PowerShell

Am I even allowed to say this? "I hate PowersShell" I really do. It seems like I am the only one. Sure, nifty stuff I get it. Script anything, XML... I really do get it. I am just not impressed.

Please stop placing useful features only in PowerShell, I hate that. I am sick of hearing my Cbtnugget videos go "and you can only do this from powershell", "you need to memorize this esoteric process in powershell" and "you used to do this from exchange system manager, but now it's command line"

Seriously... sigh. At least add a SSH client!

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Comments

HeroPsycho

Let me know how you feel the first time you do something really cool with barely any effort with PowerShell you never could have done in a GUI.

P.S. SSH?! It's called WinRM.

mikedisd2

If Daniel's anything like me, it's a loooong way off. It took me half an hour just to Google the command syntax to modify a dynamic distribution group. Seriously uncool compared to Exchange 2003. I know I know...

HeroPsycho

Here's the deal with PowerShell. Make a modest effort of reading a good book on PowerShell in general such as PowerShell TFM. The payoff is PowerShell works pretty similarly no matter the cmdlet or snap-ins for any product there are cmdlets for. If you can basically use it with Quest AD cmdlets, you can use it surprisingly effectively with VMware PowerCLI. With at least Microsoft making PowerShell fully integrated with all their upcoming server products, plus vendors like Citrix, NetApp, and VMware making their products PowerShell integrated, it's hard to argue against that modest time investment.

It's really amazing when you're doing things like flushing cache on over 100 DNS servers with a few command strings, or dumping DHCP configurations for 60 Windows DHCP servers, or generating a report of disk server hard disk usage data with relative ease, and I'm by no means a PowerShell expert.

Claymoore

Daniel333 wrote: »

Am I even allowed to say this? "I hate PowersShell" I really do. It seems like I am the only one. Sure, nifty stuff I get it. Script anything, XML... I really do get it. I am just not impressed.

Blasphemer! Stone him!

One some points I agree, such as give us the option of using either a gui or a script for all features, but I do not want to admin an Exchange implementation without PowerShell anymore. Try assigning 5 different tiers of mailbox quotas to 1800 users spread across 8 different databases. It's easily accomplished with either group membership or a CSV file for input and a couple lines of powershell to make the changes. Or a CSV file to assign both group membership and the quota at once.

It takes a bit of time investment to get comfortable with PoSh at first, but once you start to learn the structure you can pick up commands for new snapins and modules quite easily. Soon you will have a collection of scripts that can be quickly modified for something else and you really start saving time.

Hyper-Me

If you have a couple of servers and a dozen users to manage then yeah it may not be what you need.

At my last job, there were so many users in ADUC that trying to select the ones I needed in the GUI was not only an excercise in futility, but half the time the ADUC MMC would lock up because it just cant handle 60,000 objects displaying at one time very well.

Powershell enabled me to manipulate nearly 100,000 objects in AD at the drop of a hat.

RobertKaucher

I highly suggest that you get 2 good resources on PoSh. Every single Windows admin needs to know it now, IMO.

I would suggest:
* PowerShell Cook Book
* Professional Windows PowerShell for Exchange Server 2007

The cook book has some Exchange in it but it's a bit more generic. I have not read the Pro book. I've only looked through it.

I understand your frustration, though. I have not touched Exchange 2007 in over a year and a half now... But I remember when I was first working with it. I felt very frustrated.

veritas_libertas

RobertKaucher wrote: »

I highly suggest that you get 2 good resources on PoSh. Every single Windows admin needs to know it now, IMO.

I would suggest:
* PowerShell Cook Book
* Professional Windows PowerShell for Exchange Server 2007

The cook book has some Exchange in it but it's a bit more generic. I have not read the Pro book. I've only looked through it.

I understand your frustration, though. I have not touched Exchange 2007 in over a year and a half now... But I remember when I was first working with it. I felt very frustrated.

Robert-

Is this book easy to learn from? I'm new to Powershell but I really would like to learn it

edit: I just noticed they are going to be releasing an update soon

http://www.amazon.com/Windows-PowerShell-Cookbook-Scripting-Microsofts/dp/0596801505/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274502425&sr=8-2-spell

sambuca69

Daniel333 wrote: »

Am I even allowed to say this? "I hate PowersShell" I really do. It seems like I am the only one. Sure, nifty stuff I get it. Script anything, XML... I really do get it. I am just not impressed.

Please stop placing useful features only in PowerShell, I hate that. I am sick of hearing my Cbtnugget videos go "and you can only do this from powershell", "you need to memorize this esoteric process in powershell" and "you used to do this from exchange system manager, but now it's command line"

Seriously... sigh. At least add a SSH client!

Odd to hear... Do you come from a scripting background? I found it easy to pick up, but I did vbscripting before.

Also, the help commands are really great, but I don't think people utilize them (or know of them).

RobertKaucher

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Robert-

Is this book easy to learn from? I'm new to Powershell but I really would like to learn it

edit: I just noticed they are going to be releasing an update soon

Amazon.com: Windows PowerShell Cookbook: The Complete Guide to Scripting Microsoft's New Command Shell (Oreilly Cookbooks) (9780596801502): Lee Holmes: Books

Yes, I thought so. I found some very good examples in it. The important this is just getting into it and using it to make your life easier.

Zartanasaurus

powershell. Seriously, it's great.

earweed

veritas_libertas wrote: »

Robert-

Is this book easy to learn from? I'm new to Powershell but I really would like to learn it

edit: I just noticed they are going to be releasing an update soon

Amazon.com: Windows PowerShell Cookbook: The Complete Guide to Scripting Microsoft's New Command Shell (Oreilly Cookbooks) (9780596801502): Lee Holmes: Books

I'm ordering this today!