Chapter 12. A practical interlude
It’s time to put some of your new knowledge to work. In this chapter, we’re not even going to try and teach you anything new—instead, we’re going to walk you through a detailed example using what you’ve learned. This is meant to be an absolutely real-world example: we’re going to set ourselves a task, and then let you follow our thought processes as we figure out how to complete it. This chapter is really the epitome of what this book is all about, because instead of just handing you the answer on how to do something, we’re helping you realize that you can teach yourself.
First of all, we’re going to assume that you’re working on Windows 8 or on Windows Server 2012, and that you obviously have PowerShell v3 installed (it comes with those operating systems). If you don’t have one of those versions of Windows, we strongly recommend downloading a trial version, if possible, or spinning up a virtual machine using a service like CloudShare.com. While PowerShell v3 will run on older versions of Windows, those versions don’t supply the same deep administrative integration as the newest versions of Windows. Newer versions of PowerShell are OK too.