Preface
PowerShell was first introduced to the world at the Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles in 2003 by Jeffrey Snover. Code-named Monad, it represented a complete revolution in management. A white paper written around that time, The Monad Manifesto (refer to http://www.jsnover.com/blog/2011/10/01/monad-manifesto/), remains an amazing analysis of the problem at the time, that of managing large numbers of Windows systems. A key takeaway is that the GUI does not scale, whereas PowerShell does.
PowerShell has transformed the management of complex, network-based Windows infrastructure, and, increasingly, non-Windows infrastructure. Knowledge of PowerShell and how to get the most from PowerShell is now obligatory for any IT professional. The popular adage continues to be true: learn PowerShell or learn golf.
Windows PowerShell was developed on Windows for Windows administrators. PowerShell 7, the open-source successor, is also available for Mac and most of the more popular Linux distributions. This book, however, concentrates on PowerShell within a Windows environment.
This book takes you through the use of PowerShell in a variety of scenarios, using many of the rich set of features included in Windows Server 2022 and 2019. This preface provides you with an introduction to what is in the book, along with some tips on how to get the most out of it.
