OK, I admit it. I love PowerShell! It’s the way to go when you want to do automation. Not only that, it has the ability to hook into all aspects of the Microsoft tool stack. Not just SQL Server, but SharePoint, Exchange, Windows Server, and more. So here are some of my favorite resources for learning PowerShell.
A quick disclaimer, some of the links below are by co-workers or other people I have an affiliation with, financial or otherwise. That’s because I’m lucky enough to work with some of the best people in the field. Also, in the case of the books I’ve linked to the Kindle version where possible, mostly because I’m a Kindle junkie. There are paper versions of the books, and you are free to buy from your favorite retailer.
Books
Windows PowerShell in Action, Second Edition – If you are only going to buy one PowerShell book, this is “The” book as folks say. It’s one of the two that gets referenced quite often. Note the prior link is to Amazon, where you can only get the paper (aka “dead tree”) version. You can get electronic versions (Kindle, PDF, and ePub) directly from the publishers website.
PowerShell In Practice - This is the other book in my collection that gets a good workout. Lots of great examples and easy to understand. Like the previous book, the link is to the Amazon dead tree version, you can also get the electronic version from the publishers website.
Windows PowerShell 2.0 Best Practices – So you want to know if you are doing PowerShell right? As it’s title implies, this book lays out best practices to help your PowerShell solutions succeed.
Note there are a lot of other really good PowerShell books on the market that focus on using PowerShell with specific technologies such as SharePoint, SQL Server, Exchange, and Windows Server. The books I’ve listed above cover PowerShell in general.
Blogs
Richard Siddaway – This guy blogs more about PowerShell than anyone I know. It’s an invaluable resource for PowerShell. In addition he is also the author of PowerShell in Practice, listed above.
PowerShell.com – This website is a treasure trove of resources. Indeed, it could have been put into all of the sections in this post as it holds not just blogs but free e-books, forums, and webinars.
Hey Scripting Guy – Ed Wilson, author of the Best Practices book above, is “The Scripting Guy”. Ed works on the PowerShell team at Microsoft and is very active in the PowerShell community.
Podcasts
PowerScripting Podcast – A great show out of Atlanta, has a lot of information about PowerShell especially for beginners. The website also has a lot of useful links. I always learn something new listening to their show.
Get-Scripting – If you are out of the UK you’ll appreciate this PowerShell Podcast. Has a focus on PowerShell with VMWare’s PowerCLI.
Videos
Pluralsight – I know Pluralsight has a great series on PowerShell, as I’m the one who authored them! In addition Pluralsight has an extensive catalog of other courses you can pick from. It’s subscription bases so there is a modest fee (starts at $29 US per month last I checked) but well worth it for the training you can get. There’s also a free trial.
For a quick link direct to this post, you can use http://bit.ly/arcaneps
Arcane Code 