Advanced Scripting & Tool Making using Windows PowerShell

Declare PowerShell variables as object-based, temporary storage in memory, declared with the $ sign; manage global and script scope using New-Variable, Set-Variable, Get-Variable, Remove-Variable, and Clear-Variable.

Master data types in PowerShell, including integers, strings, and booleans, with automatic assignment and casting. Practice input validation and string handling, including here-strings, quotes, and the is operator.

Learn to read user input with Read-Host, cast to proper types, validate data using ValidateSet, ValidateLength and ValidateRange, and compare Write-Host with Write-Output in the PowerShell pipeline.

Explore PowerShell comparison operators, including equality, inequality, and range checks, using Intellisense to learn operators like -eq, -ne, -lt, -le, -like, -match, and -contains, with case sensitivity and substring concepts.

Master if else and switch in PowerShell to make runtime decisions from comparisons, using not, and, or operators, and nested blocks for readable code and data validation.

Explore PowerShell collections, including arrays, arraylists, and hashtables, and learn to create, access, and compare them for fixed-size versus dynamic storage and fast lookups.

Master iteration in PowerShell by using while, do-while, for, and foreach loops. Apply these loops to arrays, arraylist, and hashtable to access and print elements efficiently.

Learn how to write reusable PowerShell functions with the Verb-Noun naming convention, use $args and arrays, apply named parameters with a param block, and add defaults, validation, and method-like behavior.

Learn how to handle errors in PowerShell by distinguishing terminating and non-terminating errors, using try-catch-finally blocks and erroractionpreference with the error action parameter, for robust scripts.

Identify what a Windows process is and how to analyze it using Task Manager, by checking process names, IDs, CPU and memory usage, and ending high-consumption processes.

Discover how a Windows service runs in the background with no UI, managed via services.msc, and controlled efficiently with PowerShell across many computers.

Learn to use Get-Process to retrieve and filter process information in PowerShell, sort by process id, select the top results, and stop processes safely with Where-Object and Stop-Process.

Discover how Get-Service retrieves local and remote services and filters by name or status. Use Sort-Object, Where-Object, and Select-Object to list, filter, and manage with Start-Service and Stop-Service.

Discover how Windows Task Scheduler automatically runs predefined actions when triggers fire, enabling routine tasks on a computer by scheduling programs, emails, or messages.

Explore text file handling in Windows PowerShell by verifying existence with Test-Path, reading with Get-Content, searching with Select-String, and writing or appending with Out-File, including try-catch error handling.

Learn to handle csv files with PowerShell by importing csv data as objects, sorting by columns, and exporting to new csv files with no type information to avoid extra headers.

Explore XML basics and how to load and read XML data in PowerShell using XmlDocument, tag-based access, and loops. Compare XML with CSV and preview JSON handling.

Master PowerShell objects, their properties and methods, and how the pipeline formats and converts them. Use .NET classes, Get-Member, and custom PowerShell classes to work with objects rather than text.

Learn how to build pipelines that pass objects between cmdlets. Explore default views, properties, and the Out-Default behavior to create readable PowerShell outputs.

Explore working with objects and the pipeline in PowerShell by using Select-Object, Where-Object, Get-Member, Group-Object, Sort-Object, and ForEach-Object to filter, group, and process services and processes.

Explore how to format PowerShell outputs as lists or tables, switch to html reports with css, and convert objects to csv, json, or xml.

Explore PowerShell classes and methods, define a class with variables and methods, create objects with New-Object, and inspect them with Get-Member for state and behavior.

Save PowerShell objects to the file system by exporting them to XML, then re-import the XML to recreate the original objects for offline analysis and later use.

Use PowerShell to automate software installation by checking the registry for 32-bit and 64-bit installations, locating or downloading the installer, performing the install, and logging progress end-to-end.

Automate software installation with PowerShell by downloading installers from network locations or the internet, copy-item to a destination, and performing silent installs with logging and validation.

Learn how to send emails with PowerShell by configuring a Gmail SMTP server, creating a System.Net.Mail.MailMessage, and sending via SmtpClient to recipients with optional cc and attachments.

Automate daily PowerShell reports by generating an HTML file of top CPU processes and service statuses, then email to a configured recipient list and schedule the task.

Learn script signing in PowerShell: sign scripts with a certificate, enforce allsigned execution policy, verify with Set-AuthenticodeSignature, and trust a certificate (New-SelfsignedCertificate) to prevent tampering.

Explore using ISE snippets in PowerShell to reuse code blocks, access syntax help with Ctrl+J, save custom snippets, and manage them with Get-IseSnippet and the XML file.

Master web scraping with PowerShell to fetch pages, parse HTML, extract tables and links, and download images. Use Invoke-Webrequest and basic parsing tools to build a practical scrapper.

Demonstrates using invoke-expression to run strings as commands and fetch remote scripts with invoke-webrequest, while stressing security, execution policy, and script signing in PowerShell.

Explore database basics with PowerShell and perform CRUD operations on Oracle and SQL Server, connecting, querying, and managing tables through insert, select, update, delete, and commit.

Learn to connect PowerShell with a database by configuring a connection string, loading the Oracle client, and establishing a live connection to run queries.

Read from a database table with PowerShell by storing a query in a variable, executing it via a command on an Oracle database, and closing the connection.

Automate daily PowerShell driven reports by reading XML configuration, querying the database via Oracle client, exporting HTML with CSS, and emailing results with robust error handling.

Learn to manage Windows machines remotely using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) in PowerShell, leveraging CIM/WBEM standards and remote query capabilities for object collections.

Explore how to use WMI in PowerShell with Get-WMIObject to query remote or local machines using WQL, listing classes, namespaces, and services.

Learn to query WMI with Win32_LogicalDisk to list local disks and filter drive type 3, and test WQL queries with wbemtest and WMI Explorer for PowerShell automation.

Develop a PowerShell automation script to poll disk space across multiple servers, categorize results as good, warning, or bad, and email an HTML report via WMI.