1 00:00:00,940 --> 00:00:02,640 But how did we get here? 2 00:00:02,640 --> 00:00:05,720 In order to fully understand why PowerShell matters, 3 00:00:05,720 --> 00:00:09,990 I think it helps to know how things used to be. Back in the day 4 00:00:09,990 --> 00:00:14,540 when I started my IT career, when it came to systems management or 5 00:00:14,540 --> 00:00:19,420 even anything approaching automation, we used things like DOS batch files. 6 00:00:19,420 --> 00:00:20,710 Now, during the NT days, 7 00:00:20,710 --> 00:00:23,000 we were fortunate enough to get our hands on the number of, 8 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:25,800 what referred to then as Resource Kit Tools. 9 00:00:25,800 --> 00:00:29,450 These were command‑line utilities designed for managing Windows and 10 00:00:29,450 --> 00:00:32,900 Windows servers. Although, every command had its his own syntax, so 11 00:00:32,900 --> 00:00:37,080 the learning curve was a little steep. Now eventually, because we're 12 00:00:37,080 --> 00:00:38,570 talking about Windows after all, 13 00:00:38,570 --> 00:00:41,300 Microsoft gave us the Microsoft Management Console, 14 00:00:41,300 --> 00:00:42,880 or MMC. 15 00:00:42,880 --> 00:00:45,970 This set of tools offered an interactive GUI for 16 00:00:45,970 --> 00:00:48,640 managing the things we needed to manage. 17 00:00:48,640 --> 00:00:52,020 Shortly after that, VBScript became a thing for IT pros, 18 00:00:52,020 --> 00:00:55,250 and I spent a lot of my early career mastering VBScript. 19 00:00:55,250 --> 00:00:59,040 In fact, my first book was on VBScript. 20 00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:00,740 Now, if we were lucky, 21 00:01:00,740 --> 00:01:04,140 other vendors may have supplied command‑line tools or VBScript 22 00:01:04,140 --> 00:01:07,040 files that we could use to manage their stuff. 23 00:01:07,040 --> 00:01:09,980 IT pros interested in automation spend a lot of time 24 00:01:09,980 --> 00:01:13,540 bundling all of these things together. 25 00:01:13,540 --> 00:01:14,260 Eventually, 26 00:01:14,260 --> 00:01:18,230 reality and changes in the IT landscape forced Microsoft and IT 27 00:01:18,230 --> 00:01:21,640 pros to recognize things needed to change. 28 00:01:21,640 --> 00:01:22,500 First off, 29 00:01:22,500 --> 00:01:26,880 a graphical tool can only do what it is designed to do. Now, 30 00:01:26,880 --> 00:01:29,200 most of these tools simply don't scale. 31 00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:31,630 Now, I don't want to create one mailbox at a time. 32 00:01:31,630 --> 00:01:35,740 I need to create 100 at a time. 33 00:01:35,740 --> 00:01:37,840 Now, you've probably seen this as well. 34 00:01:37,840 --> 00:01:41,980 Automation and efficiency are becoming more and more critical. 35 00:01:41,980 --> 00:01:44,440 Companies can't afford to do things manually. 36 00:01:44,440 --> 00:01:45,700 In addition to speed, 37 00:01:45,700 --> 00:01:49,250 automation also implies consistency. With an automated 38 00:01:49,250 --> 00:01:51,910 process, if Paula kicks off a task, 39 00:01:51,910 --> 00:01:54,860 say to create 200 new users in Active Directory, 40 00:01:54,860 --> 00:01:57,640 the same process will happen when I run it. 41 00:01:57,640 --> 00:02:00,780 Paula no longer has to worry if I'm going to forget a step 42 00:02:00,780 --> 00:02:03,540 in a manual checklist and mess things up. 43 00:02:03,540 --> 00:02:07,540 In fact, automation can also serve as documentation. 44 00:02:07,540 --> 00:02:10,430 And if you've been in IT at all, the last few years you know 45 00:02:10,430 --> 00:02:12,940 that the culture of DevOps is spreading. 46 00:02:12,940 --> 00:02:16,340 Now this supplies automation tools and languages. 47 00:02:16,340 --> 00:02:19,820 I don't know exactly how much of this Microsoft recognized years ago, 48 00:02:19,820 --> 00:02:23,140 but they did know that despite the name of Windows, 49 00:02:23,140 --> 00:02:25,940 enterprise management is done at a console, which 50 00:02:25,940 --> 00:02:28,640 meant they needed a new direction. 51 00:02:28,640 --> 00:02:31,040 If you recall the days of Windows XP, 52 00:02:31,040 --> 00:02:33,750 we had a sneak peek at where Microsoft was going. 53 00:02:33,750 --> 00:02:36,900 Now you might remember the WMIC command‑line tool, 54 00:02:36,900 --> 00:02:42,140 which gave you immediate and easy access to system information from WMI. 55 00:02:42,140 --> 00:02:46,340 If you look at the get command and result, it might even look familiar. 56 00:02:46,340 --> 00:02:55,000 That's because WMIC was the first major project at Microsoft for Jeffrey Snover. Yep, that's right, the future father of PowerShell.