Microsoft Windows PowerShell Step By Step

Product Description

Learn Microsoft Windows PowerShell --one step at a time--with practical, hands-on instruction from Microsoft's leading scripting trainer, Ed Wilson. Work at your own pace and build practical system administration skills as you learn how to use Windows PowerShell to administer Microsoft Windows®, Microsoft Exchange, and other Microsoft technologies. You will learn how to write your first Windows PowerShell commands and scripts to automate setup, deployment, and administration. This guide features self-paced learning labs and a companion CD that features a complete eBook, plus dozens of adaptable sample scripts you can use on the job.
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #38904 in Books
* Published on: 2007-05-16
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 320 pages

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher
Key Book Benefits:

-Book based on Microsoft Enterprise Services' Windows PowerShell course for Microsoft customers and partners

-Hands-on, self-paced learning in a proven step-by-step format

-Sample scripts and eBook on the companion CD

About the Author
Ed Wilson is a senior consultant at Microsoft Corporation and a scripting expert. He is a Microsoft Certified Trainer who delivers an immensely popular VBScript workshop to Microsoft employees and customers worldwide, along with numerous networking and administration classes. He's written several books on Windows scripting, including Microsoft Windows Scripting with WMI: Self-Paced Learning Guide and Microsoft Windows Scripting Self-Paced Learning Guide. Ed holds more than 20 industry certifications, including MCSE and CISSP.
Customer Reviews

A Port-o-John for Learning Powershell1
While there are some people that can learn from anything, I am sure some folks can learn Powershell from this book. That being said, I call this book the Port-o-John of learning powershell as you can ultimately achieve your goal of learning, but its not always the most pleasant experience while you are learning.

This book has a decent structure of chapters, but it falls apart from there. Ed is a more than talented scripter and wonderful member of the scripting community, yet I am dissappointed with this book.

Once you really dig into this book, you will find its all over the place. The formatting and general editing are terrible and there are many typos. Concepts get introduced with no introduction, and then are neven explained. This book hardly teaches any Powershell fundamentals. It does, but then it really doesnt hardly explain any "whys" which is as bad as not teaching them at all.

I just feel that there are way better ways to learn Powershell. The appendicies are decent reference material, and the book does at least come with a soft copy version. Beyond that though there are better books and this is definately not a best bet.

Great Intro3
I have found "Windows PowerShell" by Ed Wilson / Microsoft Press to be a
great intro into PowerShell. Yes you could go through all the help files that come with PS, but this book makes it very easy and provides a smooth intro into working with Powershell. If you want an absolute noob book get it - period. The author is well versed in WSH and you can use the accompanying CD filled with scripts to practice the examples in the chapters, as well as make your own for testing & production. It's very light on .Net because that is not his expertise, which is fine if you want to go from WSH to Powershell or learn how to use both within a script. It also incluse a handy appendex that shows the WSH command, and the PS command and how to utilize it. Yes there's some typo's and it's rare these days to find any book that doesn't have incorrect code examples at least somewhere. -2 stars for that and I would have like to seen more depth in some areas. Get Bruce Payette's book for Level 2.

Too basic, then too advanced1
This book misses on many points. It is a good introduction, but that could have been covered in one chapter. It does not cover something as basic as creating functions (and the issue of variable scope). It also does not go into using the framework within powershell, one of the greatest powers of powershell, or extending powershell with your own addins. After a while some of the excises get repetative. There are chapters on Active Directory & Exchange, which requires special programs to go through, and most people will not even have access to them, or know the first thing about installing them so then can go through the book. Certainly a chapter on ADO would be great, but it is all depends on Active Directory; should have used northwind. There is some good information on Errors, but it is buried in Active Directory, which most people will never even look at since it is something that they would not have any reason to investigate. Definately go with another book such as "Windows Powershell Cookbook."