Preface

The second edition of this book was based on PowerShell v2. Since then we’ve seen a number of PowerShell releases—the current one is v5.1 with v6 in beta as we write. PowerShell use has grown astronomically to the extent that the PowerShell community is large enough to support independent conferences in North America, Europe, and Asia. User groups are available in all parts of the world.

PowerShell v2 was a big release bringing modules, remoting, and jobs. Subsequent releases have been as big in terms of their impact—PowerShell v3 brought PowerShell workflows and the CIM cmdlets; PowerShell v4 brought Desired State Configuration; and PowerShell v5 brought the ability to write classes in PowerShell. Those are only the headline items—under the covers there are a host of other changes that extend and improve PowerShell. All of this change demands a new edition of the book.