Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches

I'm a Windows systems engineer who used NT/Command Shell for more than a decade to do administrative tasks. I had been hearing more and more about Powershell as the years passed, but it just seemed so *different* from what I knew and was good at, which made me nervous to try. Early attempts just led to frustration, so I gave up. An experienced Powershell guy at work offered to teach us over a couple of lunch hours per week and made this book the textbook for 'class'. I've read a number of "Learn X in Y lessons" books and they all seem to start out fine and quickly get into matters I don't have interest in, or get far too deep too quickly to really gain understanding. Within the first few chapters of this book, I was "learning how to learn" Powershell. By fully explaining and exploring the robust help system from the beginning, I was quickly able to solve command line problems I was having without needing to refer back to the book. Gaining this early understanding helped make the more complex challenges easier to break down and resolve. The lab examples are also real-world relevant and resemble problems I need to solve on a regular basis. I strongly recommend following along in a Powershell window as you're reading.

The book was delivered ahead of schedule two days before the expected delivery date which was nice. Right away I noticed how easily I was able to pick up on the core concepts being explained to me. As of now I am only on chapter three, and already I feel more confident about powershell. I can not wait to read more, as this book comes highly reviewed. Some of the labs were designed with the intended usage of a x86bit machine running Vista or Windows Server 2012, which I didn't like, but so far I haven't had any crippling issues at my work desk which is a Win7 x32 machine. I wasn't sure if the e-book version was included with the paperback so I emailed Don Jones. He was prompt to get back to me and said that every copy does indeed come with a .pdf version, which is super nice. Overall I am pleased with this purchase. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to learn powershell from a command line point of view. Well worth the money.

Note to author: I bought the book to learn about PowerShell. I'll buy a different book when I'm ready to learn about Windows 8. The modules chapter completely biffed the PowerShell Community opportunities and their usefulness in Windows 7. I had been excited to reach the modules chapter to learn how to find and install such modules. Also, if PowerShell is to reach its potential to manage the whole enterprise, shouldn't we start with features that are compatible throughout the enterprise? Then exceptions for Windows 8 could be introduced after the general solution is understood. My main criticism is that too many examples require Windows 8 or Server 2012. It would be fine if a bit of content were given to a newer OS within a chapter. Unfortunately, entire chapters seem to focus on an OS. The lessons and examples would have been useful if parts of those chapters allowed experimentation with Windows 7 or Server 2008. The author's concept of "Try It" is a good one and could reinforce what you read. Unfortunately, you can't "try" those lessons that are out of sync with your version of the OS. Nevertheless, I like this book because it goes beyond teaching "yet another shell". It walks you through the right way to think about PowerShell so that it becomes a powerful tool for quick solutions and long-term solutions. Once you learn the help system, the connections to Framework, and object-orientation of PowerShell, it becomes a tool that just keeps getting more powerful.

I've been administering IIS servers for several years and I'm learning lots of interesting new items. The PowerShell incorporated into this book is great as is the writing and examples/labs. Jason relates everyday situations to the book and the writing style is conversational but pithy. If I didn't own this book, I'd buy it again. I have purchased several Manning books since this one and I really like that I can download a free electronic version to my PC/kindle/iPhone. There are some chapters that I take more time and process the examples and labs. Lots of URLs are provided, e.g (...)

I've read quite a few books as a system's admin. This book by far, is probably one one of the most well-written books I've read when learning a new subject in Information Technology. Jones and Hicks do a great job in teaching the reader scripting in Powershell. The beginning chapters lay the foundation on understanding the help syntax in Powershell, which is essential before moving forward to advanced topics and creating your own scripts. If you are serious about learning scripting Powershell, buy Jones and Hicks' books on Powershell. It's money well-spent!!!

This is a top book to begin learning PowerShell. It covers many important concepts in a quick overview type of fashion. In turn, you do not make easy "gotchas" and it helps you understand PowerShell's power. I do believe you should couple this with the Microsoft Virtual Academy training and other sources but this is a definite must-have in your arsenal of learning curriculum.

I have been trying to get more and more into PowerShell and this was the perfect book for the task. I started this book having written a couple small scripts and still learned quite a bit by the time I was finished. The examples are what really helped out. I've seen a few examples and read a couple of different PowerShell books but got confused towards the middle. This book makes sure that there are no shortened commands so by the time you've seen them enough you can utilize aliases on your own. I now keep this at work and allow my coworkers to read it and it has given us a lot of benefits.

I found the book to be very educational. The author goes thru many topics very logically and keeps things simple. I learned a lot about the nuances and intricacies of powershell. I think the only problem I have with this book is that many of the examples and exercises require Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012. This made a good portion of the book useless to me because where I work, we use Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008, and I don't see us upgrading any time in the foreseeable future. I would recommend the book with the caveat that in order to benefit fully from it, you need Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012. You'll still learn a lot about powershell if you don't have those, but there will be some limitations.

A great book if you are getting started in Powershell. For me the structured approach works well and I learned a lot over many lunches. It starts out very basic so if you've been working with powershell for a while you may want to find a different book. For the experienced people I think the first half of the book wouldn't do much for you. Having said that a couple of the programmers here have commented that they didn't know some of the basics that the book goes over in the beginning so it might be worth it for anyone to read.

To all PowerShell nobies, like me, it's a perfect book. Everything you need to start is covered by this book.

This is an excellent book for beginners. It starts of really easy and gets to the more complicated stuff as you go along. The author really pushes you to go through the help files to find what you're looking for. The chapters are quite short, so you don't really get bored half way through and you should be able to finish most of them within 30 minutes. Every few chapters there's a review test which covers all the chapters which you're gone through to test your knowledge. If you're struggling with a few of these questions, you should probably go back before moving onto the next chapter. If you're already using PowerShell this might not be the book for you as you'll probably skip through half straight away. I definitely recommend this book for all PowerShell beginners. NOTE: you should ideally have access to a virtual PC running either windows server 2012 or windows 8 to be able to complete all tasks & examples. If you do not have access to either of those, you can still work on windows 7 however you will need to install PowerShell 3 and unfortunately you will not be able to complete all tasks/examples. Some of the chapters require you to have 2 PCs and even a windows server 2012 domain controller; however you should again be able to accomplish this with virtual PCs. If you're unable to set up and environment with 2 virtual PCs you can always use localhost twice. The author has also done video lessons for the entire book which are available through CBT Nuggets for this book (link available at morelunches.com) . I found that it's sometimes easier to grasp the concepts when reading the book and the watching the video chapter (or vice versa) while this is not necessary, it might make it easier for you to get working with PowerShell

I use this book (and from the web-site the slides and lab exercises) for my introductory course for PowerShell. The good thing is the pre-prepared slides and lab exercises that are a good foundation for building your own training material.

Excellent book. Good introduction to PS and some basic PS scripting. Labs are well done with a focus on developing your own skillset in a lab. Requires a lab if you don't have a PS v3 OS which is explained in the book (I used virtualbox).