Windows® 7 Desktop Support and Administration: Real World Skills for MCITP Certification and Beyond

3.2. Using Windows PowerShell and the PowerShell ISE

Windows PowerShell is an extensible version of the command prompt. It is integrated with the Microsoft .NET Framework, which gives it extensive capabilities well beyond the command prompt. Windows 7 comes with Windows PowerShell 2.0 installed (the same version that's installed on Windows Server 2008 R2).

The PowerShell commands can be used to perform and automate many administrative tasks such as managing services, managing event logs, modifying the Registry, and interacting with Windows Management Instrumentation. PowerShell was designed with scripting in mind, so you'll find that you can create elegant scripts that can automate many of your administrative tasks.

One of the challenges with ...