Some familiarity with the technologies the scripts interact with is required. A general familiarity with the Windows operating system, the filesystem, web services, and so on is required.

This book is based around PowerShell 5.1, PowerShell Core 6.1, and it includes small references to PowerShell Core 6.2.

The examples are predominantly Windows-based, as it is the most mature.

You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packt.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register at www.packt.com.
2. Select the SUPPORT tab.
3. Click on Code Downloads & Errata.
4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the onscreen instructions.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:

• WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows
• Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
• 7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Mastering-Windows-PowerShell-Scripting-Third-Edition. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots/diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://www.packtpub.com/sites/default/files/downloads/9781789536669_ColorImages.pdf.

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "As seen while looking at syntax in Get-Help, commands accept a mixture of parameters."

A block of code is set as follows:

Get-Command -CommandType Cmdlet, Function | Where-Object
{
$metadata = New-Object
System.Management.Automation.CommandMetadata($_)
$metadata.ConfirmImpact -eq 'High'
}

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

Get-Command -CommandType Cmdlet, Function | Where-Object
{
$metadata = New-Object
System.Management.Automation.CommandMetadata($_)
$metadata.ConfirmImpact -eq 'High'
}

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

 PS> Get-Help Out-Null 

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. Here is an example: "Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a plain text format that's used to store structured data."