While its not always the best getting started guide, don't forget the excellent Powershell help built in. Cmdlets such as get-help and get-command are your friend. Just yesterday I needed to change a setting for a local user on my machine. I knew I needed a command having something to do with users, so I ran Get-command -noun *user And eventually figured out that I needed to use the set-localuser command. Another helpful command is get-member or gm for short. You can pipe any variable into this command, and it's a really good way to learn more about the object you're dealing with. So again with a user object I could do something like $u = get-localuser administrator $u | gm And that would show many of the user properties I can play with. So those are good things you can do from right inside Powershell itself. I also find that if I can narrow down just what I want to do with Powershell, I can usually do a nice Google search and get an answer pretty quick, at least with the cmdlets built into windows. Admittedly with 3RD party modules this isn't quite as easy simply because they aren't used as often and don't have the community following that the built in and MS provided modules do. But it would be worth a try still. Ryan -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Prescott Sent: Wednesday, December 7, 2016 5:24 AM To: 'Blind sysadmins list' <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Administration using powershell. Search on google for powershell tutorials. There is a wealth of information. Once you are more experienced, there are books "some of which are accessible" to read for a deeper dive into the subject. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Troy Hergert Sent: Wednesday, December 7, 2016 7:07 AM To: Blind sysadmins list <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Administration using powershell. Sorry if I missed this in a previous post. Is there a good resource I could download to introduce myself to Powershell commands? -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Prescott Sent: Tuesday, December 06, 2016 10:00 PM To: 'Blind sysadmins list' Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Administration using powershell. I find all your comments interesting. I have used AWS for years and I never use nor have I ever used the GUI ill recently. I did my initial account setup with the GUI back in 2008 or 2009 and I have always used the command-line tools. A brief read of the manual was all it took and I have never had problems with the syntax etc. Of course, I cut my teeth on Unix starting in the 1980's and that might have something to do with it. What I am trying to say is just this: There are and can be different approaches for different people. Some people might like the command-line and powershell. That would be me. I use the command-line and CLI tools where ever I can. When I found powershell, I now find administering Windows systems far easier for me. I write powershell scripts for everything, and I do things I had never done before with Windows. Some people might need the GUI. If it is all accessible, then we have choice. Choice is good! -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Hodgson Sent: Tuesday, December 6, 2016 3:43 PM To: Blind sysadmins list <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Administration using powershell. Hi, I would say that even with these tools the GUI is a good way of identifying that you have done the right thing, or to establish a workflow. For example, when I was learning AWS and Terraform, I had to use the GUI to start with as I hadn't come across AWS concepts much before. I was asked to learn using the command line, but found this impossible especially using a DSL for infrastructure as code. One thing though with Azure is to look at something like Terraform especially if you are familiar with the concepts as it will save you a lot of time over the GUI or using PowerShell commands. I don't know whether Azure has a similar system to CloudFormation on AWS? Andrew. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Darragh Ó Héiligh Sent: 06 December 2016 16:29 To: Blind sysadmins list <blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org> Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Administration using powershell. On the topic of using PowerShell as a full alternative to various inefficient UI's, I'd be really interested in hearing from someone who uses PowerShell exclusively for administering any system. Especially Active Directory, DFS, IIS, Office365, Azure VPN, Azure VM's, VMware VM's, SCCM and AzureSQL PAS. If there are people using PowerShell exclusively for administration of any of these applications, it would be fantastic to colaberate on building a repository of helpful scripts. Or, if there's one already out there, contributing to it. 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