PowerShell MVP and prodigious PowerShell blogger Keith Hill has converted his very popular Effective PowerShell blog series into a FREE Ebook.  You can download it HERE.

Here is a taste of you’ll you’ll get:

Table of Contents
Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………1
Item 1: Four Cmdlets that are the Keys to Discovery within PowerShell …………………………………………………………1
Key #1: Get-Command …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………1
Key #2: Get-Help …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………2
Key #3: Get-Member …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..5
Key #4: Get-PSDrive …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….6
PowerShell 2.0 Update …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………7
Item 2: Understanding Output …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………8
Output is Always a .NET Object ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………8
Function Output Consists of Everything That Isn’t Captured ………………………………………………………………………9
Other Types of Output That Can’t Be Captured …………………………………………………………………………………….. 11
Item 3: Know What Objects Are Flowing Down the Pipeline ……………………………………………………………………… 12
Item 4: Output Cardinality – Scalars, Collections and Empty Sets – Oh My! ………………………………………………….. 15
Working with Scalars ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 15
Working with Collections ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 16
Working with Empty Sets ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 17
Item 5: Use the Objects, Luke. Use the Objects! ……………………………………………………………………………………… 19
Item 6: Know Your Output Formatters ……………………………………………………………………………………………………. 22
Item 7: Understanding PowerShell Parsing Modes …………………………………………………………………………………… 31
Item 8: Understanding ByPropertyName Pipeline Bound Parameters ………………………………………………………… 35
Item 9: Understanding ByValue Pipeline Bound Parameters ……………………………………………………………………… 38
Item 10: Regular Expressions – One of the Power Tools in PowerShell ……………………………………………………….. 42
PowerShell 2.0 Update ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 43
Item 11: Comparing Arrays …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 43
Item 12: Use Set-PSDebug -Strict In Your Scripts – Religiously ……………………………………………………………………. 45
PowerShell 2.0 Update ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 47
Item 13: Commenting Out Lines in a Script File ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 47
PowerShell 2.0 Update ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 48

Experiment! Enjoy! Engage!

Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]
Windows Management Partner Architect
Visit the Windows PowerShell Team blog at:    http://blogs.msdn.com/PowerShell
Visit the Windows PowerShell ScriptCenter at:  http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/hubs/msh.mspx