Ebook: Tiny PowerShell Projects (MEAP v6)

PowerShell can automate almost any IT task. This book guides you through 17 practical PowerShell projects that will build your skills and save you hours—or even days—of work.

In Tiny PowerShell Projects you will learn how to:

Automate and optimize your systems using PowerShell
Use scripts to instantly create users and emails, unlock accounts, and repair mailboxes
Build custom reports
Create popup alerting tools and asynchronous messages to users
Remotely access, query, and control PCs
Debug PowerShell scripts using VS Code
Master programming foundations like conditional logic, loops and functions
Use PowerShell in non-Windows environments

Tiny PowerShell Projects guides you through 17 practical projects designed to help you master the fundamentals of system administration with PowerShell. You’ll create handy scripts and build reusable tools that are easy to write and easy to put into action—even if you have no programming experience! You’ll create scripts you can use straight out of the box, and you’ll also learn how to adapt your code to add new features. By the time you finish, you’ll be confident using PowerShell to solve your own unique problems.

about the technology
PowerShell is a powerful scripting language for Windows, Mac and Linux. It’s perfect for automating any system administration task. With PowerShell, you can perform tedious multi-step tasks right from the command line and save your work as scripts you’ll be able to use over and over. And because it’s a full-featured programming language, you can build tools that you can share with other users.

PowerShell is a task automation and configuration tool built into all Microsoft Operating Systems since Windows 7. PowerShell was such a useful tool that versions of PowerShell for XP and Windows Server 2003 were released as add-ons to the operating systems in 2009. But PowerShell is more than this. Unlike earlier Microsoft task automation and configuration tools PowerShell is a fully defined language utilizing the powerful .Net framework Object Orientated Programming (OOP). With its pre-defined cmdlets native to Microsoft systems, servers and domains an admin doesn’t need to have any previous programming experience to make it useful right away; and as your programming experience grows so too does the flexibility and power of the language. A cmdlet (pronounced command-let) is a lightweight command written into the PowerShell language that can be used to perform specific functions.

about the book
Tiny PowerShell Projects is a hands-on tutorial for system administration with PowerShell. You’ll immediately recognize the tasks in the 17 projects, and you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to automate them with PowerShell! This easy-to-read book starts with scripting basics, showing you how to create loops, assign variables, and write conditionals. Then, it breaks down common admin tasks into simple, bite-size projects that build your skillset and give you tools you can use in your day job. You’ll write seventeen amazing scripts that can create thousands of users in minutes, install software across the domain at a designated date and time, repair and restore a broken email account with a single click, and more. You’ll even learn how to generate reports at a touch of a button!