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.

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!!!

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.

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.

This is simply an excellent book to get you up to speed and confident with PowerShell, quickly. The layout and pace are perfect. I particularly liked how the authors show you how to use help within powershell right away, and then force you to use it moving forward. it really helps you understand what you're actually doing so you can figure out how to do something you don't understand later on (if that makes sense.. and if not, it will as you work your way through this book). for anyone interested in PowerShell (and if you're a sys admin working with windows servers, that should include you), pick this one up, even if you have no experience with PowerShell.

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.

Since I was new to PowerShell and without any programming experience, I had been searching for a book which taught using a building block approach. THIS is the book! Especially love the clear explanation to deciphering PowerShell's help files. Absolutely the clearest and most complete I had ever seen. Thank you Don and Jeffery for what I believe is one of the few computer texts that I use every day. Got anything on learning to type with more that two fingers?

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.