Chapter 7: Automating with PowerShell
In This Chapter
Getting to know PowerShell
Using the SharePoint cmdlets
Automating administrative tasks with PowerShell
After previous SharePoint versions largely ignored PowerShell — a command-line interface that can handle the automation of management tasks — SharePoint 2010 finally jumps on the PowerShell bandwagon, which adds another tool to the administrator’s toolbox. If the assimilation of PowerShell into SharePoint follows the same pattern as other Microsoft products have (such as Exchange and SQL Server), don’t be surprised if PowerShell becomes the only command-line tool that administrators require in the future. If you’re administrating a SharePoint system, a wise move you can make now is to get familiar with PowerShell — and get comfortable using it.
In this chapter, you get a closer look at PowerShell, get some pointers on how to start using it (in basic or fancy ways) to automate those laborious and tedious tasks that you doubtless have to perform today.
Introducing PowerShell
Before the advent of PowerShell, one of the weakest areas of the Windows operating system — any version — was its command-line interface (CLI) which hadn’t changed much since the DOS command language of the 1980s. Even while the Windows graphical interface grew fancier throughout the ’90s, a command typed at the C: prompt was still the most emphatic way to tell the system what to do. Windows provided access to the C: prompt in — what else? — a window. ...
