PowerShell in 70-410?

nolaron

Hi all. Taking 70-410 in March and my weakest topic is PowerShell. I know about "Learn PowerShell in a Month of Lunches" but is that an overkill? Regardless, it's on my reading list but what I need to focus on right now is just what will get me through 410. A coworker of mine took the test and PowerShell failed him. He missed a few questions and of course the test adapted to him and kept grilling him. I'm hoping to avoid that fate. Any advice is appreciated!!

knownhero

You can't really go into much information on what was asked but your best bet is to learn then UI and then try it in PowerShell.

poolmanjim

Powershell in a Month of Lunches hedges more on teaching the reader scripting. The MCSA exams do not care if you can write a complex powershell script with all the bells and whistles.

The MCSA is interested in the individual cmdlets and maybe a little syntax around them (know foreach-object, where-object, select-object, and the filtering cmdlets). Its looking more for the how to. Like how do you create a new Active Directory user account or what command will set the IP address on a server. That kind of stuff.

Microsoft doesn't really tell you what Powershell to know. The advice I give is if it shows up as an objective, know how to do it. For everything you know how to do there is likely both a powershell and command-line way to do it, learn both. If there isn't a Powershell way to do it, keep looking, there probably is. If you still can't find it, memorize the command-line way. If you can't find that, keep looking.

mgmguy1

I recently discovered that there are a few versions on Powershell. Back a few monthes ago I bought a book "Powershell in a Month of Lunches"
which covered powershell 2.0. Now I see on AMazon they have a 3.0 book. Does anybody know what powershell version we should be focused on ?
Version 3 or 4 would be my guess.

PowerShell and Windows versions ^


[TH="align: left"]PowerShell Version[/TH]
[TH="align: left"]Release Date[/TH]
[TH="align: left"]Default Windows Versions[/TH]


PowerShell 2.0
October 2009
Windows 7 Windows Server 2008 R2 (**)


PowerShell 3.0
September 2012
Windows 8 Windows Server 2012


PowerShell 4.0
October 2013
Windows 8.1 Windows Server 2012 R2


PowerShell 5.0
April 2014 (***)
Windows 10

Dojiscalper

You only need the first few chapters of "Power in a month of Lunches" to know enough for the 410. Most important is learning the syntax enough that you can recognize a correct command from an incorrect one.

AndersonSmith

Once again Poolmanjim hit the nail on the head! When I was studying for my MCSA exams I would learn how to do something in the GUI and then learn how to do the same thing with Powershell. The key is to lab everything in the GUI and in Powershell both several times. If there was even a checkbox or radio button or a drop down menu on a screen I would figure out how to manipulate it with Powershell. It's really not as scary as some would make it out to be if you take your time with it. I had virtually no Powershell knowledge going into my MCSA studies but was able to pass all 3 exams on the first attempt due to dedicated study habits. Like Poolmanjim said, I wouldn't worry so much about complex scripting and such. I watched about 1/4 of a Powershell course on Pluralsight to get the basics and if I remember right I think I watched about the same amount of another one on Infinite Skills. A lot of it came though just came from trial and error. If I didn't know the command for how to manipulate something in whatever environment I was currently working in I would Google it or look it up on Technet. Don't let it overwhelm you, it's totally reasonable. Good luck!

nolaron

Thank you all VERY much for all of your input. This certainly makes me feel more comfortable. I have found some lists of common used cmdlets so I'll start focusing there. I believe I'll also make myself use PS for everything at work. I have 2 months left before my exam so I really hope I can get this down in time. My boss went ahead and ordered the new version of PowerShell in a Month of Lunches for me, so I'll go over some of that as well.