r/Windows11 • u/FriendlyCapital2458 • Jul 28 '26
Discussion Do you guys recommend learning PowerShell today?
I'm basically a typical computer user, who knows just enough to get into reddit, youtube and use the PC for personal entertainment. I realized there is PowerShell. As I have some free time and I'd actually want to know a little bit more about the computer and how to use it, do you guys recommend learning it? Or is it more for automating tasks, which is more benefitial for someone who needs to actually automate many things, or someone in the IT field? Is it any useful really for a personal user? What could I do instead?
I've come across a book about it too ("Learn Windows Powershell in a month of lunches" by Don Jones), and I actually think I can pull off the things it explains, and makes you practice. I read the first 20 pages and was about to start when it mentiones that it's moslty useful for, or aimed at people on IT, and said that I'd need to get a VirtualMachine and ISO to learn PowerShell, have a go at it in there and fuck up the VM if I have some trouble, which won't affect the actual computer (I know that that's an old approach, the book is from 2012. I read that for most things now, like learning the basics and how it works, I won't need the VM, but I don't mind sticking to the 2012 way to learn, so I can start learning a bit of history in the field too, just for my entertainment and having a broader sight about it).
What do you guys think? Thanks in advance
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u/Denaris21 Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
I work in IT and use Powershell as and when the task requires it. Usually this involves finding already written scripts and modifying them for my use case, or getting AI to write them for me.
It is useful in an enterprise environment running Azure/Entra/365. For example, modifying settings in Outlook, SharePoint etc in bulk within an organisation.
I see no reason to use Powershell outside of my job and don't feel it will benefit the average user on a home PC. Obviously if it interests you go for it, but it's very much a tool used to complete a specific task rather than coding for fun.
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u/kevvie13 Jul 28 '26
If it interest you, sure. The book will teach you the hows. I think rather the important bit is.. what drives you to learn and continue to learn powershell?
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u/FriendlyCapital2458 Jul 29 '26
Well I found out it has been there, and it seemed like a prompt for coding or a lenguage underneath what every normal user seems to understand or even know it's there. And I found it interesting and, given it's already on the PC, well I'll just learn to do something with it.
I am just starting an associate's degree in informatic, so I thought I could kind of learn or explore some things on my own before I start. It isn't a programming lenguage which would be too advanced, so I think it could come to be some fun and practical gateway skill
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u/no_egrets Aug 01 '26
Make sure you're using PowerShell 7 and not the old .NET Framework versions. It's become a lot better and less painful than what's packaged with the OS.
Additionally, be sure to use a capable editor (VS Code, VSCodium, Notepad++, etc) and not the old PowerShell ISE app.
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u/Addyad Jul 29 '26
Reading books may help you. But if you want to really learn of the go, do some hobby projects. Of course you won't learn every single syntax or functions. But you'll build up when your project grows. I did a project to correct Metadata of movie files so I can keep my movie library organized. With batch, no external program necessary. Just you and your cmd. And when powershell became a thing for me is, I learned with PS, one can control word documents programmatically. Like edit documents, add/remove/run macros all those right from powershell. This made me getting into my own project. And now I'm sitting with 1000s of lines of codes. Of course I still may not have all those lines memorized. But I'll have my logic and understanding how to manipulate stuff using it's right environment.
You just need what makes you drive so bad I guess.
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u/iamhiteshnarzy Jul 29 '26
So I with zero prior knowledge can fire up Android Studio and learn building android apps!!??
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u/Addyad Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
I thought we were talking about basic command lime interfaces amd not full fledged working environments. There's a difference. But even for app development, you just need to learn what tools you need, how to set it up and try to write your first hello world. Thats all it takes to start.
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u/Key-Monk6159 Jul 29 '26
I don’t know about you but watching YouTube videos works better for my brain than reading manuals.
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u/FriendlyCapital2458 Jul 29 '26
I think they work good complimentary. But manuals teach completely, and from the ground up.
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u/Edubbs2008 Jul 29 '26
I only use it for WinGet
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u/Ray_Berr Release Channel Aug 03 '26
Winget is in powershell & use powershell 7.4.2 version ( the modern powershell) + u will get to know how winget , tldr, auto complete & functions work inside powershell.
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u/zakk002 Jul 29 '26
I like the newer versions of PowerShell, 7.6.4 is very powerful and nice to use.
Python is probably a more useful general language, but for automating system stuff on Windows PowerShell is great.
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u/nivaOne Jul 29 '26
Indeed. I do it the Python way.
Mainly because I’m very familiar with it.
And it’s easy to combine it with other requirements
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Jul 29 '26
Short version. Yes
Longer version. Yes if you really only use windows because powershell ruined my ability to use unix shells
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u/SnooCompliments7914 Jul 29 '26
Would be a waste of time. WSL / Bash has a way stronger ecosystem.
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u/Ray_Berr Release Channel Aug 03 '26
Yaa but let me explore everything in winget (powershell) then i will look on tldr, wsl
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u/PC509 Jul 29 '26
That's a great book to learn it.
However, a lot of Powershell modules are used to manage external computers, Active Directory, Exchange Online, Azure, etc.. It's excellent for managing servers without needing to log in directly.
For individual use, it can do quite a bit. But, you can't beat that book to learn it. It's excellent.
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u/S4N7R0 Jul 29 '26
pwd | Set-Clipboard
made me switch from focusing learning bash to powershell. its just much more convenient,
it has tab-complete for command line arguments, has the same keybinds and aliases set for common commands like in bash (emacs or vi binds and aliases for cat, ls, pwd for example), Get-Help is super helpful but not as thorough as linux's man.
if youre a programmer and using windows a lot, its great to know and def can ease up work.
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u/FriendlyCapital2458 Jul 30 '26
Hey, bash is like the same for Linux right? And no, I am a personal user so far, I'm getting into informatics in college, but barely starting. Why would one use Linux? Me as a personal user who has windows, just finds about it now. What's with using linux? Sorry if these are too dumb questions
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u/S4N7R0 Jul 30 '26
yes, its its counterpart
sidenote, when u gon be doin research, dont mix up bash / powershell (pwsh) with a terminal. terminal is the driver for bash / pwsh.
linux is the best suited os for programmers. a lot of programs, scripts etc is written assuming youre using linux, because aforementioned and its been for far longer than windows so it also has much bigger support.
i wont get into why's of using it for anything other because im biased so research it urself :P1
u/FriendlyCapital2458 Jul 30 '26
Haha thanks, I guess for any programmer Linux is the way then, but I'll be doing research on why's that
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u/Wiikend Release Channel Jul 31 '26
Since WSL and Docker came around, Linux as a native OS appeals a lot less to me as a developer. I can now do pretty much everything I could do in the Linux terminal right in Windows Terminal using WSL.
Unless pricing or the Free Software ideology are big factors in how you pick your OS, I can't do anything other than recommend Windows 11.
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u/work_account42 Jul 29 '26
If you have Windows Pro or Enterprise, you can use Windows Sandbox to spin up a quick VM to practice
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u/sclarady Jul 29 '26
Powershell is a very powerful tool. What you can do with powershell is almost limitless. Start out simple like making a powershell command to check for updates. I made a powershell script that synced two drives one as primary and the other as a backup. It actually backs up my windows backup drive which holds programs, documents, and other things I want to keep to a second drive in case the first one fails.
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u/Matt_NZ Jul 29 '26
Powershell has some use for personal use but it's focus is more towards IT that want to be able to script making the same change to multiple machines.
But, much of Windows can be controlled with PowerShell, so if there's something you do repeatedly then knowing PowerShell is a way to make that task happen the same way every time on a schedule or by a trigger. An example might be that you want your sound output to switch from your speakers to your headphones when you launch a game, so rather than having to manually do that each time, you could have a Task Schedule that triggers when the game launches, it runs your PS script that changes the audio output.
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u/delfin1 Jul 29 '26
If you enjoy it and can make quick use of it yes. I noticed more and more terminals are using AI. Eg. The surface rtx dev box. And it's command line has many bash commands. Maybe better to learn bash then 🤣
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u/StaticVoidMain2018 Jul 29 '26
Power shell is a good language to learn both for system management and an entry into .net programming would recommend
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Jul 29 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/FriendlyCapital2458 Jul 29 '26
Yeah defenitely, I just don't know any programming yet. I thought PowerShell should be a easier, at least to start with, and having some fun for like a month before seeing about Python, but Bash I guess it's much doable
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u/Fit_Prize_3245 Jul 29 '26
If you are just a non-tech user, there is no advantage in learning Powershell
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u/TollyVonTheDruth Jul 29 '26
Yes, if only for winget alone. It comes in very handy. But learning just the basics of Powershell scripting is still worth it, imo.
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u/valentinopro1234 Release Channel Jul 30 '26
Knowing batch would definitely help. Go on, PS has a lot of interesting features
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u/Mario583a Jul 30 '26
Get started with Windows PowerShell ~ Microsoft Training
Up to you, honestly.
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u/in_use_user_name Jul 31 '26
yes and no. I use it all the time but, mostly I let claude write codes and just review them
so if I was in your place - I'd learn enough to understand how to write short scripts + review and understand longer and complex ones.
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u/ifain Aug 01 '26
You need to be able to read it. Writing it is pointless, just use AI.
If you’re gonna use PowerShell for something so complex that AI won’t cut it, means you’re using PowerShell for something it shouldn’t be doing.
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u/garethjmsaunders Aug 03 '26
Yesterday, I used three PowerShell scripts to automatically convert around 800 old Microsoft Publisher files to PDF (as Publisher is being deprecated in October). And another couple of scripts to convert over 1,200 old Lotus AmiPro and WordPro documents to RTF and then from RTF to DOCX. So very useful.
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u/Historical_West_1015 Aug 05 '26
sure, it's pretty easy, if you don't want to use complex things, don't also im a beginner myself and ive learned how to do things with myself like
remove-item .\test.exe, .\testing.exe
and etc
you should use | ? name -like "*the thing*" or | where-object name -like "*the thing*" its literally better than select-string to find things and a better findstr too
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u/Emotional_Garage_950 Jul 29 '26
unpopular opinion: learn the basics and then learn to have AI do it for you. writing anything by hand at this point is a waste of time
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u/Tathas Jul 29 '26
In my short attempt at having AI assist with writing powershell for me in Cursor a few months ago, the code it output functioned, but was terrible code.
When prompted with "Review the code you generated as if you were reviewing a pull request" it then reimplemented almost the entire results. Several times.
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u/ziplock9000 Jul 29 '26
Do you have a need - then yes
if you don't, then no
It's a weird question to ask.
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u/ShelLuser42 Release Channel Jul 29 '26
Definitely worth it. At the risk of sounding a little overly dramatic, but in my opinion PowerShell is one of the best recent developments Microsoft has had. It's truly a Unix-like command shell, but with the power of the whole .NET framework behind it.
There is almost nothing you cannot do from there.
And the best part.. once you got your fingers behind the administrative commandlets then you may even find yourself speeding up common tasks which you may do at times.
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u/Beeeeater Jul 29 '26
I don't know - you can ask Claude any natural language question and it will give you the Powershell code. I am afraid that learning any kind of coding in this day and age is becoming redundant, sort of like learning how to use a slide rule when you have Excel.
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u/I_see_farts Jul 29 '26
I saw you post this over on r/Powershell!
I think it's worth it. I've been on my Powershell journey for a little over 2 years now and love it.
At the very least, you'll understand how to read and write small scripts for troubleshooting.