Windows PowerShell Fundamentals

Windows PowerShell Fundamentals Steven Murawski Senior Windows Systems Engineer Microsoft MVP This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

Who I am Name Steven Murawski Occupation Senior Windows System Engineer Blog UsePowerShell.com Twitter - @StevenMurawski Microsoft MVP - PowerShell

Agenda What is PowerShell? Terminology The Big 4 Working from the Shell Workstations and Servers Active Directory Exchange Q & A (time permitting)

Command Line What is PowerShell?

What is PowerShell? Scripting Language

What is PowerShell? Most importantly though it is an Automation Tool. PowerShell offers a unifying management surface in which to manage your Windows (and other) environment.

Agenda What is PowerShell? Terminology The Big 4 Working from the Shell Workstations and Servers Active Directory Exchange PowerShell V3 Sneak Peak Q & A (time permitting)

Terminology Cmdlet Functions Objects Pipeline

Terminology Cmdlets The basic unit of work in PowerShell. These are PowerShell s native commands. They are called cmdlets (small commands) because they embrace the Unix philosophy of small tools which can be used compose new solutions

Terminology Functions Functions are a series of PowerShell statements (or commands) that are given a name and saved in memory for a particular session. There are several types of functions: V1 style function Filter Advanced function

Terminology Objects PowerShell is an object-based shell. Objects are a binding of data and actions. What this really means is that when you execute a command, you can more easily ask questions of the result. Being object based also gives PowerShell the ability to provide generalized format, display, and export capabilities.

Terminology Pipeline The pipeline is a central concept in PowerShell which allows you to take the output from one command and make it the input for the next command. It has long been the case that shell commands can take input from other commands (or files, or other sources). The pipeline in PowerShell can leverage the object based and utilize some components of the runtime to make transitions between commands more effective.

The Big Four Navigational And Discovery Commands Get-Command Get-Help Get-Member Get-PSDrive

The Big Four Get-Command Get-Command will list any valid command (executables, functions, cmdlets, aliases). It can also provide some additional metadata about PowerShell commands and scripts.

The Big Four Get-Help This is the man equivalent for PowerShell. Get-Help offers several levels of help Basic Detailed Full Examples Individual Parameters

The Big Four Get-Member Since PowerShell is an object-based shell, Get- Member allows you to examine the objects output from different commands. This is probably the most important discovery command.

The Big Four Get-PSDrive PowerShell offers the capability to expose various information sources (providers) like a file system. Get-PSDrive lists the mapped providers and where or how they are mounted.

Working From the Shell Navigating Providers Providers offer a way to navigate different data sources via the same commands. Providers File System Registry Others

Working From the Shell Navigating the File System Items and Containers Item Properties

Working From the Shell Digging in the Registry PowerShell provides access to the registry via a provider. This allows the registry to be navigated like the file system. Keys and subkeys are represented as items (like files and directories. Registry values and data are represented as properties of the items.

Working From the Shell Other Providers Built in Alias Certificate File System Function Registry Variable WSMan Others SQL Server Active Directory

Working From the Shell Dealing with Objects Formatting Output Filtering Output Using the Pipeline

Working From the Shell Formatting Output Format-Table Format-List Format-Custom ConvertTo-XML ConvertTo-HTML ConvertTo-CSV Export-CliXML Export-CSV

Working From the Shell Filtering output Native Filtering in Commands Usually preferred, but can vary based on the command and data type. If the target of the command is remote, filtering could be done at the source. Where-Object Uses a scriptblock (PowerShell statements surrounded by braces) Works on any object in the PowerShell Pipeline Works locally in the current PowerShell session

Working From the Shell Using the Pipeline PowerShell pipes objects. Cmdlets, scripts, and functions can take full objects as arguments. Properties of objects can be automatically mapped to parameters of cmdlets, scripts, or functions. Scriptblocks can be used to transform input.

Working with Workstations and Working with WMI Servers Get-WMIObject is the key command when working with WMI. Get-WMIObject List What s stored in WMI? Just about everything! Hardware information System Configuration Application Data And more..

Working with Workstations and Servers Editing the Registry Via the Provider Can use it locally Can use it remotely if PowerShell Remoting is enabled. Using.NET More familiar to.net developers. Using WMI More familiar to those with VBScript experience

Working with Workstations and Servers Working with Text Select-String Operators Match Replace Split Regular Expressions

Working with Workstations and Servers Working with Remote Machines WMI Available on most machines. Requires a knowledge of WMI (which is not very consistent) PowerShell Remoting Requires Windows XP SP3/Server 2003 SP2 or higher and WinRM

Working with Active Directory ADSI Available on any machine Obscure Quest s AD Cmdlets Task based Excellent Coverage Server 2003 Domains or above 3 rd Party Microsoft s AD Module Only available on Windows 7 or Server 2008 R2 Server 2003 Domains or above. If DC s are not 2008 R2, AD Web Services are required.

Working with Active Directory Common Tasks Resetting Passwords Finding Disabled Users Finding Expired Computer Accounts

Working with Exchange Common Tasks Monitor Message Queues (Exchange 2003) Monitor Message Queues (Exchange 2007/2010) Identify all ActiveSync Devices Connected (Exchange 2010)

V3 Sneak Peak PowerShell V3 Windows 8 Workflows Resilient Sessions Disconnected Sessions Autoloading of Modules And more

Q and A I m sure no one has any questions, so we can just hang out.. But on the off chance that some has any questions, where can we get some answers? PowerShell.Org ServerFault.com UsePowerShell.Com