Windows PowerShell 2 For Dummies

Introduction 1

Part I: Getting a Bird’s-Eye View of PowerShell 2 9

Chapter 1: The Windows PowerShell Rap Sheet 11

Chapter 2: Customizing and Shortcutting the Environment 21

Chapter 3: A Pinch of Shell, a Pound of Power 37

Part II: PowerShell’s Basic Structure and Syntax 47

Chapter 4: Shelling Out Commands and Scripts 49

Chapter 5: When Dollars Turn into Variables 61

Chapter 6: A Bit of Logic to Save the Day 77

Chapter 7: Working on a Pipeline 89

Part III: Complex Data Description and Sharing 97

Chapter 8: Working with Windows Management Instrumentation 99

Chapter 9: Bringing Strings into the Limelight 117

Chapter 10: I’ll Take Numbers for $100, Please 137

Chapter 11: Grouping Data Using Arrays and Hash Tables 147

Chapter 12: Readin’ and Writin’ Files 159

Chapter 13: Going On a Date with PowerShell 175

Part IV: Controlling Where and How You Operate PowerShell 185

Chapter 14: Using Functions to Divide and Conquer 187

Chapter 15: PowerShell Ninjas: Running Jobs Remotely or in the Background 209

Chapter 16: Making Your Script Speak Different Languages 223

Chapter 17: Smashing Those Bugs 231

Part V: Real-World Windows Administration Using PowerShell 245

Chapter 18: Mission Control: All Systems Go 247

Chapter 19: Taming the Windows Registry 261

Chapter 20: Reaching Out to Active Directory 273

Chapter 21: PowerShell Lockdown 287

Chapter 22: Converting Your Old Scripts: Out with the Old, In with the New 301

Part VI: Configuring and Reporting Via PowerShell 317

Chapter 23: Controlling Your Network Confi guration 319

Chapter 24: Managing Your Hardware 331

Chapter 25: Making Reporting Easy 345

Part VII: The Part of Tens 357

Chapter 26: The Ten Most Important Cmdlets 359

Chapter 27: Ten Common PowerShell Mistakes 365

Bonus Chapter 1: Handling Exceptions 1

Index 375