I just started reading a little about Powershell syntax yesterday. It’s different, especially for someone like me who grew up with PASCAL, COBOL, C, C++ and lately has been using VBS. Anyone who’s been doing VBS scripting will know that a "simple" task can require lots of code to create the required logic. Powershell aims to solve this. Here’s some sources on Powershell
- TechNet Magazine did a nice little introduction in this month’s issue. There’s no excuse not to read this free publication.
- MS have a bunch of webcasts that you can view.
- The Microsoft TechNet ScriptCenter has a repository of Powershell scripts. I regularly hit their VBS repository for sample code to tweak to my needs. These guys also have their own homepage for Powershell.
- A documentation pack for Powershell 1.0 is available.
- The Powershell team is running a blog.
- The MR&D Forum has a dedicated section on Powershell.
- SAPIEN Technologies has started their own Powershell blog.
You may be one of those admins who reckons they don’t need to know anything other than batch scripting. But what will happen when you need to make changes to X number of Active Directory objects? What will you do when you need to do file manipulation that can’t be done from normal command line options? Powershell will be implemented with new MS Infrastructure solutions, further opening up the power of scripting. Exchange 2007 will enable Powershell scripts to dig deep, e.g. a mail store can be opened just like a file system folder!