So what is the big deal with powershell? Why should you bother learning it when you can use command lines, batch files, vbscript, and wmi?

Well, those tools are fine and you can continue to use them for quite a while longer, but Microsoft has put a lot of energy behind powershell. They have spent a lot of time developing it and there are currently at least two groups that have placed powershell prominently in their products – Exchange and System Center. The latest versions of these products have their own powershell providers. That is to say, they have a whole set of cmdlets unique to their products. In the case of Exchange, everything you can do through the gui you can do with powershell (and some things can only be done with powershell).

Also it is much easier to learn than any of the above tools and way more powerful. If you learn only one tool, I would spend all of your time on mastering powershell.

So, now that you are convinced, how can you learn it? First you need to download it here: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/powershell/default.mspx

Install it and launch it. Type help at the prompt and you will get list of commands and aliases. Type get-command and you will get a list of all available commands. See one that is interesting? Type help commandname and you will get an explanation of the command. Help commandname –full will give you examples of the command. Help get-process –full is a good one to start with.

The link above also has other links to more powershell resources. If you are like me, you will want to get your hands on some books. I have the following:

Monad by Andy Oakley and a forward by Jeffery Snover

This was the first powershell book I bought and is a nice place to start. It is small and was published before the name change to powershell, but it gives you a good overall feel for powershell.

Windows Powershell: TFM by Don Jones and Jeffery Hicks

This one is a bit thicker than the Monad one and also has a good overview as well as an appendix with all of the commands listed.

Windows Powershell in Action by Bruce Payette

This one is not yet in paper form, but you can download from the manning website. It has some good in depth chapters and so far is my favorite.

Most important of all is to install it and play around. Once you get the basics down, than it is just a matter of putting it together to do what you need. Remember that the pipeline (|) is your friend and will enable to you do the really cool stuff. Also another good way to learn is to get a hold of as many scripts as you can. Try to figure out what the commands do.