Week 3: Scripting with Microsoft PowerShell

This week in class, we explored the topic of Microsoft PowerShell.  This command line and scripting environment has become a powerful tool for many system administrators.  It offers two interfaces (command line and graphical user) which allow for easy script and job creation and testing.  Before this week, I had not used PowerShell before.  I had hear of it, but did not really know or understand its use or functionality.  I figured it was just an add-on for the current command prompt for Windows that only very tech-savvy individuals used.  Of course, I was wrong.  PowerShell offers more features and functionality than your standard command line DOS interpreter.  With many command line tools and cmdlets (PowerShell built-in commands), many administrative and everyday operations are able to be completed quickly and easily.  The introduction of the verb-noun command syntax convention really does make command utilization easier to understand and master.  The introduction of the PowerShell ISE application has also made script creation and debugging easier and more manageable with features such as syntax highlighting and breakpoint insertion.

There are always challenges to be faced when learning a new programming or scripting language.  I faced a few of these challenges myself during the week due to my lack of experience using PowerShell and its functions and features.  PowerShell takes awhile to get used to due to its particular methods of handling certain items.  For one, PowerShell by default is set to not allow any scripts to be executed.  While, this can be easily changed, it is weird that the security of this application is set so tight by default.  Another thing about PowerShell is that PowerShell scripts cannot be executed outside of the PowerShell environment.  This means that double-clicking on a PowerShell script does not execute the script, but instead just opens a notepad file representation of the code (again, security very tight).  When executing a PowerShell script in PowerShell, a complete path to the PowerShell script must be specified or the script will not be executed.  I know this fact caused me a bit of grief this week.  All-in-all, after I became familiar with PowerShell, the application is actually easy to use.  Therefore, I did not experience too many difficulties this week.

As I mentioned last week in my blog, scripting has become a very important skill to learn in order to be successful within the Information Technology field.  I will say it again this week because it is still true (and because we are still covering scripting this week).  PowerShell looks to be a very easy and useful tool to use within the Information Technology field especially for those in the administrative fields (server, database, network, etc.).  As I become more familiar with PowerShell, I am sure it will be very useful skill to utilize within my studies and future career.