Administration and Automation with Windows PowerShell

Discover how to choose between 64-bit PowerShell and 32-bit options, compare desktop and core editions, manage admin rights, and view version information using the version table.

Learn to master PowerShell command line fundamentals by customizing the console—font size, layout, color, and opacity—and log sessions with start and stop transcript.

Master the PowerShell cmdlet structure by applying verb-noun naming, using dash parameters, and distinguishing positional versus named parameters, switches, and comma-separated value lists.

Discover how to efficiently locate PowerShell commands using help, Get-Command, and wildcards, filter by modules such as Active Directory, and explore aliases and Show-Command for interactive search.

Learn how to extend PowerShell with modules, discover and install them from the PowerShell Gallery or trusted repositories, load them automatically, and manage via get-module, install-module, update-module, and uninstall-module.

Explore Paracel networking commands in Windows PowerShell, including GetNet IP address, GetNet adapter statistics, DNS client and server settings, and connectivity tests like Test-NetConnection.

Explore the power shell pipeline as an assembly line that passes results between small, single-task commands using the pipe, a concept that exists in any shell.

Format the pipeline output with format list, format table, format wide, or custom to present a list or table, noting these commands alter objects and should be last in pipeline.

Explore how PowerShell passes data through the pipeline by value and by property name, using examples like test-netconnection and get-content to process strings and file lists.

Learn how parentheses change the order of operations in the PowerShell pipeline for one-liners, enabling first-executed subexpressions and extracting single properties like the IP address.

Learn to sort objects in PowerShell using Sort-Object with ascending and descending orders. Apply unique filters and multi criteria sorts, including primary and secondary keys and hash table orders.

Explore the filesystem provider in PowerShell, navigate directories with set-location and get-content aliases, and map network drives using the new drive command with persist and explorer considerations.

Explore how the Web Services Management Protocol powers PowerShell remoting by using the WSMan provider and drive to configure trusted hosts, envelope size, and idle timeout.

Explore how WMI and CIM share architecture by tracing the broker, management objects, and providers that query remote systems, governed by a namespace repository such as the root crm v2.

Explore how to work with variables, access properties and methods, and use get-member, tab completion, and property syntax within the PowerShell pipeline to retrieve and filter data.

Master string manipulation in PowerShell using methods such as insert, remove, replace, split, substring, and trim, with case handling and non-destructive operations.

Explore how PowerShell distinguishes scalar and array variables, creates and manipulates arrays, accesses items by index, range, and count, and uses plus equals and casting for multi-valued data.

Explore how hash tables act as associative arrays with unique keys and PowerShell usage for set, add, remove, and calculated properties.

Learn best practices for formatting PowerShell scripts, including consistent capitalization, full command and parameter names, and clear indentation, plus the use of comments to boost readability and troubleshooting.

Learn to use a real editor to write PowerShell scripts, boosting efficiency for larger projects. Compare built-in ISE with Visual Studio Code, noting line numbers, linting, and GitHub integration.

Explore if statements, else and else if, and switch constructs, evaluating conditions to execute script blocks; learn to test connections, display online or offline messages with color.

Master the for loop in PowerShell by setting the start, end, and increment, and use it to enumerate IP ranges, such as 172.16.0.0 to 172.16.0.254.

Master break and continue to control loops in PowerShell, exiting loops early or skipping iterations in switch and for/foreach. See practical examples across providers and ranges.

Discover one-to-one remoting in PowerShell using enter session to run commands on a remote system, authenticated via Kerberos, with aliases and remote tabs for multiple hosts.

Execute one-to-many remoting with invoke-command to run scripts or script blocks on many systems in parallel, retrieving serialized results for sorting and grouping by computer name.

Learn to pass locally defined variables to remote systems with invoke-command using the argument-list approach, bridging local scope to remote scope with parameter blocks, and compare with the newer shortcut.