Learning PowerShell: From Basics to Active Directory Management

GitHub link to my scrips here: https://github.com/PhysioFred/PowerShell-Scripts

Recently, I’ve been exploring PowerShell to understand the fundamentals of scripting, focusing on variables, operators, arrays, and loops. These concepts are essential for automating administrative tasks in a Windows environment, particularly for managing Active Directory (AD) users.

Building Blocks: Variables, Operators, Arrays, and Loops

• Variables: Used to store data, variables allow for dynamic data handling in scripts.
• Operators: PowerShell operators, such as -eq (equals) and -ne (not equals), are used to compare values and make decisions within scripts.
• Arrays: Arrays are collections of values stored in a single variable. For example, $list_of_users = @("aburtt", "acarron", "afegan") holds multiple usernames.
• Loops: Loops, like the ForEach loop, allow repetitive tasks to be automated by iterating over a collection of items.

Creating a Script to Manage Active Directory Users

To practice these concepts, I wrote a script to manage AD users by manipulating an array of usernames. This script demonstrates adding and removing users from the array and running a loop to remove them from AD.

Confirming the Results:

• After running the script, I confirmed that "aburtt" was successfully removed from both the array and not removed from the AD as you can see in the screenshot.
• When attempting to find "ahayne", the Get-ADUser "ahayne" command returned an error, confirming that "ahayne" did not exist in the AD after the script.