This book wouldn’t have been possible without the contributions of many other people. It isn’t until you get involved in a project like this that you realize just how many other people contribute to any book before it gets published.

First and foremost is the Microsoft PowerShell team. The introduction of PowerShell marks a huge change in the way we administer Windows systems. You guys don’t get thanked enough for creating PowerShell and the time you spend with the PowerShell community, so I’d like to record my thanks on behalf of that community.

The group of people at Manning who worked with me on this book have been superb. The level of support for a first-time author was outstanding. I couldn’t have done this without you, so many thanks to Sebastian Stirling, Benjamin Berg, Elizabeth Martin, Michael Stephens, Marjan Bace, Steven Hong, Karen Tegtmeyer, Jamie Taratoot, Mary Piergies, Gordan Salinovic, Dottie Marsico, Tiffany Taylor, and Gabriel Dobrescu. The book is much better thanks to your input and ideas. It’s been a pleasure working with such a professional group.

There have been a number of reviews of this book during its development and production. The individual reviewers have taken time to read through and comment on the original manuscript, in some cases three times. Thanks are due to Jonathan Medd, Jonathan Noble, Jeffrey Snover, Peter Johnson, Andrew Tearle, Wolfgang Blass, Tomas Restrepro, Amos Bannister, Dave Corun, Lester Lobo, Anderson Patricio, Marco Shaw, Austin Osuide, Dmitriy Kopylenko, Bruce Payette, Michael Bain, Oliver Sturm, and Jeff Copeland. Special thanks to Marco Shaw for also performing the technical review of the manuscript and code. And I’d like to thank the readers who took the time to comment on the MEAP forum. I did read all of the comments and have corrected the manuscript as appropriate. Any errors of omission or commission are mine alone.

The PowerShell community is young but strong and enthusiastic. The ideas that I’ve included in this book aren’t just the result of my work with PowerShell, but the fruit of numerous discussions, emails, and debates about how PowerShell should be used. The participants are too numerous to mention, but my heartfelt thanks to you all for the time you’ve put into the community and for graciously allowing me to quote your work. The UK PowerShell User Group deserves a special acknowledgment for putting up with me drilling down into the details during question times.

Finally, thanks must go to my family, friends, and colleagues who’ve supported me through the writing and production of this book.