Getting Started with PowerShell

PowerShell is an essential tool for any IT professional. Whether you’re managing Windows endpoints, automating Active Directory tasks, or querying Microsoft Graph, PowerShell is the backbone of modern Windows administration.

Why PowerShell?

As an IT desktop engineer, you’ll encounter PowerShell in various scenarios:

• Intune/Endpoint Manager — Device management via Microsoft Graph
• Active Directory — User and group management
• Office 365 — Exchange, SharePoint, and Teams administration
• Automation — Scheduled tasks and CI/CD pipelines

Prerequisites

Before diving in, ensure you have:

1. Windows 10/11 or Windows Server 2019+
2. PowerShell 5.1 or higher (7.x recommended)
3. VS Code with PowerShell extension

Your First Script

Let’s create a simple script to gather system information:

# Get-SystemInfo.ps1
# System Information Gatherer

$ComputerInfo = @{
    ComputerName = $env:COMPUTERNAME
    OS = (Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_OperatingSystem).Caption
    Version = (Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_OperatingSystem).Version
    LastBoot = (Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_OperatingSystem).LastBootUpTime
    Uptime = ((Get-Date) - (Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_OperatingSystem).LastBootUpTime).ToString()
}

$ComputerInfo | ConvertTo-Json

Running the Script

Save the code above as Get-SystemInfo.ps1 and run:

.\Get-SystemInfo.ps1

Understanding the Pipeline

One of PowerShell’s most powerful features is the pipeline:

# Get all processes using more than 100MB of memory
Get-Process | 
    Where-Object { $_.WorkingSet64 -gt 100MB } | 
    Sort-Object WorkingSet64 -Descending | 
    Select-Object -First 10 Name, @{N='MemoryMB';E={[math]::Round($_.WorkingSet64/1MB,2)}}

Working with Objects

Everything in PowerShell is an object. This makes it incredibly powerful:

# Get the current date as an object
Get-Date

# Access properties
(Get-Date).DayOfWeek

# Call methods
(Get-Date).AddDays(7)

Best Practices

1. Always use -WhatIf for destructive operations
2. Use strict mode with Set-StrictMode -Version Latest
3. Comment your code — Future you will thank present you
4. Use verbs from the approved list — Get, Set, New, Remove, etc.

Next Steps

In future articles, we’ll cover:

• Working with APIs (REST endpoints)
• Graph API authentication
• Building modular scripts
• Error handling
• Creating scheduled tasks

Stay tuned!

# Quick test - run this to verify PowerShell is working
Write-Host "PowerShell is working!" -ForegroundColor Green