworks community.

DoctorDNS · 2017-09-12T11:20:53.000Z

Little Green Man:

New suggestion for a link: How to become a PowerShell Pro - v2 | Microsoft Learn Lots of good info and it was recently updated.

This is a great post. It does duplicate a lot of what I’ve added in the stickly, so I won’t add it as such. However, what I have done is to pull out some extra stuff that I have put into the sticky post. So thanks for the suggestion.

mr-burnz · 2017-09-12T10:57:34.000Z

Thanks reading powershell in a month of lunches now.

Little-Green-Man · 2017-08-06T21:51:11.000Z

New suggestion for a link: How to become a PowerShell Pro - v2 | Microsoft Learn Lots of good info and it was recently updated.

mattmcnabb · 2016-03-24T14:34:50.000Z

FYI: Don Jones just released a free ebook entitled “Conversational PowerShell” which details how to go about learning PowerShell. This might be a good read for those getting started.

Conversational Geek

Conversational PowerShell

Look, PowerShell has been around since 2006, so you’re going to have to get around to learning it eventually. It’s at the heart of Microsoft’s direction for systems management, too, so learning it will just help make you a better IT person...

elijahalexagabue · 2016-04-01T05:58:29.000Z

great post

nelson5410 · 2016-09-29T16:56:24.000Z

The book you posted looked a little old. This one seemed newer. If I’m understanding this wrong please feel free to correct me.

amazon.co.uk

Learn Windows PowerShell 3 in a Month of Lunches: Amazon.co.uk: Jones, Don,...

Buy Learn Windows PowerShell 3 in a Month of Lunches 2 by Jones, Don, Hicks, Jeffrey T. (ISBN: 9781617291081) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

DoctorDNS · 2017-01-30T15:33:48.000Z

Done.

DoctorDNS · 2016-09-30T10:50:31.000Z

I’ll update the sticky to point to this newer edition.

bdascott · 2016-03-05T16:14:36.000Z

Great post… seems the question of “how do i learn” is asked more often than any other question (aside from which Cert do I go for…)

nice to see it all in one central place that will hopefully be utilized

DoctorDNS · 2017-01-30T14:28:05.000Z

Good idea - I’d not thought of adding the podcasts. However - I am not sure folks learn from a pod cast inititally. The idea of the sticky was for a new to PowerShell person. Or do you think there is value for a PowerShell newbie in the pod casts?

steven61 · 2017-01-30T13:54:10.000Z

Great Post.

If you like Podcasts, Jon Walz and Hal Rottenberg have been producing the PowerScripting Podcast since version one, both are Microsoft MVP’s. They have well over 300 episodes that cover all aspects of PowerShell from the basics thru DSC, Nano Server and many other PowerShell subjects.

They can be found at https://powershell.org/podcast/ as well as in the iTunes Store and the Windows Store.

jsmith · 2016-03-17T19:08:01.000Z

Thank you for posting this! I’m just starting out with Powershell and this is a great consolidated list of learning resources.

martin9700 · 2017-01-30T15:09:49.000Z

tfl:

Good idea - I’d not thought of adding the podcasts. However - I am not sure folks learn from a pod cast inititally. The idea of the sticky was for a new to PowerShell person. Or do you think there is value for a PowerShell newbie in the pod casts?

Everyone learns differently. I’d add them.