You may have heard of PowerShell, but do you know what it’s capable of? Gone are the days of long, painful STSADM batch files – we have Windows PowerShell, and it’s here to stay.Learn how you can use Windows PowerShell both to perform simple one-off tasks as well as complex, bulk operations. Leveraging the Object Model gives Administrators and Developers the ability to do in a few lines of code what would’ve taken a lot more work (and probably a Developer or two) in the WSS platform.You’ll see how you can get started with PowerShell, and you will hopefully leave with not only a greater understanding of what PowerShell is – but what it is capable of and how you can start using it to automate tasks in your SharePoint 2010 environment.

1. Getting Started with
SharePoint + PowerShell
Ryan Dennis
@SharePointRyan
www.SharePointRyan.com

2. Learn PowerShell. 24/7, Anywhere.
Enter POWERSAT at checkout to save
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3. SeeShell
Simple and Effective
Data Visualization
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4. About The Speaker
Ryan Dennis, MCTS, MCPD, MCITP
Senior SharePoint Engineer @ ICC
Microsoft Virtual Technology Specialist (vTSP)
www.SharePointRyan.com
@SharePointRyan
linkedin.com/in/sharepointryan
ryan@sharepointryan.com

5. Windows PowerShell
…is a task-based command-line shell and
scripting language designed especially for
Windows system administration
…has a task-based scripting language
…includes powerful object manipulation
capabilities
…is built on the .NET Framework

6. Verb-Noun
PowerShell uses a Verb-Noun syntax for its
Cmdlets
• Get-Something
• Set-Something
• New-Something
• Remove-Something

7. Get-Command & Get-Help
• While you can do a lot of the same things
as the typical command prompt, use Get-
Command to see available commands
• Use Get-Help <cmdlet> to get help
information for a cmdlet

8. Using PowerShell Profiles
• PowerShell uses 2 profiles, a user specific
profile and a machine-wide profile…
• Use profiles to pre-load
scripts, functions, environmental
variables, shell settings, aliases, etc.

9. Script Editors & Tools
• Notepad.exe (Lame)
• Notepad++ (Less Lame)
• Windows PowerShell ISE (Pretty Good -
includes IntelliSense, Syntax highlighting)
• Quest PowerGUI (Awesome – Adds
advanced debugging, and other cool
things – don’t worry, I’ll show you!)
• Others…

10. SharePoint 2010 Cmdlets
• 500+ Cmdlets…
• MUCH better than STSADM.exe…
• Can automate complete installations and
configurations…
• Still doesn’t answer every scenario, leaving
gaps in functionality…
– Example: Get, New and Remove SharePoint
Groups – no cmdlet, easy to write a custom
function though…

11. Creating a SharePoint Web Application using out-of-the-box
PowerShell Cmdlets
DEMONSTRATION

12. Demo Recap
• Used New-SPWebApplication to create a
new SharePoint Web Application…
• Stored the SPWebApplication object into
the $webapp variable
• Used Get-Member to view Methods and
Properties associated with the Web
Application

13. Creating a SharePoint Site Collection using out-of-the-box
PowerShell Cmdlets
DEMONSTRATION TWO

14. Demo Recap
• Used New-SPSite to create a new SharePoint Site
Collection…
• Stored the SPSite object into the $site variable
• Created a $web variable from $site.rootweb
• Used the $web variable to change the Site Title
using the SP Object Model
• Used Get-History and Pipeline to create a simple
script from our command history…
• Cool right, but what if we could make this
reusable???  (Hint: we can)

15. Extending PowerShell with Scripts
and Functions
• PowerShell Scripts have .ps1 file extension…
• Scripts and functions behave similarly if not
identically, but functions are more reusable…
• Scripts can reference functions and cmdlets…
• Functions can include other functions within
them and can also reference cmdlets…

16. Using what we already learned and making it better.
DEMONSTRATION THREE

17. Demo Recap
• Used the following cmdlets in conjunction with the
pipeline to automagically build a function based on
what we did in our first demonstration:
– Get-History
– Select-Object
– Out-File
• Used Quest PowerGUI to edit our function by
adding Parameters, eliminating hard-coded values…
• Added comment-based help from PowerGUI
Snippet…
• Tried out our cool, new function…

18. The Power IS in the Shell, Use it
Wisely!
• PowerShell is VERY powerful, be aware of
memory issues...
• Use dispose() method for Site and Web
objects, or better yet…
• Use Start-SPAssignment –Global to capture all
objects in the Global store, then use
Stop-SPAssignment –Global to dispose of all
objects…

19. Get-Resources
1. TechNet for general PowerShell information…
2. The Hey, Scripting Guy! blog
3. Get-SPScripts.com
4. Gary Lapointe
5. Get-Help in a PowerShell window…
6. SharePointRyan.com (yes, my blog)…

20. Got-Questions -?
Ryan Dennis, MCTS, MCPD, MCITP
Senior SharePoint Engineer @ ICC
Microsoft Virtual Technology Specialist (vTSP)
www.SharePointRyan.com
@SharePointRyan
linkedin.com/in/sharepointryan
ryan@sharepointryan.com