Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches

I HAVE PURCHASED THREE OF THE " MONTH OF LUNCHES" series. Theses references books will always be EXACTLY THAT - GO TO REFERENCE - so I will end up reading these books many times over. Not only I read them I also go on the computer and repeat all the steps as best as possible.Cheers ..................

This is the fourth powershell book I have purchased and turns out it was the only one I really needed. Not that the others are bad, it is just this one is crystal clear and matches both my learning style and skillset quite nicely (I am more of an admin than a scripter).The positives are the way each chapter builds on the prior (read in order) and the concept of a lesson each day works quite well. The labs also promote a learning style that makes you think about what to do and even give you tools to find out how to do them on your own. This is a big improvement over many of the other books I have where it is simple, repetitive usage of commands rather than in depth exploration. A huge plus for me was the copy of the book I got in PDF format as well as for my Kindle by purchasing the paper version. I can use it regardless of where I am working and don't have to drag my iPad or the actual book along with me.The cons - you are expected to have a Windows 2008 Domain Controller to complete some of the labs. This is where the book misses getting all 5 stars from me. I have no DCs that are not in production and it is simply insane to think I would try out commands in a book on a production DC. The book suggests bringing up a VM - but I need another VM like I need a new hole in my head not to mention that my company policy prevents me from doing this. There would have been no issues sticking to commands for Win 7 based systems.

It is a good book for learning like I wanted to. The issue is that there is no website(404 error) to see what the answers are nor is there a forum where Don Jones answers question like it is stated in the book. So when you get stuck somewhere in the book, like I am, you are on your own which defeats much of what is stated in the opening chapter. So if you can find another book, I would suggest that one instead as I am looking for another one now.EditedI posted on there asking about the book and one of the MVPs there contacted Don Jones and they are in the middle of updating the site so that is why it is down now. I'll give 5 stars when the site is up. Again it is a very good book to learn powershell if you are just getting into it. There are other resources on the web to find the answers that you need.EDITEDThe site is up and has all the content as promised. One thing I will say is that he drills the help files into your head until you are sick of it but he is 100% correct. Now that I can understand what the help file says instead of the usual MS cryptic speak, it is so much easier. All the examples and labs work together to the point were i feel confident in just writing a script and troubleshooting it myself instead of googleing(don't know if that is a word yet) for an hour.This is a beginners book but it gets you the foundation to go were you need to go with Powershell.

I have taught hundreds of people how to use PowerShell over the last several years and wish I would have had this book to do it. Overall, I recommend four main books for learning PowerShell as a system administrator and this one is the first on my list. For many, it might be the only book they want or need. As always Don Jones shows that he does not just know the topic but knows from experience how to teach it for those new to PowerShell. He does not assume any previous scripting background and uses a nice logical progression to teach PowerShell without adding topics that you simply do not need to know at the moment which can cause confusion and overly complicate learning. This makes for a less overwhelming learning experience and ultimately, I believe, to better retention of the content. Many chapters includes a "common points of confusion" section where Don's experience teaching this content really shows as he always has great explanations for where people often get tripped up with the topic. At around 300 pages there is no fluff here, but just a solid book with short focused chapters to learn the fundamentals of PowerShell.Lastly, do not forget to download the free lab manual which also includes an 11 page reminder of syntax along with the labs which is a great quick reference when you are learning or just need a quick refresher.

This will get you going with powershell if you are pretty new to the language. I used this in a crisis when I found I had to automate some pretty complicated Windows stuff and realized powershell was the way to go - but I didn't know anything about it (what the heck is a cmdlet and what is this pipeline concept?) I have done lots of shell scripting, but powershell is so much more than basic "shell scripting". I would consider this a warm up book, and I did all exercises in 15 days and had a decent handle on how it works. From there to do advanced tasks and write advanced programs (or even your own cmdlets) you are going to need to dive much much deeper... thankfully there are tons of powershell communities online for those really advanced questions. But this a highly recommended book for getting up to speed on what powershell is, what it can do (a TON) and the particulars of the language. I would recommend this to anyone looking to learn about powershell and jump right into basic tasks.

Very well done.This book is my first real foray into Powershell. The author guides you through different topics just as if you were sitting in a class. The labs at the end of each chapter are very helpful. Nonetheless, for me at least, Powershell has quite a learning curve. Something tells me I will be referencing this book quite a bit in the future as I try to understand or recall certain concepts.Don Jones also has one of these books out for Powershell 3, but version 3 was not out yet at the time I bought this version 2 book.

I took a MCSA course at my local community college and felt I needed some additional information on powershell. The first few chapters were very helpful.

I've always been known as a bit of a scripter in work, but it's mainly been the odd for loop from the command line and learning all the command line inputs for lots of different products etc. (csvde, ldife, psexec, putty, adsi etc.) With these skills it's been a bit like the adage about sausages and laws. (You don't want to know how they're made, just enjoy the end results.) A lot of what I've done has been from the culmination of running say a few batch files one after the other but getting there in the end. I guess what I'm trying to say is I was a frustrated scripter.I've counted up all the books I've bought whereby I've 'tried' to teach myself scripting methods, vbscript, perl, wmi, etc however I kind of glazed over, gave up the ghost or just went back to doing it the 'old faithful' way as I didn't have time to keep working through the learning curve. Like most of us, I'm busy enough in work keeping all the plates spinning that the last thing I needed to do was put up another plate!Anyway, I've also 'played' with powershell quite a bit, starting back when it first came out and the snapins for VMWare came back in version 1.0. I got so much out of reporting on the Virtual Center etc that I'm told they still use a lot of the scripts I originally wrote. (And like most other people out there I guess, a lot of what I wrote came from stuff I'd found online that was excellent and freely available.) It got to the stage where I was just holding myself back with powershell so I looked around and actually bought a few other books but they joined the pile of other books gathering dust (I've counted them and I've spent over £150 on them since 2003!), I saw the good reviews on here, googled the author started following him on twitter and eventually bought the book.Boy do I wish I'd bought it as soon as it came out. Instantly I was eager to get to the next chapter and learn more, he gets you to do things sometimes in a roundabout way that helps you understand why and what's even better is there are videos freely available from the <...> website that really nail the chapters.In the end I of course encountered some difficulties (the problem has always been between the keyboard and the chair! ;o) and I remembered reading that the author was available on the forums so I posted my question and it was answered almost immediately. It was like actually being in a classroom. What's more, it's eminently he's got the skills to back up his teaching which is something I usually find find lacking in 'trainers' that merely present powerpoint slides. He knew almost to a keystroke what I had done wrong and put me back on the right path. I've since gone on to nearly finishing the book (I'm on Chapter 21), I was going to wait until I had but not reviewing how good this is isn't fair on anyone else that's thinking about developing or learning powershell skills. Plus, it's like Don Jones says, you can either learn Powershell or learn to ask 'Would you like fries with that?' :o)A few top tips I've learnt is take your time and study the errors when they occur (and they will), don't be embarrassed at mistakes, we all make them and there's a whole community of people out there who are just as passionate about this tool who are more than willing to help out. In the end, it doesn't matter how it's done, it matters that it gets done. It'll start looking 'nicer' the more that you do and I intend on doing it a lot from now on. If you do it more than once, script it!Seriously, the concepts and methods this book teaches you in just a few weeks will have your knowledge up to intermediate if not advance.Finally, as has been mentioned on here, you get access to the ebook with this book as well. Details are in the book. This is certainly a book for reading from cover to cover, not one for jumping in perusing an individual chapter, although you could do that if you needed to. One of the best things I like is that there is a 'new' version of this book coming out to support powershell 3 (It's coming with Windows 8 and Server 2012, but to be honest that's not going to be in 'production' environments for quite some time so I recommend this book if your a busy admin like me.) I caught a tweet from author about this new book and asked him what he suggested I do. Instead of trying to cream me to buy this 'new improved' book he told me to wait until his advanced book about "PowerShell Scripting and Toolmaking in a Month of Lunches" comes out as that would be a natural progression for me. Where do you get that kind of counsel these days?As if you couldn't tell, I'm sold, both on the authors method of delivery but also on the book range.

I wrote my first Powershell (powercli) script to interrogate vSphere last year but it was a very hit and miss affair, copying snippets of code from other people until I got something which did near enough what I needed. With my firm moving towards the latest MS technologies (Exchange 2011, SCCM, etc) I decided it was now time to learn PS properly and so bought this book.So what can I say? Well I've read literally scores of technical books, everything from "Understanding IP6" to "The Suse Linux bible", but this text is by far and away the most enjoyable read out of the lot of them. It's not a tombstone of a book so immediately you feel that for once you might actually finish it, and that it wont be relegated to "reference manual" status.The composition of the book is also excellent, with each chapter including practice examples designed to take about an hour each. The author is concise in his writing style but is still humorous, keeping the read enjoyable and relevant.I've never before picked up a technical book and had trouble putting it down, but this book has changed all that. If you need or want to learn PowerShell and finally understand exactly what those scripts do in full, then this is the book for you!

I purchase a lot of books that cover areas of IT that I am interested in.This one stands heads and shoulders above the others, purely down to the authors ability to explain complex topics in an easy to remember style. I love the month of lunches idea, and it works a charm.I am so much better off for reading this book, and have now automated tasks and navigated my way through complex challenges strictly down to what I have learnt from this book.A really great job, and I hope to see more from this author in the future.

I used this book as a base to form a course I was running on beginners PowerShell. It covers the basics and would provide a decent start for anyone wanting to learn PowerShell 2. So if you have no knowledge of PS and want to learn it, get it. PS is currently going to Version 4 but this will give you a good start and P4 is mainly MS 2012 so if you have 2008R2 or below start here.

Scripting is an essential part of my job and each day it becomes more crucial, but I can't program, and I have no formal training in scripting. So my VBscript was not much better than a complicated batch file.Powershell is the latest tool for scripting and by far the best. I needed to learn how to use it quickly and without complicated programing concepts or non-enterprise applications. Of that which I learned in each chapter, I used straight-away and I hope that I am now on the path to more complicated scripts. This is the book for you if you are like me and need a solid foundation for your powershell scripting needs. This book helped me tremendously!