Microsoft Windows PowerShell(TM) Step By Step (Step By Step (Microsoft))
| 2007-05-16 00:00:00 | | 0 | Windows
Learn Microsoft Windows PowerShell --one step at a time--with practical, hands-on instruction from Microsoft's leading scripting trainer, Ed Wilson. Work at your own pace and build practical system administration skills as you learn how to use Windows PowerShell to administer Microsoft Windows®, Microsoft Exchange, and other Microsoft technologies. You will learn how to write your first Windows PowerShell commands and scripts to automate setup, deployment, and administration. This guide features self-paced learning labs and a companion CD that features a complete eBook, plus dozens of adaptable sample scripts you can use on the job.
User review
A Port-o-John for Learning Powershell
While there are some people that can learn from anything, I am sure some folks can learn Powershell from this book. That being said, I call this book the Port-o-John of learning powershell as you can ultimately achieve your goal of learning, but its not always the most pleasant experience while you are learning.
This book has a decent structure of chapters, but it falls apart from there. Ed is a more than talented scripter and wonderful member of the scripting community, yet I am dissappointed with this book.
Once you really dig into this book, you will find its all over the place. The formatting and general editing are terrible and there are many typos. Concepts get introduced with no introduction, and then are neven explained. This book hardly teaches any Powershell fundamentals. It does, but then it really doesnt hardly explain any `whys` which is as bad as not teaching them at all.
I just feel that there are way better ways to learn Powershell. The appendicies are decent reference material, and the book does at least come with a soft copy version. Beyond that though there are better books and this is definately not a best bet.
User review
Great Intro
I have found `Windows PowerShell` by Ed Wilson / Microsoft Press to be a
great intro into PowerShell. Yes you could go through all the help files that come with PS, but this book makes it very easy and provides a smooth intro into working with Powershell. If you want an absolute noob book get it - period. The author is well versed in WSH and you can use the accompanying CD filled with scripts to practice the examples in the chapters, as well as make your own for testing & production. It's very light on .Net because that is not his expertise, which is fine if you want to go from WSH to Powershell or learn how to use both within a script. It also incluse a handy appendex that shows the WSH command, and the PS command and how to utilize it. Yes there's some typo's and it's rare these days to find any book that doesn't have incorrect code examples at least somewhere. -2 stars for that and I would have like to seen more depth in some areas. Get Bruce Payette's book for Level 2.
User review
Too basic, then too advanced
This book misses on many points. It is a good introduction, but that could have been covered in one chapter. It does not cover something as basic as creating functions (and the issue of variable scope). It also does not go into using the framework within powershell, one of the greatest powers of powershell, or extending powershell with your own addins. After a while some of the excises get repetative. There are chapters on Active Directory & Exchange, which requires special programs to go through, and most people will not even have access to them, or know the first thing about installing them so then can go through the book. Certainly a chapter on ADO would be great, but it is all depends on Active Directory; should have used northwind. There is some good information on Errors, but it is buried in Active Directory, which most people will never even look at since it is something that they would not have any reason to investigate. Definately go with another book such as `Windows Powershell Cookbook.`
User review
a mile wide and an inch deep
The book is less than 300 pages. You can't learn Powershell in under 300 pages so expect to buy another book. The author covers a number of examples but doesn't go into real depth which is why I titled this review what I did. There are chapters on ADO, WMI, Exchange, and Active Directory. It's nice to know I can use Powershell to script against those technologies but am I really going to learn Powershell by spending so little time on each? I think this author and all other Powershell authors would be better off writing an entire book on each of those rather than a chapter. Until I get familiar with the syntax of Powershell I think the best approach is to find a book on Powershell for managing servers or Powershell for managing Exchange. I think concentrating on a single technology will greatly simplify the learning curve. Once I learn Powershell for Exchange (for example) I can then spread my wings to learn Powershell for Active Directory, ADO, etc,,.
User review
Full of promise, but unable to deliver
This book, a svelte 296 pages, plus CD-ROM, should be viewed in the same vein as the O'Reilly `,,. In A Nutshell` series: It's full of good information, but it doesn't quite take the one extra step to answer the question that's at the back of your mind: `But how do I use it to do XYZ?`.
Case in point: it will tell you how to get information back from the system, but not necessarily how to pull out the one specific piece of data you're after, so that it can be processed in a script. (A couple of minutes of trial-and-error resolved that quandary.) Disclaimer: I skimmed through a few pages, concentrating on an area that's of immediate interest, so a note advising how to extra the single point of data might or might not have been buried in some text elsewhere.
This is the type of book where you look up the basics of the information you want, then go to another book to get the rest of the information (background, caveats, usage, etc) that will be required to implement the command successfully.
One major problem with this book, though, is that it is riddled with typos (`CDROMg`, `Alapha computer`) which may be off-putting to some users. (For the most part, scripts appeared not to have many typos, but the accompanying text is full of them.)
I gave it the benefit of the doubt, in awarding it 4 stars. 3.5 would have been more appropriate. I'm shopping for another PowerShell book now,,.