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WHY POWERSHELL? 3
What Is PowerShell, and
Why Do You Need It?
CHAPTER 1
In other words, your environment was running smoothly, you were busy, and you
had no time to learn the language. You may have decided to wait to see whether
there would be a version 2 and whether Microso was really serious about this
language. Well, here we are with version 2, and PowerShell is getting better than
ever. Microso and communities such as
http://powershellcommunity.org/
are creating native PowerShell commands and providers as well as the documenta-
tion for scripts to make your everyday work with PowerShell even easier. So, you are
not in this alone. e community is growing and vibrant!
e initial project Monad debuted in June 2005. In April 2006, Microso announced
that Monad’s name would be PowerShell, and PowerShell Release Candidate 1 was
released. PowerShell 1.0 was released in November 2006. It was well received in the
community, and with its integration into the Windows environment, this became a
new language for administrators to work with. In 2009, version 2 of PowerShell was
released and built into Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. PowerShell 2.0 is
also available for free download for systems newer than Windows XP SP3. Chapter 2
discusses how to install the tools on older, supported operating systems.
Overview of PowerShell
What is PowerShell?
▶
PowerShell is an extensible automation engine from Microso .
▶
PowerShell is a command-line shell and task-based scripting technology that
provides you with enhanced remote management and automation of system
administration tasks.
PowerShell can look like Figure 1.1, and it can look like Figure 1.2.
What can it do?
PowerShell enables you to perform via scripts virtually any task you can do in the
GUI for your local or remote Windows operating systems and your computers. With
PowerShell, you can script and automate your day-to-day administrative tasks.
▶
Do you need to get a list of all the computers on the network and create a
report on the service pack level for each operating system?
▶
Do you need to check to make sure that all the users in the domain are
complying with the corporate password policy?
▶
Do you need to start a service on 500 computers?
▶
Do you need to add 100 user accounts to your domain?
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