Lee Holmes - Windows PowerShell Cookbook: The Complete Guide to Scripting Microsofts Command Shell

In late 2002, Slashdot posted a story about a next-generation shell rumored to be in development at Microsoft. As a longtime fan of the power unlocked by shells and their scripting languages, the post immediately captured my interest. Could this shell provide the command-line power and productivity Id long loved on Unix systems?

Since I had just joined Microsoft six months earlier, I jumped at the chance to finally get to the bottom of a Slashdot-sourced Microsoft Mystery. The post talked about strong integration with the .NET Framework, so I posted a query to an internal C# mailing list. I got a response that the project was called Monad, which I then used to track down an internal prototype build.

Prototype was a generous term. In its early stages, the build was primarily a proof of concept. Want to clear the screen? No problem! Just lean on the Enter key until your previous commands and output scroll out of view! But even at these early stages, it was immediately clear that Monad marked a revolution in command-line shells. As with many things of this magnitude, its beauty was self-evident. Monad passed full-fidelity .NET objects between its commands. For even the most complex commands, Monad abolished the (until now, standard) need for fragile text-based parsing. Simple and powerful data manipulation tools supported this new model, creating a shell both powerful and easy to use.

I joined the Monad development team shortly after that to help do my part to bring this masterpiece of technology to the rest of the world. Since then, Monad has grown to become a real, tangible productnow called Windows PowerShell.

So why write a book about it? And why this book?

Many users have picked up PowerShell for the sake of learning PowerShell. Any tangible benefits come by way of side effect. Others, though, might prefer to opportunistically learn a new technology as it solves their needs. How do you use PowerShell to navigate the filesystem? How can you manage files and folders? Retrieve a web page?

This book focuses squarely on helping you learn PowerShell through task-based solutions to your most pressing problems. Read a recipe, read a chapter, or read the entire bookregardless, youre bound to learn something.