Your Personal Trainer for Group Policy! Learning Group Policy doesn't have to be a frustrating experience, you can learn everything you need to manage Group Policy effectively by reading this book. To learn how to manage Group Policy, you need practical hands-on advice from an expert who understands what it is like to just start out. By working step by step through essential tasks, you can learn to: Configure Local GPOs and Active Directory-based GPOs Manage policy preferences and settings Model policy changes through the console Maintain the SYSVOL Diagnose and troubleshoot replication issues Know when to enforce, block, or override inheritance Filter policy settings, search GPOs, and manage permissions Implement change control and advanced management Manage operating system-specific deployment issues This book is designed for anyone who wants to learn how to manage Group Policy, including those who manage or support computers running Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2. Inside, you'll find comprehensive overviews, step-by-step procedures, frequently used tasks, documented examples, and much more. One of the goals is to keep the content so concise that the book remains compact and easy to navigate while at the same time ensuring that the book is packed with as much information as possible--making it a valuable resource. Also includes the full text of William Stanek's Smart Brain quick start guide to Group Policy: Group Policy Fast Start.

Designed for anyone who wants to use Windows PowerShell to perform core administration tasks on computers running desktop and server editions of Windows. Inside Windows PowerShell for Administration, you'll find comprehensive overviews, step-by-step procedures, frequently used tasks, documented examples, and much more. One of the goals is to keep the content so concise that the book remains compact and easy to navigate while at the same time ensuring that the book is packed with as much information as possible—making it a valuable resource. After reading this book, you’ll have a better understanding of administration using Windows PowerShell. Techniques for working at the prompt and using scripts are covered extensively. Windows PowerShell for Administration starts by teaching you how to: Manage computers using scripts Validate PowerShell requirements while scripting Use conditional statements to control script execution Use control loops to execute commands repeatedly Record PowerShell sessions using transcripts Manage blocks of commands Then Windows PowerShell for Administration shows you how to: Manage system configuration Gather system information Inventory and evaluate computers Work with files, directories and drives Configure security permissions and auditing Configure event logging Write custom events Manage configuration of system services Create and use restore points Manage computer accounts and join computers to domains Manage running processes and services Monitor system performance Resolve performance issues Take control of Windows and Windows Server today using PowerShell! Look also for Windows PowerShell: The Personal Trainer.

Your hands-on guide to Windows PowerShell scripting fundamentals Expand your expertise--and teach yourself the fundamentals of Windows PowerShell scripting, including features available in Windows PowerShell 5. If you are an IT professional, power user, or consultant, you’ll get the guidance, exercises, and code you need to master core techniques for automating Windows setup, deployment, and management. Discover how to: Run cmdlets and command-line utilities Administer Windows-based servers and desktops with built-in cmdlets Use providers to access external information Write and run scripts from the Windows ISE Create functions that are easy to maintain Build standardized environments with profiles Automate Windows systems with WMI, CIM cmdlets, and remoting Automate Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) Debug scripts and handle errors Run commands that survive interruptions Use Desired State Configuration (DSC) to manage software services and their environments Get powerful new modules from PowerShell Gallery About You This book is for: IT professionals and power users who want to get productive with Windows PowerShell, including new features in Windows PowerShell 5 Windows system administrators who want to be more efficient and productive Anyone pursuing Windows PowerShell certifications No experience with Windows PowerShell or other scripting technologies necessary

With more than 250 ready-to-use recipes, this solutions-oriented introduction to the Windows PowerShell scripting environment and language provides administrators with the tools to be productive immediately.

Automate complex tasks and processes with PowerShell scripts. This amazing book teaches you how to write, test, and organize high-quality, reusable scripts for Windows, Linux, and cloud-based systems. Learn PowerShell Scripting in a Month of Lunches, Second Edition takes you beyond command-line PowerShell and opens up the amazing world of scripting and automation. In just 27 bite-sized lessons, you’ll learn to write scripts that can eliminate repetitive manual tasks, create custom reusable tools, and build effective pipelines and workflows. In Learn PowerShell Scripting in a Month of Lunches, Second Edition you’ll learn: Setting up a reliable scripting environment Designing functions and scripts Effective pipeline usage Scripting and security Dealing with errors and bugs Source control with git Sharing and publishing scripts Professional-grade scripting practices The PowerShell language lets you write scripts to control nearly every aspect of Windows. Just master a few straightforward scripting skills, and you'll save yourself from hours of tedious tasks. This revised second edition is fully updated to PowerShell’s latest version, including hands-on examples that perfectly demonstrate modern PowerShell’s cross-platform applications. About the technology You can write PowerShell scripts to automate nearly any admin task on Windows, Linux, and macOS. This book shows you how! In just 27 short lessons you can complete on your lunch break, you’ll learn to create, organize, test, and share scripts and tools that will save you hours of time in your daily work. About the book Learn PowerShell Scripting in a Month of Lunches, Second Edition is a hands-on introduction to PowerShell automation and toolbuilding. Updated for the latest version of PowerShell, this thoroughly revised bestseller teaches you how to write efficient scripts, find and squash bugs, and organize your tools into libraries. Along the way, you’ll even pick up tips for securing and managing Linux and macOS systems. What's inside Setting up a reliable scripting environment Designing functions and scripts Effective pipeline usage Sharing and publishing scripts About the reader Beginning to intermediate knowledge of PowerShell required. About the author James Petty is CEO of PowerShell.org and The DevOps Collective and a Microsoft MVP. Don Jones and Jeffery Hicks are the authors of the first edition of Learn PowerShell Scripting in a Month of Lunches. Table of Contents PART 1 1 Before you begin 2 Setting up your scripting environment 3 WWPD: What would PowerShell do? 4 Review: Parameter binding and the PowerShell pipeline 5 Scripting language: A crash course 6 The many forms of scripting (and which to choose) 7 Scripts and security PART 2 8 Always design first 9 Avoiding bugs: Start with a command 10 Building a basic function and script module 11 Getting started with advanced functions 12 Objects: The best kind of output 13 Using all the streams 14 Simple help: Making a comment 15 Errors and how to deal with them 16 Filling out a manifest PART 3 17 Changing your brain when it comes to scripting 18 Professional-grade scripting 19 An introduction to source control with Git 20 Pestering your script 21 Signing your script 22 Publishing your script PART 4 23 Squashing bugs 24 Enhancing script output presentation 25 Wrapping up the .NET Framework 26 Storing data—not in Excel! 27 Never the end

The quick start guide for an advanced enterprise PowerShell framework About This Book Introduces industry-proven techniques that improve script efficiency and reliability Example-rich guide based on real-world scenarios Facilitates building a script that can fully scan a Windows server and identify components Who This Book Is For This book is for IT professionals and Windows administrators who would like to gain intensive, hands-on knowledge and skills on PowerShell without spending hours and hours in learning. If you have been struggling to find the time to gain proficiency and confidence with PowerShell and everyday scripting tasks What You Will Learn Create an advanced PowerShell scripting template that provides repeatable code to jumpstart all of your scripting projects Learn how to securely encrypt and store usernames, passwords, and other sensitive data in PowerShell scripts and answer files Understand how to optimize the performance of scripts to help process large datasets quickly and avoid time-consuming mistakes Develop a script to scan for non-standard Windows Server configurations and identify service accounts used on Windows Servers Gather a large list of data from a Windows server without locally or remotely logging in interactively In Detail Enterprise PowerShell Scripting Bootcamp explains how to create your own repeatable PowerShell scripting framework. This framework contains script logging methodologies, answer file interactions, and string encryption and decryption strategies. This book focuses on evaluating individual components to identify the system's function, role, and unique characteristics. To do this, you will leverage built-in CMDlets and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) to explore Windows services, Windows processes, Windows features, scheduled tasks, and disk statistics. You will also create custom functions to perform a deep search for specific strings in files and evaluate installed software through executable properties. We will then discuss different scripting techniques to improve the efficiency of scripts. By leveraging several small changes to your code, you can increase the execution performance by over 130%. By the end of this book, you will be able to tie all of the concepts together in a PowerShell-based Windows server scanning script. This discovery script will be able to scan a Windows server to identify a multitude of components. Style and approach This book is all about fast and intensive learning. This means, we don't waste time in helping readers get started. The new content is about leveraging highly-effective examples to build new things, help solving problems in newer and unseen ways, and providing an enterprise-ready platform to create PowerShell Scripts.

Want to perform programming tasks better, faster, simpler, and make them repeatable? Take a deep dive into Windows PowerShell and discover what this distributed automation platform can do. Whether you’re a .NET developer or IT pro, this concise guide will show you how PowerShell’s scripting language can help you be more productive on everyday tasks. Quickly learn how to create PowerShell scripts and embed them into your existing applications, write "little languages" to solve specific problems, and take charge of your code. This book includes example scripts that you can easily pull apart, tweak, and then use in your own PowerShell and .NET solutions. Slice and dice text, XML, CSV, and JSON with ease Embed PowerShell to provide scripting capabilities for your C# apps Create GUI applications five to ten times faster with less code Leverage PowerShell’s capabilities to work with the Internet Interact with DLLs and create objects, automatically display properties, and call methods in live interactive sessions Build domain-specific languages (DSLs) and vocabularies to express solutions more clearly Work with Microsoft Office via the Component Object Model (COM) Discover PowerShell v3 features included with Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012

Take advantage of everything Microsoft’s new PowerShell 7 has to offer PowerShell 7 for IT Pros is your guide to using PowerShell 7, the open source, cross-platform version of Windows PowerShell. Windows IT professionals can begin setting up automation in PowerShell 7, which features many improvements over the early version of PowerShell Core and Windows PowerShell. PowerShell 7 users can enjoy the high level of compatibility with the Windows PowerShell modules they rely on today. This book shows IT professionals—especially Windows administrators and developers—how to use PowerShell7 to engage in their most important tasks, such as managing networking, using AD/DNS/DHCP, leveraging Azure, and more. To make it easy to learn everything PowerShell 7 has to offer, this book includes robust examples, each containing sample code so readers can follow along. Scripts are based on PowerShell 7 running on Windows 10 19H1 or later and Windows Server 2019. • Learn to navigate the PowerShell 7 administrative environment • Use PowerShell 7 to automate networking, Active Directory, Windows storage, shared data, and more • Run Windows Update, IIS, Hyper-V, and WMI and CIM cmdlets within PowerShell 7 • Understand how to handle reporting in the new PowerShell 7 environment PowerShell 7 for IT Pros provides exclusive coverage of using PowerShell with both cloud-based systems and virtualized environments (Hyper V and Azure). Written by PowerShell veteran Thomas Lee, this is the only book you’ll need to get started with PowerShell 7.

From the premiere author in Windows administration and Microsoft technologies, a hands-on, personalized guide to Windows PowerShell 3.0 and Windows PowerSehll 4.0. Chances are that if you work with Windows computers you’ve heard of Windows PowerShell. You may even have read other books about PowerShell and put PowerShell to work. However, you probably still have many questions about PowerShell, or you may simply be curious about what PowerShell 3.0 and PowerShell 4.0 have to offer that their predecessors didn’t. Windows PowerShell 3.0 and Windows PowerShell 4.0 are enhanced and extended editions of the original implementations of PowerShell. The changes are dramatic, and they improve both the performance capabilities of PowerShell and its versatility. You can do things with PowerShell 3.0 and PowerShell 4.0 that you simply could not do with earlier versions, and you can perform standard tasks in much more efficient ways than before. This book is designed for anyone who wants to learn Windows PowerShell. Inside, you'll find comprehensive overviews, step-by-step procedures, frequently used tasks, documented examples, and much more. One of the goals is to keep the content so concise that the book remains compact and easy to navigate while at the same time ensuring that the book is packed with as much information as possible--making it a valuable resource.

Part of a series of specialized guides on System Center - this book delivers a focused drilldown into designing runbooks for Orchestrator workflow management solutions. Series editor Mitch Tulloch and a team of System Center experts provide concise technical guidance as they step you through key design concepts, criteria, and tasks.