PowerShell with Ed Wilson “5-Part” Webcast Series–Check out the best!
PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (Part 1 of 5): PowerShell 'SmowerShell'—Why You Should Learn Windows PowerShell
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In this session, Microsoft Scripting Guy Ed Wilson discusses the fact that in addition to being the management future for Microsoft products, Windows PowerShell offers a number of compelling reasons for learning it. These reasons include the following: It is powerful and provides the ability to collect and to consolidate information from multiple remote systems into a centralized view of the data. It is safer than many other tools and offers the ability to prototype a command prior to the command execution. There is also a confirmation mode that will let a network administrator or other IT professional selectively step through a group of commands to pick commands to execute or ignore. It has built-in logging that provides documentation of not only what commands are executed but also the resultant output from those commands. It contains numerous features to promote a high level of discoverability and intuitive usability. This session is heavy with practical tips and demonstrations.
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TechNet Webcast: PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (Part 2 of 5): Heard It through the Pipeline—How to Compound Windows PowerShell Commands for Fun and Profit
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One of the most basic, as well as one of the most powerful, features of Windows PowerShell is the pipeline. By using the Windows PowerShell pipeline, you can take a basic set of cmdlets and build a nearly infinite assortment of useful commands. And yet, all of this boils down to using the pipeline to perform essentially four different types of activities. The first is to use the pipeline to retrieve items and to work on them. The second is to use the pipeline to filter out data. The third is to persist information, and the fourth is to use the pipeline to format output. This session covers all four basic uses of the pipeline and includes a heavy dose of demonstrations.
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TechNet Webcast: PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (Part 3 of 5): Sole Provider? Not Hardly—A Look at Windows PowerShell Providers
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One of the revolutionary concepts in Windows PowerShell is the idea of Windows PowerShell providers. Windows PowerShell providers give a singular way to access different types of data that are stored in different locations. Default providers include a file system, registry, alias, variable, function, and environmental variable. This means that you can use Get-Item to access content that is stored in any of these different locations. Not only that, but these providers are extensible, which means that different Microsoft teams (and third party developers) can create additional providers.
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TechNet Webcast: PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (Part 4 of 5): The Main Event—Windows PowerShell Does Event Logs
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Regardless of one's position, it seems that at some point or another everyone will be involved in looking at event logs. And why not? Especially since Windows has such great logging support. Whether it is for security reasons or troubleshooting reasons or general Windows health monitoring, the logs contain nearly all the required information that one seeks. In this session, Microsoft Scripting Guy Ed Wilson discusses the classic and the newer ETW style of logs and looks at the tools that are used with each type of log.
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TechNet Webcast: PowerShell Essentials for the Busy Admin (Part 5 of 5): More Than Remotely Possible—Using Windows PowerShell to Manage the Remote Desktop
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Let's face it: even though there are lots of commercial products out there that assist in managing desktops or servers, most are very complex and require a dedicated support team to manage them. Even in organizations where such tools exist, the team's agenda and the front line administrator's agenda often clash. For ad hoc situations, using Windows PowerShell to manage remote machines fills in the gray area. In this session, Microsoft Scripting Guy Ed Wilson discusses using Windows PowerShell to manage remote machines.