Automating Active Directory® Administration with Windows PowerShell® 2.0

Understand the Basics of PowerShell

PowerShell version 1 debuted as a web download and as part of Windows 2008, although you had to install it through the Add Features Wizard in the Server Manager. PowerShell v2 is installed by default in Windows Server 2008 R2. At its core, PowerShell is a command interpreter. Much as with the command prompt, you type in a command and press Enter, and the command executes. But beyond that, PowerShell has some amazing scripting capabilities that really take it to the next level in terms of administrative usefulness. Because of this, it's becoming increasingly more common to see people replacing the command prompt with PowerShell. In fact, most of the things that you can do at a command prompt can be done by default ...