As many IT professionals may already know, PowerShell is a powerful tool.
In this compilation of our latest articles, we explore various facets of the command line shell and scripting language, ranging from its ability to write code to its integration with Active Directory and Azure Active Directory. With the guidance of PowerShell expert Brien Posey, these articles offer step-by-step instructions, troubleshooting tips, and demonstrations through video tutorials.
Read on to improve your PowerShell skills and knowledge.
Can ChatGPT Write PowerShell Code?
After conducting tests on ChatGPT, PowerShell expert Brien Posey found that the large language model can indeed generate PowerShell code. However, ChatGPT hasn’t yet perfected its craft. While the experiments revealed inaccuracies, they also highlight potential uses in PowerShell script creation.
Mastering Windows File System Navigation with PowerShell
In this video, Posey demonstrates effective methods for navigating the Windows file system using PowerShell. These include commands inherited from DOS and PowerShell cmdlets.
How To Import the PowerShell Active Directory Module
This guide walks readers through the process of importing the Active Directory module in both Windows Server and Windows operating systems. Additionally, the article includes troubleshooting tips for common errors.
How To Split a String in PowerShell
Posey discusses working with strings in PowerShell and how to break a string into smaller parts using different methods. The article primarily focuses on two techniques for splitting strings.
How to Sign PowerShell Scripts
Discover the added security of using trusted digital certificates to sign your PowerShell scripts. This downloadable guide explains how to create an Enterprise Certificate Authority on a Windows Server, acquire a certificate, and use it to sign a PowerShell script for enhanced security.
Secure Sensitive Information in PowerShell Scripts With Encryption
PowerShell scripts often include passwords and other sensitive data that could pose a security risk if accessed by unauthorized individuals. Watch this video tutorial on encrypting and decrypting within PowerShell scripts.
How To Access Azure AD in PowerShell
Posey explains the benefits of using PowerShell for Azure Active Directory management. Learn how to install the Azure AD module, establish a connection to PowerShell, and use the module’s cmdlets to interact with Azure AD.
How To Export PowerShell Command History To Make a Script
Once you find an effective combination of PowerShell commands, it’s easy to export your command history to create a script. This tutorial explains the process of exporting your command history and cleaning up the file for further use.
Use PowerShell To Scan Networks for Connected Devices
Posey shows how PowerShell can identify connected devices on a network, using MAC addresses to determine their manufacturers. The article provides a sample script and explains how the script works.
About the Author(s)
Henry Chapman is a freelance writer and contributor to ITPro Today and Data Center Knowledge.
1. PSReadLine
This one is an easy first call for me. I could write an entire article on just this module, and my team would make me trim it down because it’s too long. PSReadLine is the ultimate tool to get the most value out of PowerShell. The module adds several features that just make everything easier. You have the history it can pull up to cut down on the time spent typing.
You can use it to open inline help, which takes you to the help documentation and even to the section of the command you are working on without needing to step out of your session.
Then, I pressed F1 to open the help menu.
It can also utilize AI predictors for modules you are currently using, making recommendations specific to larger modules to help you get results more quickly. The best current example of this is the Azure feedback provider, which helps sift through the thousands of commands to get what you need very fast. There is so much to this one; I recommend you check out the PSReadLine 2.2 GA article by Jason Helmick for a quick look into all it can do.
2. dbatools
If you are looking to become an expert on keeping your databases clean, this module is so robust that there’s a dbatools book on how to get the most out of it.
3. PowerShellAI
Some people may use it to research commands and as an aid to get the most out of those commands, but those who know its true value use it for mundane trivia.
But that’s not all it can do. You also can use DALL-E if the need for a random AI image arises. The value here is too great to measure.
Get-DalleImage "Velociraptor doing the macarena"
Bonus: Image2Text
There’s no better way to highlight this than by combining the DALL-E image from the PowerShellAI module with this module. I saved myself a thousand words here.
$Image = Get-DalleImage "Kitten kungfu fighting an alligator"
New-Image2Text -ImagePath $Image -OutputTxtPath C:\temp\kitten.txt
I have never struggled to write a blog this much. There are thousands of modules, and picking a favorite is not easy. Then I have limited space to do the write-up for each, and it feels inadequate. I do know that if you have ever thought to yourself, “I wish PowerShell could do X,” you are not the first to think it, and someone likely has built a module to help you out.
I interview people from the PowerShell community every week on The PowerShell Podcast, and one question I always ask is, “What are your three favorite modules?” You always get a few duplicates over the years, but every guest has at least one that is new to me. You should spend some time in the module world if you’re looking to get the most out of PowerShell.
Jordan had spent his life wondering why tasks he didn’t like to do had no options to complete themselves. Eventually he had to make that happen on his own. It turned out that he enjoyed making tasks complete themselves, and PDQ thought that is something he should talk about on the internet.
Here are my top picks. Click to skip to course details:
What is PowerShell?
As a command-line shell, PowerShell has clear benefits like easy automation. But it also differs from the traditional command-line shell in a few ways, like how it operates on objects over text, how it has cmdlets, and how it has many different types of commands.
Stats
- 6 of the courses in this ranking are free, 2 are paid
- Five of the courses are beginner-friendly, while three are for intermediates or all levels
- Most of the courses do not require familiarity with the command line
- 3.8K people follow Class Central’s PowerShell Subject.
Best Free Text-Based Course for PowerShell Beginners (Microsoft)
By the end of this free text-based course, you’ll be able to create and run script files to automate tedious tasks locally, remotely, and on the Azure cloud.
To enroll in this course you should have some familiarity with the command line. You’ll learn hands-on by going through the tutorials that come with an interactive shell in the browser. You’ll get badges, points, and trophies for completing the modules.
What you’ll learn:
- Powershell basics and more advanced skills
- Explore the built-in help system for inspecting command arguments and return types
- Gain proficiency in the pipeline to transfer output between files
- Learn basic programming concepts such as variables and flow-control for automating complex tasks
- Write and run Powershell scripts
- Automate simple tasks using Powershell
- Manage and troubleshoot errors in scripts
- Explore Azure Powershell for local management of Azure resources from the terminal.
Microsoft Learn is a free, online training platform that provides interactive learning for Microsoft products and programming languages, including C++, C#, Python, and TypeScript.
If you want to learn about using the PowerShell pipeline, take a look at Work with the Windows PowerShell Pipeline by Microsoft Learn.
| Organization | Microsoft |
| Provider | Microsoft Learn |
| Level | Beginner |
| Workload | 2–3 hours |
| Certificate | Free |
Best Free Comprehensive PowerShell Course for Beginners (John Savil)
In this course, you will:
- Learn the fundamentals of PowerShell
- Explore pre-PowerShell interfaces and basic structure of commandlets and modules
- Understand objects and leverage the PowerShell pipeline for flexible output redirection
- Learn to use the remoting module for cross-platform PowerShell work
- Create and run scripts for task automation
- Explore advanced scripting techniques
- Data Parsing, States, and Azure Automation in PowerShell
- Explore sections related to Azure automation and functions in the final lectures.
John Savill is a Principal Cloud Solutions Architect at Microsoft. He holds many Microsoft certifications including Azure Infrastructure and Azure Architecture specialist. He is the author of eight books on Microsoft technologies including Mastering Microsoft Azure Infrastructure Services and Mastering Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V.
| Channel | John Savill’s Technical Training |
| Provider | YouTube |
| Instructor | John Savill |
| Level | Beginner |
| Workload | 10 hours |
| Certificate | None |
Best Free PowerShell Course for IT Professionals (Kamil Pro)
You’ll need a Windows machine (preferably you should run Windows server edition as a virtual machine) to get started with this course.
What you’ll learn:
- Start with the essential help feature for quick answers within the shell
- Run commands for directory navigation and file creation
- Utilize pipelines for formatting and filtering command output
- Explore providers as blueprints for managing different data stores
- Learn to remotely manage systems using PowerShell
- Master scripting with programming concepts like variables and conditionals
- Explore PowerShell cmdlets and other concepts
- Use PowerShell for web scraping and interfacing with APIs
- Discover potential opportunities with PowerShell beyond the course
All the videos and related exercises are available for free and each video is 20-30 minutes long – thus you can easily find spare time to learn. Kamil is an IT Developer at Mott MacDonald. He has posted many helpful guides and tutorials on several technologies on his blog.
| Channel | Kamil Pro |
| Provider | YouTube |
| Instructor | Kamil Procyszyn |
| Level | Intermediate |
| Workload | 9 hours |
| Certificate | None |
Most Entertaining Free Video-Based Overview of PowerShell (Microsoft)
In this free series of videos on PowerShell from Microsoft, your hosts Jason Helmick and Jeffrey Snover (the inventor of PowerShell!) discuss everything needed to work effectively with Powershell.
Although the PowerShell version used in this course is 3.0, much of the information in this course is still relevant to this day (as PowerShell forward compatible meaning that anything you wrote in PowerShell 3.0 will still work in 7.0). Plus, it also teaches you the mindset behind PowerShell which will never go out of date.
In this course, you will:
- Learn installation, management, and customization of PowerShell
- Be introduced to the essential help system to alleviate fear of the command line
- Explore the pipeline, import/export file types, and work with objects
- Dig into sorting, selecting objects, and understanding pipeline functionality
- Learn to extend the shell by finding and adding snap-ins, modules, and commands
- Utilize remoting to run PowerShell commands on remote systems
- Discover the usefulness of remoting in automation
- Cover automation through scripting, PowerShell security goals, execution policy, and variables
Jason Helmick is the Program Manager of PowerShell at Microsoft. He’s an avid supporter of the PowerShell/DevOps community and former founder and CFO of PowerShell.Org. He has also authored and co-authored several books on PowerShell.
Jeffrey Snover is a Microsoft Technical Fellow, PowerShell Chief Architect, and the Chief Architect for the Azure Infrastructure and Management group. He is more commonly known as the inventor of PowerShell.
| Institution | Microsoft |
| Provider | Microsoft Learn |
| Instructor | Jason Helmick and Jeffrey Snover |
| Level | Intermediate |
| Workload | 6 hours |
| Certificate | None |
Best Free Course for Beginners with Interactive Tutorials (Rain Sallow)
The PowerShell Koans are a set of free exercises designed to get you familiar with PowerShell 5.0 and above through hands-on code-writing. The koans (questions) start very simple to get you familiar with the basic concepts and progress towards more difficult ones. After working through the exercises, you’ll have a good understanding of the syntax of PowerShell and scripting.
What you’ll learn in this course:
- The 6 modules are: Introduction, Foundations, Katas, Cmdlets 1, Constructs and Patterns, Cmdlets 2
- Each koan is represented by a failing Pester test, making hands-on learning practical
- The Introduction teaches basic programming and PowerShell concepts
- Includes assertions, data types, and cmdlets
- Arrays, comparisons, conditionals, functions, order of operations, hash tables, loops, and pipelines are covered in the Foundations moduleKatas is a short module on processing strings and sorting characters
- Various useful cmdlets are introduced in the Cmdlets modules 1 and 2, plus object methods like SelectObject and MeasureObject, and more
- The Constructs and Patterns module teaches about lists, StringBuilders, advanced functions, redirection, error handling, regular expressions, etc.
| Provider | GitHub |
| Instructor | Rain Sallow |
| Level | Beginner |
| Workload | N/A |
| Certificate | None |
Best course on PowerShell 7.0 (LinkedIn Learning)
No prior experience with PowerShell or the command-line is required for this course. If you want to learn PowerShell while at the same time learning the features available in version 7.0 of PowerShell, then this LinkedIn Learning course is for you.
By the end, you’ll be able to automate, inspect, and manage your IT environment efficiently and with ease. Learn by watching the lecture videos, answering the chapter-wise quiz, and trying your hands on the exercise files given in the course.
You will learn to:
- Configure and set up PowerShell and choose a development environment
- Explore basic PowerShell syntax
- Write new commands and execute existing ones
- Work with data, specific object types, and utilize commands on your machine
- Basic Programming Concepts: learn variables and control-flow for scripting and begin writing your first script
- Understand remote script execution capabilities
- Prioritize navigation of file systems and data retrieval from files, including JSON files
- Explore new updated commands and properties in PowerShell 7
| Provider | LinkedIn Learning |
| Instructor | Liam Cleary |
| Level | Beginner |
| Workload | 4 hours |
| Enrollments | 38K |
| Likes | 4.6 / 5.0 (776) |
| Certificate | Paid |
Best Free Course for IT Professionals with Interactive Tutorials (underthewire.tech)
Screenshot taken from Underthewire.tech Cyborg CTF Walkthrough.
You should have basic familiarity with the command line and cybersecurity concepts prior to taking this course.
What you’ll learn:
- The 5 wargames are Century, Cyborg, Groot, Oracle, and Trebek
- Century is the most basic wargame. It focuses on parsing files, usage of PowerShell operators, file searches and general navigation techniques in a Windows environment
- Cyborg covers slightly more advanced topics like working Active Directory, AppLocker policies, Alternate Data Streams and auto-start items
- Groot contains a wide range of topics like file hashing, working with Windows registry, getting information about filesystems, managing firewall rules, getting BIOS info, and more
- Oracle meanwhile will have you filter through Windows event logs, manage group policies, and extract recently visited websites and remote desktop sessions from Windows registry
- The final wargame includes topics like working with Windows scheduled tasks, event logs parsing, and auto-run.
This website was inspired by a very similar website but for Bash scripting called صire. The idea of Under the Wire was conceived on a business trip between two co-workers in 2015.
| Website | underthewire.tech |
| Level | Intermediate |
| Workload | N/A |
| Certificate | None |
Best PowerShell Course Focused on Scripting (itpro.tv)
PowerShell Skills is a paid course designed to teach beginners about PowerShell and get them started in writing PowerShell scripts.
No prerequisite knowledge is required for this course. Certain parts of the course can be skipped. If you’re new with PowerShell, start with the basics. If you’re familiar with PowerShell but new to scripting, start with scripting basics. If you’re familiar with scripting but want to take it to the next level, start with practical scripting.
In this course, you’ll learn about three domains: PowerShell basics, scripting basics, and practical scripting:
- In the first domain, you’ll learn what PowerShell is and what it is used for, how to install it, and basic configurations that you’ll need to work efficiently with PowerShell
- The second domain covers basic scripting concepts needed to automate common tasks. You’ll learn about data structures (arrays and hash tables), arithmetic, assignment, comparison, and logical operators
- The second domain also covers flow-control statements like if, switch, foreach, for, do, and while statements. All these concepts will help you build the best script for your automation needs.
- Finally, the third domain takes scripting a step further by exploring practical uses in the real-world. You’ll learn how to prompt for user input, archive files by dates, and compare hash values of different objects.
Mike Rodrick is a tech enthusiast working at ITPro.TV as a technical instructor. He became a Microsoft Certified Trainer in 2004, and since then has been helping people get their Microsoft certifications since Windows 2000 Server.
| Provider | itpro.tv |
| Instructor | Mike Rodrick |
| Level | Beginner |
| Workload | 8 hours |
| Certificate | Paid |
More PowerShell Resources
Find free ebooks and videos at PowerShell.org.
Best Courses Guides (BCG) Methodology
- Research: I (Elham) started by leveraging Class Central’s Catalog and the internet to find a variety of free and paid open courses, some with certificates
- Evaluate: I read through reviews on Class Central, Reddit, and course providers to understand what other learners thought about each course and combined it with my own experience as a learner. I examined courses and instructors that covered a range of presentation styles, including the basics and more advanced topics. I watched some course videos to sample courses I hadn’t already taken
- Select: Well-made courses were picked if they presented valuable and engaging content and fit criteria including comprehensive curriculum, affordability, ratings and enrollments. Ultimately, I used a combination of data and my own judgment to make these picks. I’m confident these recommendations will be a reliable way to learn Powershell.
Pat revised the research and the latest version of this article.
