I’d first like to thank Jeffrey Snover of Microsoft for the invention of PowerShell. I was lucky enough to be in the room the very first time he presented what was then called Monad. His enthusiasm was infectious, and 15 years later I am still excited.

Also, a shout out to the author of the first edition, Ed Goad. His first edition was a great base to work on although all the recipes in this edition are reworked totally.

A huge thank you has to go to the Packt team: Meeta Rajani, Abhishek Jadhav, Mohd Riyan Khan, and Judie Jose. You guys did a great job getting this book out of the door and dealing with the crises that arose during the writing. And thanks too to our most excellent tech reviewer Mike Robbins. Your reviews were always excellent.

When I began this project, I had a co-author, David Cobb. Sadly, for personal reasons, he had to drop out, but I thank him for the chapters he was able to write. We had a large number of volunteer reviewers who read through the various chapters. I appreciate all the work you folks did to try to make this a better book.

As each recipe evolved, I would sometimes hit problems. I got a lot of help from the Spiceworks community. Their PowerShell forum is a great source of information and encouragement. If you have problems with PowerShell, this is a great place to get a solution.

And finally, I have to thank my wonderful wife, Susan. She has been patient as things progressed, she put up with my bad moods when progress was not as smooth as desirable, and kept me sane when all around me was craziness.