Pro Windows PowerShell / Edition 1

by Hristo Deshev

Overview

Windows power users have always envied their friends running UNIX machines for the ease of automation that they enjoy. The traditional Windows command–line shell, cmd.exe, has never been up to par with shells like bash or tcsh, especially when it comes to text processing and process automation.

Windows PowerShell changes all that. This next–generation shell is also a full–blown scripting environment with a real programming language that allows users to access every part of their operating system. Files, registry entries, and COM and .NET objects are all supported by PowerShell, which makes manipulating them a breeze.

Pro Windows PowerShell will show you how to use all this power in your own work. You'll discover the object–oriented features of the shell and how they help in extracting and manipulating data. You'll then learn how to use those features to solve real–world problems: manipulating files, working with text, monitoring systems, and performing operations over the network. The book serves as not only a tutorial, but also a reference: the “Real World” part is structured so that it can be read nonlinearly and used as a reference or a cookbook. And you'll find freely available tools and extensions that will help you do things even faster.

Pro Windows PowerShell is your best companion to the capabilities and power that PowerShell offers you.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590599402
Publisher:	Apress
Publication date:	02/25/2008
Series:	Expert's Voice in Windows Administration Series
Edition description:	1st ed.
Pages:	493
Product dimensions:	7.01(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.36(d)

About the Author

Hristo Deshev is a group product manager for Telerik, a leading vendor of ASP.NET controls (Telerik.com). He has been working on component development for the past several years, focusing on creating rich, highly interactive Ajax solutions. A major goal of his and his team is "taming web development" applying agile software engineering practices to create robust solutions targeting all modern web browsers and supporting multiple ASP.NET and Visual Studio .NET versions. You can reach Hristo via e-mail at [e-mail] and on his blog at http://blogs.telerik.com/blogs/twisted_asp_net.

Table of Contents

Objects and Object Types.- Controlling Execution Flow.- The Object Pipeline.- Working with Script Blocks.- Working with Functions.- Command Aliases.- Providers.- Script Files.- Error Handling and Debugging.- Signing Scripts.- The Shell Environment and Its Configuration.- Extending the Type System.- Getting Help.- Taming Processes and Services.- Input and Output.- Monitoring Your System.- PowerShell and the World Wide Web.- Sending E-mail.- Talking to COM Objects.- Managing Windows with WMI.- PowerShell Community Extensions.- PSEventing: .NET Events in PowerShell.- Enhancing Tab Completion with PowerTab.