Introduction to PowerShell in Windows 2008, What are the features of PowerShell

Windows PowerShell is the new command-line/scripting environment from Microsoft. Windows PowerShell is designed to provide the best shell scripting environment Microsoft Windows Operating Systems. PowerShell is built on the Microsoft .NET Framework and .NET framework can be used to automate almost every aspect of the operating system. While PowerShell can be also used interactively without scripting, we can also script Windows PowerShell to automate more complex tasks.

Windows PowerShell has many features and some are listed below:

• Cmdlets: Cmdlets are specialized .NET classes which can be used to perform administrative tasks such as managing the registry, services, processes, and event logs.

• Pipeline: Pipeline allows the output of one cmdlet to be piped as input to another cmdlet.

• Scripting: A scripting language and support for existing scripts and command-line tools.

• Navigation: Simplified, command-based navigation of the operating system. Power shell also allows to navigate the registry and other data stores like normal file system.

• PowerShell Remoting (PowerShell V2): PowerShell allows scripts and cmdlets to be invoked on a remote machine using WS-Management.

• Transactions (PowerShell V2): Allows transactional operations like committing, and rolling back.

• Background jobs (PowerShell V2): Allows you to run commands in the background while you continue to work on other things.

• Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) (PowerShell V2): A graphical version of the command shell which has multi-tabbed panes for working with multiple scripts at the same time.