Chapter 1. PowerShell fundamentals
This chapter covers
- Using cmdlets and providers
- PowerShell’s building blocks
- Learning the pipeline
Microsoft seems to be always talking about PowerShell. Listen to a talk about Exchange Server 2007 or 2010, Windows Server 2008 R2 (release 2), or even SQL Server 2008, and PowerShell will be mentioned. PowerShell gets its own section on the Microsoft scripting center and there is a stack of books on the subject. So what’s PowerShell and why are so many people excited about it? This chapter introduces PowerShell and answers some of those basic questions. It is formally known as Microsoft Windows PowerShell but that is too much of a mouthful so we will refer to it as PowerShell from now on. In this chapter you’ll discover:
- The major features of PowerShell that make it stand out from other automation tools in the Windows arena
- The things that PowerShell is good at and the odd areas where you shouldn’t use it
- What changes you can expect with version 2 of PowerShell
Installation and configuration of PowerShell we’ll postpone until chapter 2. This chapter will provide an overview of PowerShell and why it’s such an important tool for the administrator community.