Mastering PowerShell Scripting - Fifth Edition: Automate repetitive tasks and simplify complex administrative tasks using PowerShell

Master PowerShell to automate real-world administrative tasks, streamline workflows, and enhance security across Windows environments

Purchase of the print or Kindle book includes a free PDF eBook.

Key Features

• Build practical scripts to automate system tasks, manage files, users, and services, and optimize daily operations
• Leverage PowerShell’s advanced features for error handling, modular scripting, and secure automation
• Apply best practices to create reusable, maintainable, and production-ready automation workflows

Book Description

Mastering PowerShell Scripting, Fifth Edition, is your comprehensive guide to harnessing PowerShell’s full potential. This edition introduces new chapters on debugging, troubleshooting, and creating GUIs while covering the latest enhancements in PowerShell 7.3, including parameters, objects, and .NET classes.

The book takes you from foundational concepts to advanced techniques, covering asynchronous processing, desired state configuration, and managing large datasets. You'll explore PowerShell’s automation features, error-handling strategies, and integration with external services. Additionally, this guide provides practical insights into working with regular expressions, Windows Management Instrumentation, and complex scripting methods.

By the end of this book, you’ll have the skills to efficiently automate tasks, troubleshoot scripts, and leverage PowerShell’s advanced capabilities for real-world scenarios.

Be sure to explore the online bonus chapters 8, 9, and 20, where we dive into Strings, Numbers, and Dates, Regular Expressions, and Building Modules.

What you will learn

• Create scripts that run across systems for automation
• Extend PowerShell by integrating it with other languages
• Use PowerShell's command-line interface for efficient operations
• Develop reusable scripts and functions to streamline tasks
• Apply PowerShell for administration, automation, and data processing
• Integrate with .NET, COM, and WMI for advanced functionality
• Work with XML, JSON, and CSV for structured data handling
• Build custom modules and cmdlets to enhance scripting

Who this book is for

This book is for system administrators who want to automate and speed up their processes using PowerShell and Windows PowerShell. You'll need to know the basics of operating systems, but beginners with no prior experience with PowerShell will have no trouble following along.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction to PowerShell
2. Modules
3. Variables, Arrays, and Hashtables
4. Working with Objects in PowerShell
5. Operators
6. Conditional Statements and Loops
7. Working with .NET
8. Files, Folders, and the Registry
9. Windows Management Instrumentation
10. Working with HTML, XML, and JSON
11. Web Requests and Web Services
12. Remoting and Remote Management
13. Asynchronous Processing
14. Graphical User Interfaces
15. Scripts, Functions, and Script Blocks
16. Parameters, Validation, and Dynamic Parameters
17. Classes and Enumerations
18. Testing
19. Error Handling
20. Debugging

Chris Dent is an automation specialist with deep expertise in the PowerShell language. Chris is often found answering questions about PowerShell in both the UK and virtual PowerShell user groups. Chris has been developing in PowerShell since 2007 and has released several modules over the years.