You Should Learn PowerShell

PowerShell is an essential skill for any IT professional's toolkit - allowing you efficiently manage large infrastructures by automating tasks at scale. Even in small environments, it will help you save time by working smarter.
Although the command line can be intimidating to administrators used to a graphical interface, PowerShell is not as scary as it may first appear. In this video I explain what PowerShell is, make the case for why you really ought to learn it, and give you some tips on how to get started.
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/ andrewmrquinn
The Pro Tech Show provides tech, tips, and advice for IT Pros and decision-makers.
#PowerShell #Scripting #Automation

[@az-qf9ht]

In 13 minutes, you clearly demonstrate the advantage of an object-oriented shell. I feel like I’m already halfway through getting started with powershell after this one video.

[@ProTechShow]

Glad you found it useful!

[@DementiaAcerbus]

Seriously the best intro to powershell I've ever seen. (and you're definitely not alone as most places I've worked have all used AD Users and Computers )

[@ProTechShow]

Thanks! Glad it was useful 🙂

[@kiwi-Centaur]

Hey Andrew, thanks a lot for this video, this was exactly what I was looking for, comprehensive introduction and good insight, thank you heaps

[@ProTechShow]

Glad to hear it was useful for you! 🙂

[@chrismoore8116]

Great video. Thank you! @10:46 Yes, I use the Administrative Center GUI all the time. Self taught in recent years so its just how I found what I was needing to accomplish at the time figuring it out for myself. Then I started shifting to snap ins more. Now, here I am working my way further towards just using PowerShell for efficiency. Learned networking/switching the same way; started with GUIs and worked my way backwards into CLI. :)

[@ProTechShow]

Thanks! Interesting that you picked it up as self-taught. I wonder how many new sysadmins use AD Users & Computers because it handed down from their predecessors... For me if it takes a few milliseconds longer to open it's a hard sell to convince me to switch!

[@JosePabloEstradaCarrillo]

Awesome video! Clear and consice with fun comic book references.

[@ProTechShow]

Thanks!

[@psiiota6004]

Love your content! You should show us what your homelab looks like

[@ProTechShow]

Thanks! You would probably be disappointed - it's just a white box in a cupboard. I was offered some rackmount servers & switches that would have looked much more impressive, but I measured the electricity they pulled and it was cheaper to build a desktop with a load of RAM, and it makes much less noise!

[@BenjaminRonlund]

Can confirm PowerShell is daunting, the language seems much more natural though. Looks a lot more understandable than VBS.

[@dominiqueclaeysgacayan8905]

Thank you very much Sir, surely I will following your lessons

[@ProTechShow]

You're welcome 🙂

[@alexhardao2742]

Thank you Useful information Clearly presented

[@ProTechShow]

Thanks!

[@ongkc7690]

thank for your great guideline

[@ProTechShow]

You're welcome🙂

[@robpickles3736]

Thank you for your help Andrew, you have a new subscriber :) A tip for noobs like me: @11:50 Like Andrew, I disklike trying to read the help content within PowerShell, but you can skip the search engine step by typing the '-Online' paramater as part of your get-help request. For example, the following command instructs PowerShell to load the MS help for 'Wait-Process' on your default browser: Get-Help Wait-Process -Online

[@ProTechShow]

Good tip!

[@smalljpmorgan]

Thank you so much your explanation is very clear...make us wanna try powershell..

[@ProTechShow]

Cheers 🙂

[@DikoJelev]

Nice video. Thanks!

[@ProTechShow]

Glad it was useful 🙂

[@josemfacuna6754]

my suggestion would be a beginner series. I use PowerShell, but poorly. thanks.

[@grandmasterbash]

Your videos are fantastic.

[@ProTechShow]

Thanks. Glad to hear they're useful!

[@padraigr9305]

Thanks Andrew for this video - (good to hear also what sounds like a wee NornIreland twang) . Could you recommend a good resource for learning Powershell for a reasonably advanced user ?

[@ProTechShow]

Glad to hear there's still some NornIron left. I recently had someone compliment my English accent, which amused the Mrs to no end! I just kind of picked up PowerShell as I went, so there's no particular resource I've used myself. There are a couple of virtual academy courses over on MS Channel 9 that might be worth a look? Let me know if they're any good. Beginner: channel9.msdn.com/Series/Getting-Started-with-Microsoft-PowerShell Advanced: channel9.msdn.com/Series/Advanced-Tools-and-Scripting-with-PowerShell-3.0-Jump-Start

[@rakesha8133]

Awesome video !!

[@ProTechShow]

Thanks!

[@noisepollution42]

AD Admin Centre always felt like an unfinished project. The way they just slid the standard and familiar permissions dialog in to it, just cracks me up.

[@ProTechShow]

I know what you mean 🤣 You're out of time, ship the code. But it's not fin... JUST SHIP IT!

[@ryan4572]

Hi, When I type net session in Powershell, it shows me an SMB connections. Is there a way I can show SSH connection from PowerShell?

[@narasimhamurthyboya8987]

Good one 👍

[@ProTechShow]

Thanks 🙂

[@josemfacuna6754]

I just stumble on your video. I think you should create a series of power shell.

[@ProTechShow]

Thanks for the suggestion. What parts of PowerShell do you think would be useful to cover?

[@ongkc7690]

bravo

[@AntonioSalazar-db1eb]

I wonder if Powershell would be useful for an IT Technician working for a company that fixes computers and issues with very small companies (max 20 staff or so)...looks like it's intended for larger companies?

[@ProTechShow]

It's definitely still useful. If you find yourself doing the same task fairly often you can script it. Regular maintenance, troubleshooting steps, setup tasks on new devices, etc. I even use it on my home computer - I have scripts for updating software and sorting files from my camera when I record a video. Basically anything I find tedious and I know I'll need to do again gets scripted.

[@AntonioSalazar-db1eb]

Super-thanks for your answer, I think I'll do this course.

[@n8work548]

very good video, as a pure player microsoft engineer i relly enjoyed it ! I have a question : is it possible that you could share your best script powershell that you use or used it ? Since few months a try to create my own script library ;)

[@ProTechShow]

Thanks 🙂 "Best" is a difficult one... the ones I'm most proud of are probably the ones created for cross-forest migrations and company mergers/divestments, as they automate a huge amount of complicated work. Those are proprietary IP though, so not mine to share.

[@n8work548]

@@ProTechShow hum okay i understand

[@ProTechShow]

If you're looking for a library of premade scripts that are free to use, try the PowerShell gallery: www.powershellgallery.com/

[@n8work548]

@@ProTechShow thank you for this tips ;)

[@n8work548]

@@mafiadoner3619 hello, I'm using powershell and all services of Microsoft because i work in a interprise who is pure player microsoft. Also almost every enterprise have at least a active Directory server so yes, using powershell for me is vital and very usefull and much simplier than others solutions. I don"t care about bad tax payer or like you said : "blooded/hearted capitalist" it's not my fight but i understand that all the GAFAM are not respecting taxe rules and it's outrageous ! So don"t try to search complex reason or else, mostly people who like powershell work in interprise who have needs to deploy microsoft solutions.

[@Berryservices]

Its funny how people would turn their nose away from Linux because of the terminal and now Microsoft is replacing alot of UI into PowerShell

[@ProTechShow]

Yeah, and Server Core being the recommended deployment for Windows these days without any GUI... When Microsoft started going down this route there were definitely a few sarcastic responses from the Linux community. 🤣

[@Berryservices]

@@ProTechShow hahaha

[@shaikimran3196]

Is it okay to say "powershell is just another linux shell in Microsoft way"?

[@ProTechShow]

Whilst it's fair to say their current approach is closer to Linux's than in the past, PowerShell is a different beast. It's a pretty comprehensive scripting language as well as a shell, and rather than passing text between commands like Bash does it is passing objects through a pipeline. The text-based approach makes Bash very interoperable due to its simplicity, whereas the objects allow PowerShell to pass much more complex information to other PowerShell cmdlets.

[@shaikimran3196]

@@ProTechShow wow! Thank you for the detailed explanation ❤️

[@harrytrueman4216]

ADUC all the way

[@ProTechShow]

If it ain't broke... don't fix it, right?

[@harrytrueman4216]

@@ProTechShow true, ADAC carries the modern theme but I find i can view the properties better etc. I am averse to powershell but trying to use it for basic fact gatherings. I always say to myself that "GET" is safe, be careful with "SET".

[@ProTechShow]

That's a good rule! A lot of cmdlets will let you do a dry run of sorts by putting "-WhatIf" on the end. This will produce the output as if it had run, but won't actually do anything.

[@harshrathod50]

Whoa, this is lots of helpful information on PowerShell. Can you make same video for BASH. But there are no cmdlets to make life easier. Don't even talk about formatting. 😂

[@ProTechShow]

Thanks 🙂 Bash is on the ideas list, so I'll likely get around to it at some point!

[@ProTechShow]

Here you go! kzbin.info/www/bejne/gYu9laKca7ephpI

[@harshrathod50]

Whoa, nice. You have given a very broader view of bash. 👌🤓 Enough to get anyone started in Bash.

[@ProTechShow]

Thanks!

[@bhushanthakur6469]

And I thought powershell was almost obsolete 🤷

[@ProTechShow]

Definitely not 🙂

[@CurtisCT]

I'm just so FED UP with Microsoft forcing network admins to learn powershell! I already have a ton of work to do managing dozens of servers and countless clients, I don't have time to learn a new language with hundreds of parameters. Microsoft doesn't seem to understand that time is money and that network admins just want SIMPLICITY. Give me a well designed GUI so that I can get stuff done easily and without having to go online to look up parameters. But no, Microsoft keeps removing GUI's and forcing people to learn powershell. Case in point, the new Exchange interface. A lot of functionality have been removed from the GUI and are now only accessible via powershell. What a pain!!!!

[@coloneljacensolo2011]

Powershell exists since 2006

[@ancientcitymusic8301]

Please do not wait 2 minutes next time to get to the point. And then I have to wait 6:30 to find out why it is beneficial? Please be time conscious. I want to know why it is beneficial first (answers the question I had in your title!). Second I want to know how easy is it. Third I want an example of how to script using it. Time is precious! Thank you! But I will go ahead and suffer with your videos for the useful info. The content is great! But please have mercy on me!