What is PowerShell ?
PowerShell is a programming language released by Microsoft that not only allows management of Windows operating systems by creating scripts and applications, it also allows for integration of modules and other programming languages like C#,VB,SQL and even DOS commands. This is a very robust language that encompasses all facets of server management.
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PowerShell used along with task scheduler can be utilized for creating reports, maintaining system configurations, deletion of logs files, truncating SQL logs and much more…When I started learning PowerShell I found the language to be simple enough to read through code and examples to understand what the end result would be.
PowerShell CmdLets
PowerShell CMDLets can be thought of as the commands you are used to running in DOS. These each have a syntax and a help section and usually even a few examples of how to use the CMDLet. Also in PowerShell you can tab through to get the CMDLets you are looking for, just type in Get-Ch and press tab and you will get to Get-ChildItem and to get the HELP on this CMDLet type Get-Help Get-ChildItem. If you want to see an example of syntax of the CMDLet type –Example at the end.
Get-Help Get-ChildItem -Example
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Note: For a list of all the available CMDLets run: Get-Command
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Get-Member​
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Get-Command helps you find the cmdlets you are looking for and Get-Member helps you get information on that cmdlet. If you want to see the properties and methods of the cmdlet just simply type Cmdlet | Get-Member for example Get-Service | Get-Member . If you just want to see the properties of the CmdLet see example below:
PowerShell Help - Make Sure to Update Your Help !
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Use the Update-Help to download and auto install the most up to date help items.
To save help files for offline installation run:
Save-Help -Module * -DestinationPath C:\Shared\UpdateHelp
Copy files to the offline server and place in same directory path
Open PowerShell with "Run AS Administrator"
Update-Help –SourcePath C:\Shared\UpdateHelp
After installing the help files I now get 8 examples of how to use Get-ChildItem:
