My top recommendation is Windows PowerShell in Action by Bruce Payette. This book goes into great depth on the inner workings of PowerShell and why certain decisions were made during development. Bruce is a founding member of the Windows PowerShell team at Microsoft, and the principal author of the language implementation. It’s hard to find a more authoritative source than this.

Someone with no scripting or programming experience would have an easier time with Don Jones’ Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches. Don’s book is written like a textbook with each chapter building on the previous lessons. There are also excellent supplementary resources available including a classroom kit for trainers and video lessons.

The remaining books are listed by publication date, and how useful they are depends on the situation. Someone that likes to learn from examples might prefer the Windows PowerShell Cookbook, while a SharePoint or VMware administrator would find the books focusing on those specific topics immediately valuable.

Windows PowerShell in Action, Second Edition

Bruce Payette
Paperback: 1016 pages
Publisher: Manning Publications (May 18, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1935182137
ISBN-13: 978-1935182139
Amazon | Publisher

Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches

Don Jones
Paperback: 425 pages
Publisher: Manning Publications (May 14, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1617290211
ISBN-13: 978-1617290213
Amazon | Publisher | Bonus Materials

PowerShell and WMI

Richard Siddaway
Paperback: 450 pages
Publisher: Manning Publications (March 28, 2012)
ISBN-10: 1617290114
ISBN-13: 978-1617290114
Amazon | Publisher

Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and Windows PowerShell 2.0: Expert Cookbook

Yaroslav Pentsarskyy
Paperback: 310 pages
Publisher: Packt Publishing (November 11, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1849684103
ISBN-13: 978-1849684101
Amazon | Publisher

Windows Powershell Scripting And Toolmaking

Don Jones
Paperback: 122 pages
Publisher: lulu.com (October 14, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1105082830
ISBN-13: 978-1105082832
Amazon | Publisher

Windows PowerShell 2.0 Bible

Thomas Lee, Karl Mitschke, Mark E. Schill, Tome Tanasovski
Paperback: 696 pages
Publisher: Wiley (October 11, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1118021983
ISBN-13: 978-1118021989
Amazon | Publisher

Microsoft Exchange 2010 PowerShell Cookbook

Mike Pfeiffer
Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Packt Publishing (July 25, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1849682461
ISBN-13: 978-1849682466
Amazon | Publisher

PowerShell for SharePoint 2010 How-To

Steven Mann
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Sams (July 2, 2011)
ISBN-10: 067233559X
ISBN-13: 978-0672335594
Amazon | Publisher

Automating Active Directory Administration with Windows PowerShell 2.0

Ken St. Cyr, Laura E. Hunter
Paperback: 504 pages
Publisher: Sybex (June 28, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1118027310
ISBN-13: 978-1118027318
Amazon | Publisher

Automating SharePoint 2010 with Windows PowerShell 2.0

Gary Lapointe, Shannon Bray
Paperback: 768 pages
Publisher: Sybex (June 21, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0470939206
ISBN-13: 978-0470939208
Amazon | Publisher

Automating Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Windows PowerShell 2.0

Matthew Hester, Sarah Dutkiewicz
Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Sybex (May 31, 2011)
ISBN-10: 1118013867
ISBN-13: 978-1118013861
Amazon | Publisher

VMware vSphere PowerCLI Reference: Automating vSphere Administration

Luc Dekens, Alan Renouf, Glenn Sizemore, Arnim van Lieshout, Jonathan Medd
Paperback: 768 pages
Publisher: Sybex (April 12, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0470890797
ISBN-13: 978-0470890790
Amazon | Publisher

Managing Active Directory with Windows PowerShell: TFM, 2nd Edition

Jeffery Hicks
Paperback: 402 pages
Publisher: SAPIEN Technologies (April 1, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0982131445
ISBN-13: 978-0982131442
Amazon | Publisher

Windows PowerShell 2.0 Best Practices

Ed Wilson
Paperback: 752 pages
Publisher: Microsoft Press (December 14, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0735626464
ISBN-13: 978-0735626461
Amazon | Publisher

PowerShell for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Administrators

Niklas Goude, Mattias Karlsson
Paperback: 368 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media (October 7, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0071747974
ISBN-13: 978-0071747974
Amazon | Publisher

Windows PowerShell Cookbook, Second Edition

Lee Holmes
Paperback: 888 page
Publisher: O’Reilly Media (August 26, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0596801505
ISBN-13: 978-0596801502
Amazon | Publisher

PowerShell in Practice

Richard Siddaway
Paperback: 500 pages
Publisher: Manning Publications (June 28, 2010)
ISBN-10: 1935182005
ISBN-13: 978-1935182009
Amazon | Publisher

Windows PowerShell 2.0 TFM

Don Jones, Jeffery Hicks
Paperback: 714 pages
Publisher: SAPIEN Technologies (January 1, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0982131429
ISBN-13: 978-0982131428
Amazon | Publisher

Windows PowerShell 2 For Dummies

Steve Seguis
Paperback: 412 pages
Publisher: For Dummies (August 10, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0470371986
ISBN-13: 978-0470371985
Amazon | Publisher

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Administration with Windows PowerShell

Ananthakumar Muthusamy, Yan Pan
Paperback: 576 pages
Publisher: Wrox (June 9, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0470477288
ISBN-13: 978-0470477281
Amazon | Publisher

Windows PowerShell 2.0 Administrator’s Pocket Consultant

William R. Stanek
Paperback: 464 pages
Publisher: Microsoft Press (May 27, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0735625956
ISBN-13: 978-0735625952
Amazon | Publisher

Managing VMware Infrastructure with Windows PowerShell TFM

Hal Rottenberg
Paperback: 388 pages
Publisher: SAPIEN Technologies (March 31, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0982131402
ISBN-13: 978-0982131404
Amazon | Publisher

Microsoft Windows PowerShell 2.0 Programming for the Absolute Beginner, 2nd Edition

Jerry Lee Ford Jr.
Paperback: 423 pages
Publisher: Course Technology PTR (December 18, 2008)
ISBN-10: 1598638998
ISBN-13: 978-1598638998
Amazon | Publisher

Windows PowerShell Unleashed (2nd Edition)

Tyson Kopczynski, Pete Handley, Marco Shaw
Paperback: 528 pages
Publisher: Sams (December 14, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0672329883
ISBN-13: 978-0672329883
Amazon | Publisher

Introduction to PowerShell Remoting

Slide deck for Introduction to PowerShell Remoting

Layman’s Guide to PowerShell 2.0 Remoting
Ravikanth Chaganti

Administrator’s Guide to Windows PowerShell Remoting
Dr. Tobias Weltner
Aleksandar Nikolic
Richard Giles

Windows PowerShell in Action, Second Edition
Bruce Payette

I come from a different background than many heavy PowerShell users because I’ve spent the majority of my IT career on the client side of things. I’ve assisted end users in person and over the phone, I’ve performed several desktop deployments, and I’m working on virtual desktop infrastructure. Even though I’m not responsible for managing Active Directory or SQL Servers, PowerShell has become a daily tool for me, and I thought I would throw out some reasons why someone that rarely touches a server should make PowerShell a priority.

PowerShell is Faster at Certain Tasks

Remote desktop and similar technologies are extremely helpful for supporting distant users, but there are some simple tasks that can be accomplished must faster with a PowerShell command or script. Copying a new version of a configuration file, restarting a service, or unlocking an account can all be done much faster from the command line.

Invoke-Command -ComputerName Computer01 -ScriptBlock {Regsvr32.exe /s c:\Windows\SysWOW64\capicom.dll}

It would take minutes to make a remote desktop connection, authenticate and register a dll on a remote workstation. It takes seconds to use PowerShell remoting to perform that same task, and it doesn’t even disrupt the end user.

PowerShell Will Save Time

“I don’t have time to learn something else” is one of the most common excuses I hear for not learning PowerShell. While it does initially take more time to learn how to perform a task without pointing and clicking, the first time that task needs to be performed on multiple computers, that time investment will be repaid tenfold. Any time the same task needs to be performed on more than one computer, it’s a candidate for automation. I automate network printer installations by using the PrintBrm utility to export printerExport files, and import them on other computers.

Get-EventLog -ComputerName Computer01 -LogName Security -Newest 10

If you’ve ever used Event Viewer to look through the logs on a remote system, you know it can involve some waiting. Knowing how to collect information from workstations can save a massive amount of time, whether you’re checking for a certain event or generating a report of free disk space.

PowerShell Provides Automation Capabilities

Many organizations utilize some sort of enterprise solution for deploying software, making changes to client systems and other automated tasks. One of the problems I still run into today is that while we have all these tools, I don’t have access to utilize them. Something as simple as creating a desktop shortcut for your local users gets put on the backburner by enterprise staff. Since most local IT admins have administrative access to the workstations they’re responsible for, something like creating shortcuts is an easy task for PowerShell.

# CreateShortcut.ps1
$Shell = New-Object -ComObject WScript.Shell
$Shortcut = $Shell.CreateShortcut("$Env:Public\Desktop\hofferle.com.lnk")
$Shortcut.TargetPath = "http://www.hofferle.com"
$Shortcut.IconLocation = "shell32.dll,43"
$Shortcut.Save()

Invoke-Command -ComputerName Computer01,Computer02,Computer03 -FilePath C:\CreateShortcut.ps1

Many companies still brute force some IT tasks, where it’s easier to have desktop support touch desktops that develop an enterprise fix. PowerShell allows front-line support to develop automated fixes to save themselves time without relying on an enterprise solution.

PowerShell Makes it Easy to Share Resources

Not everyone needs to be a PowerShell expert because modules are an easy way to distribute more complex scripts written by advanced PowerShell users. In my vbscript days, it could be an ordeal to write out documentation on how to use a certain script or write in-line help for it. With comment based help and script modules in PowerShell v2, it’s incredibly easy to share automated fixes with others. I maintain a module for my organization that packages some complex tasks into easy-to-use functions with built-in help. This allows beginners just getting started to become immediately effective, but those beginners still need to understand the essentials. If you become proficient enough with PowerShell to build these tools for others, you get credit for saving everyone’s time in addition to your own.

PowerShell Will Help Your IT Career

This is probably the most important reason to develop PowerShell skills, and it’s a valid reason for everyone interested in career advancement. It’s a rare IT shop that doesn’t use Microsoft products, and Microsoft products are managed with PowerShell. With the consistency of PowerShell, it’s very easy to apply the basic concepts and patterns to anything. Learn PowerShell now, and when you get a position as a Directory Administrator or Exchange Admin, the PowerShell skills learned now will be immediately useful.

So the traditional batch file startup script was replaced with a PowerShell startup script, and this is how I now add domain groups to the local administrators group on computers.

([adsi]"WinNT://./Administrators,group").Add("WinNT://DOMAIN/My Extremely Long Group Name with Spaces,group")

Sarasota IT Pro Camp

I’ve covered this same method in the past with a vbscript, and a PowerShell GUI, but this function is designed to work more like a traditional PowerShell cmdlet. The problem of bypassing a smart card requirement also comes up often enough for me that I decided it warranted an update.

PS>Set-ScForceOption -ComputerName Computer01 -Status

ComputerName                                                Status
------------                                                ------
Computer01                                                  Enabled

PS>Set-ScForceOption -ComputerName Computer01 -Disable
PS>Set-ScForceOption -ComputerName Computer01 -Status

ComputerName                                                Status
------------                                                ------
Computer01                                                  Disabled

PS>

Set-ScForceOption.zip

Function Set-ScForceOption
{
    [CmdletBinding(
    SupportsShouldProcess=$true,
    ConfirmImpact="Medium",
    DefaultParameterSetname='Status'
    )]

    Param
    (
        [parameter(Mandatory=$true,
        Position=0,
        ValueFromPipeline=$true,
        ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName=$true)]
        [string[]]$ComputerName,

        [Parameter(
        ParameterSetName='Status')]
        [Switch]
        $Status,

        [Parameter(
        ParameterSetName='Enable')]
        [Switch]
        $Enable,

        [Parameter(
        ParameterSetName='Disable')]
        [Switch]
        $Disable
    )

    Process
    {
        ForEach ($Computer in $ComputerName)
        {
            If (-NOT (Test-Connection -ComputerName $Computer -Count 1 -Quiet) )
            {
                Write-Warning "Unable to connect to $Computer"
                Continue
            }

            Switch ($PsCmdlet.ParameterSetName)
            {
                'Status'
                {
                    If ( $PSCmdlet.ShouldProcess($Computer, "Get status of ScForceOption") )
                    {
                        $reg = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey('LocalMachine', $Computer)
                        $regKey = $reg.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\policies\\system")
                        If ($regKey.GetValue("scforceoption") -eq 1)
                          {
                            Write-Output (New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property @{
                                                                         ComputerName=$Computer
                                                                         Status='Enabled'})
                          }
                        Else
                          {
                            Write-Output (New-Object -TypeName PSObject -Property @{
                                                                         ComputerName=$Computer
                                                                         Status='Disabled'})
                          }
                    }
                }

                'Enable'
                {
                    If ( $PSCmdlet.ShouldProcess($Computer, "Enable ScForceOption") )
                    {
                        $reg = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey('LocalMachine', $Computer)
                        $regKey = $reg.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\policies\\system", $true)
                        $regKey.SetValue("scforceoption", 1)
                    }
                }

                'Disable'
                {
                    If ( $PSCmdlet.ShouldProcess($Computer, "Disable ScForceOption") )
                    {
                        $reg = [Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey]::OpenRemoteBaseKey('LocalMachine', $Computer)
                        $regKey = $reg.OpenSubKey("SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\policies\\system", $true)
                        $regKey.SetValue("scforceoption", 0)
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

First, PowerShell Remoting needs to be enabled on the Connection Server. There are several ways to configure remoting, but in a domain environment I like to turn it on with group policy. Enabling the automatic configuration of listeners is usually all the configuration necessary to enable remoting on a domain server, but lots of information is available for different situations. The about_remote_troubleshooting help file is handy, and there are books specific to remoting on my list of free PowerShell ebooks.

$session = New-PSSession -ComputerName "NameOfConnectionServer"

With remoting enabled, a session is opened to the connection server from a workstation. A session is a persistent connection that can be referenced when using subsequent remoting commands.

Invoke-Command -Session $session -ScriptBlock {Add-PSSnapin VMware*}

The VMware cmdlets aren’t loaded by default, so Invoke-Command is used to tell the PowerShell session on the remote server to load the VMware snapin.

Import-PSSession -Session $session -Prefix VDI -Module VMware*

The cmdlets are loaded in the server’s PowerShell session, but they must be imported in order to run them on the local workstation. The module parameter specifies to only import cmdlets from the VMware module, and the prefix parameter will prefix the noun in each cmdlet with “VDI” to avoid possible conflicts with local cmdlets. A cmdlet named Get-DesktopVM will become Get-VDIDesktopVM.

With the View cmdlets imported from the remote session, those commands can now be executed as if they were installed locally. PowerShell is doing all the work behind the scenes to implicitly run the commands on the remote server and return the results to the local workstation.

Remove-PSSession $session

The session to the connection server must remain open for the View cmdlets to be available. When finished working, removing the session closes it out and will unload the commands.

Introduction to PowerShell Remoting

Slide deck for Introduction to PowerShell Remoting

Layman’s Guide to PowerShell 2.0 Remoting
Ravikanth Chaganti

Administrator’s Guide to Windows PowerShell Remoting
Dr. Tobias Weltner
Aleksandar Nikolic
Richard Giles

Windows PowerShell in Action, Second Edition
Bruce Payette

Version Control for IT Professionals

Slide deck for Version Control for IT Professionals

Hg Init: A Mercurial Tutorial
Mercurial is a modern, open source, distributed version control system, and a compelling upgrade from older systems like Subversion. In this user-friendly, six-part tutorial, Joel Spolsky teaches you the key concepts.

TortoiseHg
TortoiseHg is a Windows shell extension and a series of applications for the Mercurial distributed revision control system.

Mercurial
Mercurial is a free, distributed source control management tool. It efficiently handles projects of any size and offers an easy and intuitive interface.

Kiln
Kiln is commercial Mercurial version control and code review softare from Fog Creek Software.

If I see a neat custom prompt like a Domain Controller PowerShell Prompt or a Christmas Prompt, I just add an additional switch block to Set-Prompt.

Set-Prompt.zip

Function Set-Prompt
{
    Param
    (
        [Parameter(Position=0)]
        [ValidateSet("Default","Basic","DC","Xmas")]
        $Action
    )

    switch ($Action)
    {
        "Basic"
        {
            Function global:prompt
            {
                $Null
            }
        }

        "DC"
        {
            function global:prompt {

            #check and see if logon server is the same as the computername
            if ( $env:logonserver -ne "\\$env:computername" ) {
            #strip off the \\
            $label = ($env:logonserver).Substring(2)
            $color = "Green"
            }
            else {
            $label = "Not Connected"
            $color = "gray"
            }

            Write-Host ("[$label]") -ForegroundColor $color -NoNewline
            Write (" PS " + (Get-Location) + "> ")
            }
        }

        "Xmas"
        {
            Function global:Prompt {
            $time=([datetime]'12/25/2012'-(get-date)).ToString().Substring(0,11)
            $text="[**Christmas in $($time)**]"
            $text.tocharArray() |foreach {
            if ((Get-Random -min 1 -max 10) -gt 5) {
             $color="RED"
             }
            else {
             $color="GREEN"
            }
            write-host $_ -nonewline -foregroundcolor $color
            }
            Write (" PS " + (Get-Location) + "> ")
            } #end function
        }

        default
        {
            Function global:prompt
            {
                  $(if (test-path variable:/PSDebugContext) { '[DBG]: ' }
                  else { '' }) + 'PS ' + $(Get-Location) `
                  + $(if ($nestedpromptlevel -ge 1) { '>>' }) + '> '
            }
        }
    }
}